How To Heal Emotional Eating

Emotional Eating is one tough subject, as is how to heal emotional eating.

It’s tough because writing this Blog I want to make sure that it is nuanced and careful enough to show empathy with what you are struggling with and show you the action steps to try and help you move forward.

It’s tough as well, because of how much you are suffering with it, and the difficult work that you will likely have to do to unpick your emotional eating behaviours in order to rebuild your relationship with food, and in truth, yourself.

The next most important thing to say here is that there is an inherent link between emotional eating, disordered eating and eating disorders. It is a sliding scale of severity, but I would encourage you to reach out to a Medical Professional if you feel like you may have any of the following eating disorders:

• Anorexia Nervosa - severe food restriction and sometimes extreme exercising and other purging behaviours

• Bulimia Nervosa - repeatedly binging on large amounts of food and then purging it

• Muscle Dysmorphia - affecting men more than women, a disruptive obsession with musculature and physique. The individual will fixate on obtaining the ‘perfect’ form of musculature.

• Orthorexia Nervosa - someone becomes so obsessed with planning a perfect diet that it disrupts their life.

There are 12 eating disorders and if your experience isn’t represented above then please head here to find out more.

Added to that there are some excellent charities that will be able to help you as well:

• BEAT - UK

• NEDA - America

• Butterfly Foundation - Australia

Despite there being a link between eating disorders and emotional eating, I am not a medical professional. I will not be dealing with how to help you with an eating disorder. This blog will be about how to heal your emotional eating tendencies. If you recognise yourself to have any of the above eating disorders then please contact one of the charities above, or see your GP; please do this.

The only other thing I want to say is to thank you for being here. Thank you for trusting my words to try and help you through such a difficult topic.

Thank you for being open and willing to do the work involved in improving your relationship with food, and yourself as well.

It can be overcome. It can be worked on each and every day, and I have every faith you can conquer this.

So take my hand, and let’s help you figure this out so that you can stop being overwhelmed and controlled by your emotional eating behaviours.

We will find solutions.

I promise.

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Table of Contents for How To Heal Emotional Eating:

1. What triggers/causes emotional eating?

2. Strategies to stop emotional eating

3. How to improve your relationship with food

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What Triggers/Causes Emotional Eating?

This is a big list - and even the list I have curated here doesn’t cover it all, simply because the causes would be very different for everyone.

• Stress

• Boredom

• Feeling unheard

• Feeling unappreciated

• Feeling overweight

• Feeling lonely

• Food guilt

• The need for affection

• The Media

• Living in a fat-phobic society

• Medical concerns

• Feeling out of control

• Lack of self-confidence

• Lack of self-esteem

• Addiction to food

This Blog post will reach thousands and thousands of people, and they will all resonate with something on that list. This is good news for you because it shows how normal it is. It shows that you’re not the only person who struggles with this and that you aren’t alone.

And not being alone is always a good place to be.

I can remember two very clear occasions when emotional eating took me over. I am a human being with a good understanding of my emotional self, I don’t suppress emotions and I do have a balanced relationship with food.

The first was when my agent, who I had been with since I left Drama School, told me that he could no longer represent me.

The second was when I split up with one of my past girlfriends.

On both occasions, I responded to my emotions with alcohol - and that does seem to be the food I go to when I do emotionally react to food.

However, on both occasions, I knew that I was emotionally resilient for that reaction to not embed itself into me as a habit.

I had two things helping me here.

The first is my resilience. I do think of myself as more resilient than your average person, I don’t think you could be a semi-professional football referee and not be a resilient human.

The second was the fact I was responding with alcohol. That put a natural barrier in place for me to not allow it to become a habit - because I know how addictive such a substance can be, and because of this my objective brain will always take over.

The causes of my reactions are quite clear here. The ending of two very significant relationships
in my life. Things that meant a great deal to me, and still do.

Please remember this:

“To fix emotional eating, don’t focus on the eating: focus on the emotions”

— Adam Berry

Every time I have a client working with me online on my Strong & Confident Program, and they tell me that they are struggling with emotional eating, they always follow it up with this statement:

“I love food”

We ALL love food.

Truly we do, because food gives us life. Whenever you say this statement or my clients say it to time, they are actually saying:

“I am addicted to the comfort that food gives me when I am feeling vulnerable. Food is my safety”

And this makes much more sense at a neurological level. In the study Mood, food and obesity [1] they illustrate this pathway really clearly:

In the study they also state:

“Reward and gratification associated with food consumption leads to dopamine (DA) production, which in turn activates reward and pleasure centres in the brain. An individual will repeatedly eat a particular food to experience this positive feeling of gratification. This type of repetitive behaviour of food intake leads to the activation of brain reward pathways that eventually overrides other signals of satiety and hunger. Thus, a gratification habit through a favourable food leads to overeating and morbid obesity”

This is critical for your understanding on how emotional eating works. When you eat, you get a hormonal response to the food you are eating, through what is also known as the “feel good” hormone; dopamine.

When you eat, you feel good, at a cellular level. Food bridges the gap for you.

Let's say you have had a disagreement with your boss at work, and they patronised you, made your points or concerns feel worthless and you were frustrated and upset by the whole exchange.

You might then turn to food because of these feelings. By doing that, you know you will get the sense of pleasure and comfort which you are craving.

This pleasure and comfort come in the form of dopamine. The more you practice this routine, the more you will come to rely on it. You also learn to develop this routine in other areas of your life where you might feel vulnerable.

And before you know it, your emotional eating has become a habit, a reflex, that feels out of your control, and the part of this equation that seems easier to fix, is trying to fix the food you are eating, as opposed to the emotions you are feeling, because you physically see the result of the emotions in the food, but seldom in life is trying to change the result of something a worthwhile endeavour without fixing what is causing that result.

The reason I have outlined all of this at the start of this post is so that you can now see why it is so hard to heal emotional eating, you are not just having to wrestle with your emotional core, but also your physiological self.

And that’s ok. It can be worked upon, and understanding your emotional eating in this way will hopefully help you start the process of healing from it. because you can now empathise with yourself a lot more on why it has been so damn hard, as opposed to just feeling like a constant failure every time you try.

So how do you heal from emotional eating…

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Strategies to Stop Emotional Eating

The first thing to say is that you shouldn’t shout at yourself, nor should you think that it is a switch that can be turned off overnight.

You will always feel emotions. You must eat.

We cannot stop these two human things, so just trying to “stop” will be futile, I assure you.

My best piece of advice when it comes to healing emotional eating starts with the following quote which I want you to imprint on your brain.

Space and Time

“Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

— Viktor E. Frankl

Take that mental picture of the quote…

This is one of the most powerful quotes there is when it comes to understanding human behaviour. Viktor E. Frankl was an Auschwitz survivor during World War Two and after the war, he became a psychologist developing his theory of psychology called logotherapy in Vienna.

Logotherapy is based on the belief that striving to find meaning in life is the primary, most powerful motivating driving force in humanity.

When you are in a pattern of emotional eating there are a series of events that occur which causes you to “emotionally eat”.

1. Conflict occurs which will trigger/upset you with someone else or within yourself

2. Your search for a resolution to the conflict doesn’t end positively.

3. No human collaborative resolution occurs.

4. You find emotional resolution in the food you eat.

It is the lack of resolution in steps two and three that drive you to emotional eating.

The timeframe will always differ based on different situations and how strong the emotions are or how intense the conflict is, but in every situation there is one common occurrence:

You are failing to find a resolution to your conflict.

In the quote above “resolution” is what Viktor E. Frankl is referring to when he says “space".

When you are faced with a conflict, the most important thing to do is to develop your own space. When we are in conflict as humans we often look for a resolution to conflict from an outer source; another person, a parent, a partner, a child, or a colleague.

The issue you have here is that you aren’t taking responsibility for managing your emotional self, you are allowing others to do it for you…fast forward that ten to twenty years and your whole centred self is dependent on others.

Which removes your own power.

Jim Carey was right:

Or more: you have the power.

And your power to lies in creating space and space is the key to healing you from this complex web of emotional eating.

So how do you create space and time in order to choose a different response to your emotions?

Strategy 1: Sit with uncomfortable emotions

This is a lot harder than it sounds which often means it is the first place to look - the harder the work, likely, the more positive the result.

One of the more obvious ways to create space and time is to simply let time pass. The issue with this is that it will mean sitting in the uncomfortable feelings that are driving you towards emotional eating.

The food you eat is your current solution to these feelings, but you also want to stop using food as the solution to these feelings. Here you need to get objective about the role food is playing in your life in these moments.

When you “fix” these feelings with food it is temporary relief because soon after you begin to feel guilty and upset about the food you just ate, leading you to more uncomfortable emotions. When this occurs you need to work with objectivity towards your food. Recognise this role it is having in this cycle of behaviour and do things to distract yourself from reaching for the food:

- Go for a walk or get some exercise in

- Journal about what caused your emotional state

- Talk to a friend about what happened

- Meditate for 10mins and practice some box breathing

- Reflect on how the situation could have occurred differently, what you weren’t happy about with what happened and how you might re-approach a similar situation in the future.

All of these actions are designed to help you process the emotion and distract you away from the need to reach for that food. To pattern interrupt your default setting, so that over time you can develop a different reflex in reaction to an emotional trigger.

Strategy 2: Have a structured diet

There are very few things in fitness that a structured diet will not help tremendously with, and emotional eating is high on that list.

In this day and age, we don’t protect our meal times as much as we need to. Whether that is protecting the time we actually eat, or whether it is protecting the moment we have with our food from distractions and other intrusions which de-values the role food has in your life.

Your body is then constantly guessing when it is going to be fed, and how it is going to be fed, and your relationship with food is equally compromised because hormonally you have a lack of regulation, and you aren’t valuing how food can impact your life each and every day.

By eating in a structured manner, you will manage your hunger hormones in a much more level way, and this will allow you to not overreact to your hunger signals when you are feeling stressed in other parts of your life.

A structured diet is also the first step to repairing your relationship with food in all areas - something that you should always be looking to improve, to help heal emotional eating. You have a right to eat, you have a right to nourish yourself with food, as opposed to allowing your emotions to dominate all aspects of your diet.

A structured diet should look like this:

• Breakfast.

• Lunch.

• Dinner.

• Two snacks.

• Each meal must fit on one plate.

• You should also eat uninterrupted and participate as much as possible in the making and creating of the food.

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FOR MORE HELP wITH THIS HEAD HERE:

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Strategy 3: Sleep

A lot like having a more improved structure to your diet, there are few things that optimal sleep doesn’t help cure. The issue here is that optimal sleep isn’t as available to everyone as being able to structure a diet properly is.

I do believe, deep down, you know this next statement to be true: lack of sleep equals more emotional responses to the world around you.

We are all more cranky when we are tired. We are all more sensitive when we are tired. We are all more stressed when we are tired.

This means that we are also a lot more emotional when we are tired, and therefore more susceptible to emotional eating.

There is a part of your brain which is responsible for your emotional responses to the world, it is known as your amygdala. The less sleep you have, the more active your amygdala is, and therefore the more likely you are to respond emotionally to stimuli around you.

Therefore the more likely you are to try and fix that feeling with food.

This is important for you to know for two reasons. The first is that there are some easy wins here for you. If you can improve your sleep, in any way that is accessible to you, then you will naturally be more likely to improve the chances of healing your emotional eating.

The other reason is that you now know that you can take action to improve your emotional eating in an accessible way, because we all have to sleep right. So by optimising that, you have a clear and direct path to improving this aspect of your life, overnight.

Some top tips I have for improving your sleep can be found here.

Strategy 4: Stop trying to change the size of your body

If emotional eating is a constant recurrence in your life and that is paired with constantly trying to lose weight then your desire to lose weight will always be a difficult process.

This comes down to the foundations you are setting yourself up with.

To lose weight and to be able to sustain it you will inevitably need to have a good relationship with food, as well as yourself.

One of the key aspects of building a better relationship with food, is loving the role food has n your life, as well as loving yourself within that process, and for as long as you are eating in a guilt-laden emotional state, then you will forever be destroying that relationship with the food you are eating.

Food is love. Food is nourishment.

In the same way, I am always telling my clients that the gym is a place to get stronger, I am telling them that their food is not there to be demonized, in fact, is a thing in your life to be celebrated and enjoyed.

Food is not destorying your body. It is sustaining it.

When you only view the food you are eating through the prism of how it is causing you to gain weight, as opposed to it actually keeping you alive, then you will inevitably begin to walk down a path of developing a toxic relationship with your food.

But you can’t avoid eating your food.

And then you reach emotionally to this frustrating situation you are in.

This leads to more food, which leads to more destruction of how you feel about the food and yourself.

The best way to stop this cycle is to stop trying to lose weight and start trying to build better habits and relationships with those habits surrounding your food.

And then by taking the pressure of your physique away from your food, and building these better habits, you will more than likely end up with a much stronger and more solid foundation to set a weight loss goal when you feel in a much stronger place with which to do that.

Some things that you will need to work on to get into this stronger position would be:

• Releasing your guilty associations with food

• Engaging in a much more balanced diet

• Sticking to structured eating as outlined above

• Keeping yourself hydrated

• Not feeling exhausted at the prospect of being on a diet aka “diet fatigue”

• No longer view yourself as “on a diet” or associate with a particular dietary style

The aim for you is to turn around that mental war you have with yourself which is associated with trying to lose weight. Once you do that, by working on the bullet points I laid out above, then you can begin to see the positive role food has in your life.

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How to improve your relationship with food

Being an emotional eater is a sign that you don’t have a very positive relationship with food.

And if you start taking on everything else I have outlined in this article, then I would hazard a guess your relationship with food will start to improve.

However, there are some other signs that you might need to work on your relationship with food:

• Avoidance of “bad” foods

• Speaking about food in the negative most of the time

• Speaking about yourself in the negative most of the time

• You have “can” and “cannots’” in terms of what you eat outside of medical reasons

• You believe certain foods are “good” and certain foods are “bad”

• You are stressed when eating in a social setting because the food choice is out of your control

• You ignore your hunger cues and fullness cues

• You are overly reliant on calorie counting to control your food

• You have had a history of yo-yo dieting

• You over-exercise in response to overeating

• You engage in disordered eating patterns or engage in eating disorder behaviour

You might not relate to all the things on that list, but you probably have one or two that really stood out to you.

But don’t worry, like any relationship, if you put in the work you can get more out of it and heal what is going on here.

1. Releasing yourself from dichotomous thinking

When I say: “Pizza”, “Doughnuts”, “Alcohol”, “Sugar”, or “Cake” what is the first word you think of in relation to these foods?

And when I say “Salad”, “Vegetables”, “Water”, “Protein”, or “Unprocessed Foods” - what word springs to mind?

This is dichotomous thinking; believing that certain things only fall into a good or bad category.

The truth is that all food has a place in your life - all food nourishes a part of yourself. A doughnut can be like eating a small hug, which has an emotional nourishment to it, and eating a broccoli stem might have a nutrient value that provides nourishment.

Either way, you are being nourished by that food.

Food has no moral value, and by telling yourself that eating a bag of crisps is naughty or bad for you, you are essentially telling yourself that you are naughty or bad.

And over time, if you do this with everything you eat, that will have an effect on your self-esteem - believe me, I have seen it in thousands of clients over the years.

It is also standing in the way of your ability to actually lose weight, as this study [2] describes:

“We conclude that holding dichotomous beliefs about food and eating may be linked to a rigid dietary restraint, which in turn impedes people’s ability to maintain a healthy weight.””

— PMID: 25903250

This thinking is often related to diet culture in the sense that you have an ingrained belief that eating “good” foods will lead you to lose weight and change your physique.

If you are trying to heal emotional eating, then that should be the goal, and in order to get there, understand that you require a balance of all foods in your diet because that is part of the process of healing this relationship.

If you do feel like you need a physique goal associated to this project, then I would suggest getting stronger should be your goal and that will help release the pressure of always trying to lose weight.

Remember, nothing bad can come of getting stronger…can it?

2. You have to give yourself permission to eat anything

This relates to my first point about dichotomous thinking.

But knowing there are no good or bad foods is one thing, actually allowing yourself to eat that way is a whole other.

In my experience, the lack of permission to eat anything always comes from a place of fear.

And fear is:

False

Expectation

Appearing

Real

Your fear of eating a McDonald’s is that it will lead you to gain body fat. When in truth, it really doesn’t.

A common misconception here is that 3500kcal equals one pound of body fat. In strict terms, it’s actually between 3,436kcal and 3,752kcal.

But if you were to eat 3,500kcals in one sitting then you still wouldn’t gain 1lb of body fat. This is because your metabolism is perpetually working. You have to digest the food, you are likely moving when you eat it and still moving throughout the day, you are breathing, you might be fidgeting and all of this leads to you burning calories.

Therefore the key message here is:

You need to eat 3500kcals MORE than you burn each day to gain 1lb of body fat

One Large McDonalds Big Mac Meal has around 1,320kcals in it. Three of those in one day would be around 3960kcals. So to gain one pound of body fat, to be eating 3500kcals MORE than you burn each day, you need to eat 6 Lagre Big Mac Meals.

Now I am not saying that you have a free pass to eat 5 Big Mac Meals every day. I am simply trying to outline the scientific facts behind body weight and help you to release your false expectations when you engage in eating such food.

Of course, I would always recommend a varied diet, full of nourishment, but never to the detriment of your physical or emotional health.

Balance. Always.

3. Mindful Eating…

In truth, I am not a huge fan of this term, simply because it has been overused and therefore
over complicated.

All mindful eating really is, is the following:

• Be involved in the preparation of your food as much as possible.

• Sit with your food with no distractions other than family and friends, at a table.

• Give thanks for the food you are eating, and the people you are with.

• Give thanks for what the food is doing to help sustain your life.

That’s it.

There’s no need to worry about it above that. The first port of call here is to take away all distractions. Don’t scroll social media when eating dinner. Don’t watch the news when you are eating lunch.

You can then layer in other questions about the food you are eating to help you with this.

• How does the food feel?

• What am I enjoying about eating this food?

• Why am I eating this food?

• What is my emotional state when eating this food?

And so on and so forth.

In Conclusion…

As you work on this process you can begin to look for signs that you are improving your relationship with food and getting a much stronger relationship with it:

• Not feeling guilty about eating food.

• Avoiding restricting certain foods from your diet.

• Feeling less stressed when food choice is out of your control.

• Not feeling the need to burn off calories through exercise.

• Seeing the way you speak about food change.

I really really hope you can start to notice some of these things change in your life as you improve that relationship with food, and allow yourself to heal from emotional eating.

Being a slave to food your whole life, through fear and anxiety, is no way to live, and it is actually getting in the way of you being able to live the life you want.

Work on what is laid out in this article, and i truly hope it brings you the freedom you deserve to enjoy.

What’s Next…

Well, I am an Online Coach who has helped thousands of people work through the challenges in this article.

And it would be my pleasure to help you too.

My program, which is personal one-to-one online training called the Strong & Confident Program.

If you have ever wanted to achieve the following:

✅ Escape the constant dread of dieting?

✅ Release the guilt you attach to eating certain types of food?

✅ Learn to stop worrying about “the pesky last few pounds” and focus on all your body can do?

✅ Become truly happy with what your body is and what is capable of?

✅ Enjoy the feeling of being stronger and fitter as opposed to trying to reduce your size all the time?

✅ Achieve all of this and still lose body fat at the same time without huge restrictions and slavery to a fitness regime?

✅ Do it all on your own schedule, in your own way, with a program specifically designed for you?

Then please click on the button below and fill out an application form to start working with me.

If you feel like you need more help balancing your relationship with food then you can look through the following articles of mine as well:

• How to stop yourself from counting calories obsessively

• How much weight do you gain on vacation?

• The Ultimate Guide: What to eat when working out

Thank you so much for reading my work, and good luck with building a stronger relationship with food.

I cannot wait to see how you go!

Coach Adam

References:

1. Singh M. Mood, food, and obesity. Front Psychol. 2014 Sep 1;5:925. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00925. PMID: 25225489; PMCID: PMC4150387.

2. Palascha A, van Kleef E, van Trijp HC. How does thinking in Black and White terms relate to eating behavior and weight regain? J Health Psychol. 2015 May;20(5):638-48. doi: 10.1177/1359105315573440. PMID: 25903250.

How Do You Get Motivated To Exercise When You Are Depressed?

I asked my TikTok (@thegymstarter) community what they wanted to see on my Blog.

One of the suggestions came from someone who I refer to as:

“My sister from another mister”

I basically grew up with her. We would spend hours together as children playing around, playing dress-up, writing songs, using her video camera to create episodes of Eastenders and make music videos. It was an incredibly fun time, full of honest innocence.

In fact, I don’t think I have one unhappy memory of being looked after by this persons family.

We went to the same school, we went to the same church, and she and her family are as good as my family. We carpooled to school for years and years. Her Mum was a huge inspiration to me with fitness, her Dad with photography.

She had an older sister too. Who is equally a wonderful person.

When we were teenagers we would spend many Friday and Saturday nights out clubbing in Romford together, me trying to make sure they were always ok - I’d drive them both home nearly every week - just to make sure they were safe. I felt loved by them, and we were without doubt as close as close can be.

But with time, we drifted apart. As we grew older and found our voices, found our lives.

And then one day she popped up on my TikTok Feed. And I started seeing videos about much more complex issues around Mental Health and especially Depression. Which made me feel very concerned that someone I loved so much, someone I spent a long time protecting, ratifying whether her Boyfriends passed “The Adam Test” (which was a brutal test that I devised to see whether I thought the bloke was good enough for my sister from another mister), it was hard to see that she had suffered drastically, and it moved me greatly.

She asked me to write this article.

Her exact question was: “Workouts when you’re depressed/neurodivergent”.

To which I had to learn what Neuro Divergent meant, which I now have a grasp on. This also ties in with Mens Health Month, and although I have never been able to grow a Moustache, I think this post is very relevant and I truly hope it helps you.

Firstly, I want to say that you are not alone, you are very very welcome here and if right now you are suffering, and that is what bought you to this article, you are in a safe place. If you need to talk about anything, then please email me on adam@thegymstarter.com - or you can DM me on Instagram - @the_gym_starter

Added to that, we can become friends.

And as your friend, I’ll email you things. Sometimes they will be educational, sometimes they will be inappropriate, sometimes I might just want to know how you are; either way…it would be delightful to connect with you more.

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.

Now that we are besties….

I also want to share this with you: I have never had clinical depression, I have never had a diagnosed Mental Health issue, and I am not a Psychologist or Therapist of any kind. That being said, I have definitely had low moods and some very dark moments in my life.

However, the reason I became a Personal Trainer was to help someone who had some Mental Health issues, and I have spent a decade of my life working with people who are clinically depressed and helping them navigate their movement and nutrition as well. I have looked into this topic so many times, and every day I work hard to learn more about it, so that I can help those who are suffering more and more.

This article is a summary of everything I have learnt with working with people who are on medications, are actively suffering and have still managed to work with me - its my blueprint for my Sister from another Mister so that when she gets into a dark place again - she has the framework to help her negotiate everything she wants on what I know best - Movement and Nutrition.

I always say make sure you follow me for empathetic fitness advice with a great smile.

And the only reason I have such a great smile is because of people like you. I see yours, and reflect it back. I hope by seeing mine, you too can see I’m a reflection of you and your smile keeps me inspired every day, even if you can’t see it all of the time.

My greatest memories as a personal trainer are not that of people hitting PBs - its those quiet talks, those moments where I was the only person left for someone to talk to about their issue and how in those moments my clients didn’t have a Personal Trainer - they had a friend.

You’ve got a friend in me. Always and forever. You are not alone. And I will try and help you as much as I can right now.

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Table of Contents for: How Do You Get Motivated To Exercise When You Are Depressed? :

1. Step 1: You are not alone

2. Step 2: Take away expectation

3. Step 3: Start small and build from there

4. Step 4: Acknowledge the wins

5. Step 5: Have a plan

6. A note on Neuro-Divergence

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Step One: You Are Not Alone

Let us start with some stats [1].

“How common is depression?

• More than 264 million people suffer from depression worldwide. (World Health Organization, 2020)

• Depression is the leading cause of disability in the world. (World Health Organization, 2020)

• Neuropsychiatric disorders are the leading cause of disability in the U.S. with major depressive disorder being the most common. (National Institute of Mental Health, 2013)

Depression statistics in America

• 17.3 million adults (7.1% of the adult population) have had at least one major depressive episode. (National Institute of Mental Health, 2017)

• Of those with major depressive episodes, 63.8% of adults and 70.77% of adolescents had severe impairment. (National Institute of Mental Health, 2017)

• Women are nearly twice as likely as men to have depression. (Centers for Disease Control, 2017)

• Major depressive episodes were most prevalent among adults (11.3%) and adolescents (16.9%) reporting two or more races. (National Institute of Mental Health, 2017)

Depression statistics by age

• Adolescents aged 12 to 17 years old had the highest rate of major depressive episodes (14.4%) followed by young adults 18 to 25 years old (13.8%). (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Association, 2018)

• Older adults aged 50 and older had the lowest rate of major depressive episodes (4.5%). (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Association, 2018)

• 11.5 million adults had a major depressive episode with severe impairment in the past year as of 2018. (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Association, 2018)

• Severe depression among college students rose from 9.4% to 21.1% from 2013 to 2018. (Journal of Adolescent Health, 2019)

• The rate of moderate to severe depression rose from 23.2% to 41.1% from 2007 to 2018. (Journal of Adolescent Health, 2019)”

I know this doesn’t help you feel like you are not alone if you are in an episode of poor Mental Health. But widening out the context of everything we do in life gives us something that is very important: Perspective.

And when it comes to Movement and Motivation perspective is one of the single most effective things you can have to make you feel like you aren’t failing.

We live in a very false world. We live in a world where highlights are everything and only promoting the best of life is what matters - what is valued.

But look at the stats. That isn’t life.

Life is a complex tapestry of emotions and humanity. And tapestries are beautiful. You are woven into the fabric of society, which is what makes our society great. You don’t darken the doorway with your presence, you light it up - you light it up by the sheer fact you are here - living and breathing.

Do you know what the chances are of your existence?

This is mind-blowing. The answer is 1 in 10 to the power of 265,000,000. That’s a 10 with 256 million zeros after it.

The best analogy I found was this: It is the probability of 2 million people coming together, to each roll a dice with a trillion sides on it, and they all get the same number.

The chances of your existence are basically zero. This means you are a miracle. This means we are all miracles together and that’s what makes the world awesome.

Even if we don’t feel like a miracle all of the time - we are. It doesn't change the facts. What does change is our interpretation of the facts.

And what happens when two miracles get together? Magic. Magic is what happens. When you talk to someone, when you process your feelings through discussion and perspective you create magic.

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Step 2: Take Away Expectation

In a paper called: “On the Maintenance of Expectations in Major Depression – Investigating a Neglected Phenomenon” [2] which was published in 2017, they propose:

“For major depressive disorder (MDD), there is evidence that people suffering from MDD hold situation-specific dysfunctional expectations which may be elicited by depressive core beliefs (Kube et al., 2016)”

They go on to conclude that;

“The maintenance of expectations despite experiences that are contrary to expectations is believed to be a core feature of MDD”

Huh.

Now that is interesting.

Expecting something, that lived experience doesn’t equate is a “core feature of MDD”.

I see this every day in Fitness. I see the perpetual cycle of people feeling like failures because their lived perception of what fitness is, is so wildly misguided compared to lived reality.

It’s also something I have come to learn over time as a Personal Trainer - and making sure that the first thing I do with new clients on the Strong & Confident Program is quite simply to manage those expectations immediately.

Because I don’t want my clients lived experiences to make them feel like a failure.

I do not mean to trivialise your struggle, by simply stating that your learned expectations are the issue you are facing, and it is as simple as letting go of those expectations. Because those expectations can be very deeply rooted in who you are as a person. Added to that a huge part of your mental health does come down to Chemistry - which has nothing to do with expectation.

But I know I can influence these thoughts through the window of what this article is about: Fitness and Motivation.

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What Expectations Should You Remove from your Fitness Journey?

Expectation 1: Thinking it will be the same process as your friends experience

Here comes the quote….

“Comparison is the thief of joy”

— Theodore Roosevelt

I understand that knowing this is one thing - being able to execute a whole other - and if you ar in the midst of an Mental Health Episode then its even harder.

Aside from making love, fitness is one of the most personal experiences you will probably have. Not only your physical ability and skill, your genetics, but also your emotional resonance with what fitness is in your life.

The number one joy out of fitness is the fact that you get to explore it, the fact that is your personal journey and the fact that you are the only person you should be doing it for.

So as easy as it is for me to say don’t compare yourself to others, the only way in which you can do that is to focus on the self - focus on your productivity, focus on what you are able to do, focus on what you can achieve and focus on what wins you are picking up along the way.

And I’m not talking about Squatting 100kgs.

I’m simply talking about the real world wins each day. The real world wins that can so often elude you at periods of time in your life when you feel this way.

Then you begin to build a foundation. A foundation of strength, a foundation of habit, a foundation of persistence - and it is from that foundation, from the feedback loop of what you are achieving, no matter what it is compared to others, that you can then build other behaviours that you want to see yourself doing.

This foundation is your insulation from these episodes of poorer mental health being more severe the next time they come around.

Expectation 2: Endorphins “being the answer”

Exercise has the ability to make you feel better about yourself.

But it doesn't necessarily mean that it is the only answer.

Exercise improves your sense of well-being, and releases these things known as endorphins, which help alleviate pain in the Brian similar to Morphine.

But you shouldn't put all of your eggs in one basket - despite what Resse Witherspoon thinks.

When I hear something like:

“Exercise makes you happy and releases endorphins and therefore helps with depression”

Although Scientifically I know it to be true, if I was going through a bout of low mood, | would then expect the high of exercise to be so good - because it’s all anyone seems to bang on about all the damn day long.

And that’s not really what happens.

Of course, I believe in the power of movement to help all people - I am an award-winning Online Coach and Personal Trainer.

But I know that what happens after a workout is certainly not as big a high as the marketing would make you believe. It’s subtle, but a very real sense of accomplishment. It’s a little tick in your day that makes you say to yourself - good job - what’s next?

And the more you repeat the cycle, the more good jobs you get done. The more ticks you put in your wins column, the more you build that strong foundation that insulates you from your future self.

Expectation 3: Your definition of a Workout

What is a workout?

Well, I chose to show you, Mike - because who doesn't love Monsters Inc - it is the greatest Disney Pixar film there is.

But also - when searching “workout” on Giphy I saw far too many toxic images of what a workout is - and I didn’t want to perpetuate that stigma.

When you look at the origin of where the word comes from, you have to break it into two sections:

Section 1: Work - As a noun, it is thus [3]:

“Activity involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve a purpose or result”

“A task or tasks to be undertaken”

When I first read this definition I was worried about the words “purpose or result”. As in, it would take you towards thinking about “losing 5kgs” or behaviours that perpetuate negative body image and procrastination towards yourself.

But in truth, a purpose or result can simply be - to move, to walk, to enjoy. A result can be a process-driven result, nay, it should be a process-driven result.

Not a goal-based result.

Section 2: Out - As an adverb, it is thus [4]:

“Moving or appearing to move away from a particular place, especially one that is enclosed or hidden”

Therefore, if you look at a workout as a physical effort to move you away from a place that is enclosed or hidden you can quantify a workout as anything that achieves that.

As in, it doesn’t have to be lifting heavy weights and slaying yourself in a gym packed with mirrors that make you feel even worse about yourself.

It can simply be the physical act of moving from Point A to Point B.

A common dialogue in the conversation about depression is that those who are suffering find it hard enough to even shower, let alone do much else. Well moving from Point A (your bed) to Point B (your shower) can be viewed as a workout.

And when you can reframe it thus, you can begin to build momentum.

You can begin to build those strong foundations I keep discussing with regards to putting ticks in your win column.

Added to this the term workout has only been around 100 years or so. It is also thought that the “out” part of the word comes from the meaning of “outside” [5].

Hence going for a walk…is a workout; It produces a physical effort towards a goal.

That goal being, to go outside.

What I am trying to do here is lower the barrier of entry for you. Help you reframe the mammoth task right now of finding the motivation to exercise. Making the leap from a low mood to a Gym is huge.

Making the leap from a low mood to getting outside for a walk, might be less huge.

And actually going outside has been shown many times over to have huge benefits on mood [6].

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Step 3: Start Small And Build From There

Nothing builds confidence more than showing up for yourself regularly and always ticking off the things you want to do.

Talk to anyone who has accomplished anything large in their life, and they will all tell you the same thing:

“It’s the daily habits inside and out that create big effort”

Whether you’re an athlete training for the Olympics, a Dancer stretching, a musician doing their Arpeggio’s or, take it from me, an actor showing up to over 1000 auditions just to get a job.

Make no mistake, insulating yourself, building these big foundations that will support you in the future, these strategies and assurances in your life to help you deal with low mood when it comes around again is a big effort

And therefore, to achieve that you must build slowly and surely.

Breaking a big effort into bite-size chunks is the best way to go - because the bigger the task the more likely you are to procrastinate around it.

I remember when I had to put my Visa Application together for Australia - it turned out to be a 75-page document outlining every fact and figure to prove that I was in a genuine and ongoing relationship to the exclusivity of all others with my fiancee.

And you would think that sounds quite straightforward - but actually proving the fact to someone who has never seen you, spoke to you or knows anything about you other than seeing the 75-page document, to also prove enough evidence so that you aren’t being fraudulent is a very very scary task.

And boy did I put it off.

Not because I didn’t believe it possible - but because of how daunting the whole thing was - and the more I thought trying to get it done quickly the more I delayed taking action.

I had to just focus on it one request at a time.

Put a system and a framework in place - and go from there.

Much like when I ran the London Marathon.

Look at how young I look - even still at 20 miles in.

When I ran that marathon, I had to reverse engineer my journey. I had to look at the final goal - which for me was completing a Marathon - and then figure with about a years notice how to work towards it.

It started with running 5kms, then 10kms, then 15kms, then 20kms…until Race Day.

It wasn’t a linear journey either. Some days when I had to run 15kms I could only do 10km or 5km, I had to appreciate how much energy my body had, and respond in the moment to it, understanding that within the framework of my rather large and overwhelming training plan, I had to appreciate the flexibility I needed within it.

I remember two very distinct occasions within this journey as well.

One was when I was sitting in the bath, battered and beaten physically and emotionally because I tried to run at a pace for a four-hour marathon over a 20km distance, and I just couldn’t do it. I had nothing in me that was strong enough to keep that up - and I was feeling really rubbish about everything. I got on the phone to one of my very good friends and wonderful running coach, James, and ,made me realise that the only person putting me under this pressure to run that goal was me - and the sooner I disassociated with that as a goal, the more enjoyable my training would be.

I never looked back.

And the second time, was in the build-up to the race - I was quite worried about a month away from that I would hurt myself running, and I knew I had put in enough work - maybe not the most, and I certainly could have done a lot more, but I suffered a rough injury in training when I was also refereeing, and I just went into protection mode - and didn’t run in the build-up to the marathon.

I was overwhelmed with the thoughts of how big the task ahead was - so I withdrew.

Even having done the work.

This is perfectly normal - the pre-game nerves, the stage fright, the anxiety this can cause. A rebound of emotions is normal - which is why it is so important to have the feedback of little behaviours that have led you to this moment to support you.

So that, when you get stopped in your tracks with these feelings, you also can look back and say “I have a body of evidence contrary to what my brain is telling me right now” - and no one can take that work away from me.

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STEP 4: Acknowledge The Wins

Each week on the Strong and Confident Program I send out a Weekly Report form to my clients.

And it serves two purposes.

1. To give them a moment to reflect on what has passed, and set themselves up for the week commencing - again focussing them onto the process rather than the goal.

2. To get them to physically write down and celebrate the wins they have built up over the week.

And when they put something on there that they haven’t mentioned to me before, I get very wound up. Because when the big wins come I expect a text message.

Just like this one from my friend who is three weeks into her journey with me:

Then when they have a moment of self-doubt, provided they have filled in the form each week, we have a body of evidence to show them that they are able to achieve.

I can show them that they have built the foundations.

I can prove to them, that they themselves wrote words contrary to what their thoughts are at the moment, and that this moment will pass, as it always does with time, and they will soon be able to get back to nailing their journey.

Wins are so easily looked over, whereas what are perceived failures are so easily focussed on and so easily fixated on.

This is why, writing down your wins, talking to a Coach about your wins, taking a moment to track your stats, and ticking off your consistency is all really really important.

What you see more of, the brain focuses on more and more. You get a feedback loop akin to what you are being exposed to.

And this feedback loop can be used both positively and negatively.

If all you see are size 10 models with perfect skin due to photoshop on Instagram, it's going to make you think that is normal life, and therefore create an unrealistic expectation of yourself - hence creating a negative feedback loop.

Therefore you need to take every opportunity to make note of your wins. Make note of your achievements and celebrate them.

No matter how small they seem in comparison to anything else.

Your wins are personal to you - it's irrelevant what others are achieving - they are your wins and it’s your journey - that is all that matters.

You can do this in a number of ways but for someone who has a low mood, I think the best way to record your wins would be through journaling.

Journalling has been shown to reduce anxiety and depression.

In this study [7] they took 40 people who were diagnosed with current MDD and asked them to expressively write about their deepest thoughts and feelings for 20mins a day, and four weeks later they showed decreases in depression scores measured by the Beck Depression Inventory and Patient Health Questionnaire.

This study called: “The effect of expressive writing on the error-related negativity among individuals with chronic worry” found results very similar buy using expressive writing to help reduce worry and stress in those who engaged with it.

Writing your feelings down, helps you process them. Writing your wins down helps you acknowledge them.

And once those two things are happening, then the foundations again grow stronger.

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STEP 5: Have A Plan

Nothing builds confidence more than showing up for yourself and not letting yourself down.

One way to ensure that is a much more foolproof system is by having a plan to execute, a format to stick to.

By knowing what you are going to do, it will make the execution of what you are going to do a lot easier.

Again, it lowers the barrier of entry to the task - and the lower you can get that barrier, the easier the execution will be.

The plan doesn’t have to be overwhelming, it doesn’t have to be for the rest of your life or even the year.

In fact, I would argue the smaller the plan the better.

It can be a plan just for that day.

It can be a plan just for your movement session.

It can be as simple as you need it to be, to avoid overwhelm and procrastination around it.

Write down a few exercises you want to investigate in your movement. Write down how long you want to stay at the Gym for, and make sure you plan yourself accordingly for it.

The objective here is to make sure that it is so easy, its nearly impossible for you to back down.

One plan I like to use with clients is the two-minute rule. Especially when they are struggling. I got the two-minute rule from James Clears amazing book “Atomic Habits”.

Over to James [9]:

“The Two-Minute Rule states “When you start a new habit, it should take less than two minutes to do.”

You’ll find that nearly any habit can be scaled down into a two-minute version:

• “Read before bed each night” becomes “Read one page.”

• “Do thirty minutes of yoga” becomes “Take out my yoga mat.”

• “Study for class” becomes “Open my notes.”

• “Fold the laundry” becomes “Fold one pair of socks.”

• “Run three miles” becomes “Tie my running shoes.”

The idea is to make your habits as easy as possible to start. Anyone can meditate for one minute, read one page, or put one item of clothing away. And, as we have just discussed, this is a powerful strategy because once you’ve started doing the right thing, it is much easier to continue doing it. A new habit should not feel like a challenge. The actions that follow can be challenging, but the first two minutes should be easy. What you want is a “gateway habit” that naturally leads you down a more productive path.”

Back to me;

Once you have broken your habit down to a two-minute action, you can build from there. If you have mindfully done a “two-minute rule” you are a lot more likely to execute away from that point. And if you don’t, you still did the action for two minutes.

If you want a plan for the Gym I have two free offerings for you.

Offering 1: 10-minute Workouts:

I have an 8-week system, which I will send to you for free that is a series of 10min workouts. I originally wrote this for very busy mums who just didn’t have the time to workout at a Gym, and needed a no weights home system to just rack up the habit - it was really effective when I launched it.

It’s called The Beginners Bodyweight Workout Guide.

If you would like this free offering then please click here.

Offering 2: The Confident and Strong 4-Week Workout Manual

This is an In-Gym or At-Home solution for a month. Workouts are a little longer than 10 minutes, but to complete the program you just need 4 weeks. Every workout is written for you, and you can interchange the Gym solution or the Home solution depending on your circumstances. It is a complete workout manual that is designed to lower that barrier of entry and show you that movement can be effective in any situation.

Added to that after each workout it has a section where you are asked to give gratitude for the workout, and you can use that as your Journal as well.

If you would like The Confident and Strong Program 4-Week Workout Manual for free then click here

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A Note on Neuro-Divergence

I didn’t know what this was until I got the question on TikTok from my sister from another mister.

But the term neurodivergent “refers to the concept that certain developmental disorders are normal variations in the brain. And people who have these features also have certain strengths.

Besides ADHD, neurodiversity commonly refers to people with:

• Autism spectrum disorder

• Dyslexia

• Dyspraxia

• Other learning disabilities” [10]

As I am not a specialist in any aspect of these developmental disorders I can’t comment medically on how best to balance these with fitness and movement.

But I can give you my best opinion on it.

The way I see this is that people who are Neurodivergent have a special natural advantage that they can exploit.

Think of your divergence as a superpower.

And feel free to forget the standards that you hear about fitness because they may very often be antithetical to your divergence.

The fitness industry is still very behind in terms of adapting and making the space a suitable place to exist for people with disabilities. Heck, we are still a long way behind in making it an open space for people who have higher weight bodies.

But we are getting better.

Therefore it comes as no surprise to me, the accessibility to information for those who are Neurodivergent isn’t exactly there.

For example, traits of someone with ADHD are:

• being unable to sit still, especially in calm or quiet surroundings

• constantly fidgeting

• being unable to concentrate on tasks

• excessive physical movement

• excessive talking

• being unable to wait their turn

• acting without thinking

• interrupting conversations

• little or no sense of danger [11]

Some of these can be leaned into in terms of your movement. If your ADHD presents as constantly fidgeting, then maybe design a workout where you perform Tri-Sets (3 exercises back to back before rest periods) or perform larger circuits than normal to minimise rest periods.

If you find it hard to concentrate, then it might be wise to just aim to go to the Gym for 20 minutes more frequently, rather than try to be there for an hour and you exceed your capacity.

If your ADHD presents as little or no sense of danger, maybe consider going with a friend, and just ask them to keep an eye on you, as you don’t want to injure yourself, or get some sessions with a Personal Trainer so you can safely test your maximums and then know to work within those.

A common trait of people who are Dyslexic is that they can perceive visual information better than those without the condition. Therefore the Gym could be a marvellous place for them to explore their body through space and before each exercise as opposed to focusing on trying to track numbers and read books on working out, it might be a good idea to work towards making your lifts look better visually. Prepare yourself by looking at “optimal form” videos and show progress to yourself by working towards replicating that.

My point is that there are no set rules.

Fitness has guidelines, but the most important guideline is that you work in a manner that you find inspiring for yourself. The more you work against yourself, the harder fitness is full stop. So learn to manipulate fitness to your needs and how you need it to operate in your life.

Use your superpower to your advantage.

Rip up the rule book.

In the same we amend certain movement patterns to peoples ability so that they can get the most out of what they are doing, you also have the power to amend fitness to suit you.

Make your movement something that works for you, in your life, in your way.

That's all any of us ever do - and is the ultimate goal no matter who you are.

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Did You Find This Useful?

Firstly I want to say a huge thank you for reading my article. If you are currently in a low mood or depression and are looking to use exercise as a way of helping you manage it, then I can tell you from my experience of working with people in this manner, physical movement is a phenomenal way of processing your emotions physically - in the same way Journalling is a great way of processing your emotions mentally.

I hope this has helped you feel like the bar can be lowered, so that you can see yourself being able to move and using it as a tool to manage your Mental Health in the future.

And of course, if you need to talk to anyone about your mental health then please see your Doctor or call one of the many many many fantastic charities in your country that can help you.

Across this website, I have other Articles all about managing your mental health through movement:

• I’m Scared Of Going To The Gym For The First Time…

• How To Love Exercise Again

• I’ve Been Dealing With Imposter Syndrome My Entire Life

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 some fitness goodies from me as a thank you for reading this article…to find out how…read more below:

Thank you so much for reading my article - I really hope you found it helpful.

You are also invited to get a bundle of Fat Loss Goodies from me including:

✅ 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”

✅ Get yourself a free customized Calorie Calculator

Straight to your Inbox

All you have to do is put your email address in below:

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References:

1. SingleCare Team | Updated on Jan. 21, Team, S.C. & Team, S.C., 2021. Statistics about depression in the U.S. The Checkup. Available at: https://www.singlecare.com/blog/news/depression-statistics/ [Accessed November 21, 2021].

2. Kube T, Rief W, Glombiewski JA. On the Maintenance of Expectations in Major Depression - Investigating a Neglected Phenomenon. Front Psychol. 2017;8:9. Published 2017 Jan 18. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00009

3. OED Definition of “Work”

4. OED Definition of “Out”

5. Anon, Workout word origin. Etymologeek. Available at: https://etymologeek.com/eng/workout [Accessed November 22, 2021].

6. Anon, 16/10/2016 green is good for you. Available at: http://www.unature.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Green-is-good-for-you.pdf [Accessed November 12, 2021].

7. Krpan, K.M. et al., 2013. An everyday activity as a treatment for depression: The benefits of expressive writing for people diagnosed with major depressive disorder. Journal of Affective Disorders. Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0165032713004448 [Accessed November 24, 2021].

8. Schroder, H.S., Moran, T.P. & Moser, J.S., 2017. The effect of expressive writing on the error‐related negativity among individuals with chronic worry. Wiley Online Library. Available at: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/psyp.12990 [Accessed November 24, 2021].

9. Anon, 2020. How to stop procrastinating by using the "2-Minute Rule". James Clear. Available at: https://jamesclear.com/how-to-stop-procrastinating [Accessed November 24, 2021].

10. Wiginton, K., What is neurodiversity? WebMD. Available at: https://www.webmd.com/add-adhd/features/what-is-neurodiversity [Accessed November 24, 2021].

11. Anon, NHS choices. Available at: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/attention-deficit-hyperactivity-disorder-adhd/symptoms/ [Accessed November 24, 2021].

How To Stay Healthy With Your Office Job

I’m writing this because I was asked by a dear friend of mine, to contribute to a Blog he is working on. This friend was the Workplace Health and Safety Officer for a company I worked for in London.

A Corporate Company. We both had desk jobs. We both had to work long hours.

And we both were keenly aware of the problems this can cause in terms of health and fitness for anyone who works in this manner.

Added to that we worked for a Catering Company - so we had access to all and any food that was available. This is also at a high-class Exhibition Centre in London - the food was EPIC and plentiful, to say the least.

I worked for this company for 10 years - and in that time I learnt an awful lot about how to balance your health whilst working in an office, at a Corporation and/or at a Desk and in this article I am going to share with you exactly what you can do too - based on my knowledge as an award-winning Personal Trainer as well as a guy who sat staring at a spreadsheet all day long. Added to that, many of my clients in London worked in Corporate Jobs, and at least three-quarters of my time training them was trying to help them manage their stress and their health.

And I hate spreadsheets. And no….they never got more interesting to me the more I looked at them.

I’m also likely to share far too many Memes from the TV Show The Office - because it’s awesome - and it would be remiss of me not to.

To look at what being Healthy really means, and to give this article some real context, I want to draw your attention to the actual definition of health, and it is through this perspective I will offer my best advice on How To Stay Healthy With Your Office Job.

““Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.””

— World Health Organization [1]

Health is so much more than being fit and not having an illness. And there is an awful lot that the corporate world needs to catch up on with understanding this - and in my time in Corporate England, having worked in Banks, in Hospitality and in Retail I am aware it is getting better.

But there is an awful lot you can control yourself to make sure that whilst your company catches up, you also look after your health, in every sense of the word.

I will take you through a number of things you need to put in place, and then I will spend the last part of this article with things you should probably avoid trying to do as they can also not be helpful for you and your health.

I truly appreciate you being here. Anyone who comes to my site, I regard as a true friend - because it means so much to me that you are willing to read my work.

As my friend, I would like to email you things. Sometimes they will be educational, sometimes they will be inappropriate, 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.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR: HOW TO STAY HEALTHY WITH YOUR OFFICE JOB:

1. Let’s Talk About Stress for a Hot Second

2. Stress Buster 1: Boundaries (respect space and time for others)

3. Stress Buster 2: Having a purpose

4. Stress Buster 3: Movement and physical wellbeing in the office

5. Stress Buster 4: Nutrition - especially Water

6. Other Ways To Manage Stress

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LET’S TALK ABOUT STRESS FOR A HOT SECOND…

This is first on the list for a very good reason.

Stress affects everything we do - and your ability to be healthy in the Office will very much depend on this factor of your life.

In fact everything else in this article will feed into your ability to manage your stress in different ways.

It affects our ability to sleep, our ability to work out, our ability to interact with others, our ability to process emotions, our ability to control our responses and our ability to eat nutritiously.

I am sure they all resonate with you when you think back to times you were stressed.

Stress can be defined [2] as:

“It’s what occurs when the perceived demands of a situation outweigh one’s available resources”

Work in its nature is a stressor. In the same way that working out is a stressor. This does not inherently mean it is a bad thing, without stress we cannot grow. However, too much stress or unmanaged stress can become a problem.

Stress and Anxiety are signs of unmanaged Mental Health and need to be addressed as soon as possible, in a way that strikes a fair and reasonable balance for both your output at work and your own wellbeing.

This is a different range for everyone. We can all manage and process different amounts of stress in different ways. We cannot change the temperament we were born with, and therefore we must respect our own individual limits of this.

The definition of stress quantifies it simply as what you “perceive”. In Fitness, as in life, what you perceive to be true - is true. Your brain doesn’t know the difference between fiction and reality, it just treats everything as reality, and therefore if you believe it to be true that you are stressed, regardless of the opinion of your manager or co-workers - it simply is true.

As I was writing this Blog - two stories stood out to me on the BBC. One of the stories is called “Why millennial managers are burned out” and states the following [9]:

“Middle management can be a tough job, constantly toggling between supervisors above and supervisees below. It can be isolating and taxing; research from Columbia University in 2015 found 18% of middle managers reported symptoms of depression, compared to 12% for blue-collar workers and 11% for owners and executives. Research during the pandemic has shown middle managers are finding it harder than senior leaders to maintain workplaces relationships – and only half feel they can rely on their colleagues.

Middle managers who are millennials are particularly likely to be feeling the squeeze. A MetLife study showed millennial managers are far more likely than managers of any other generation to report burnout. That’s partly due to growing up in a culture that glorifies overwork, plus being a generation saddled with care responsibilities for both parents and children. And with the pandemic nearing the two-year mark, it’s no wonder that millennial middle managers are finding themselves exhausted, demoralised and stressed” 

The other story I mention in the section of this article relates to “Boundaries”.

What Denotes Stress In Your Job?

According to the American Psychological Associations 2017 Report, stress has climbed for the first time in a decade, and the key factors that lend to how stressed someone feels are down to “career and money-related issues, both of which tie into work, are two of the leading and most consistent year-to-year causes of stress”. [2]

A 2001 Systematic Review Study which was called “Improving the Health of the NHS Workforce” reviewed the evidence of associations between work factors and ill health and of effective workplace interventions.

They found the key factors leading to stress were:

• Long hours worked, work overload and pressure

• The effects of these on personal lives

• Lack of control over your work and lack of participation in decision making

• Poor social support

• Unclear management and work role and poor management style.

The Time I Punched A Wall At Work

The wall won.

I was at work, it was about 20:30 at night, and I was responsible for closing up our office with no natural light in it. I was the only one left in the office other than one of my managers, and I still had to calculate every one’s working hours, combined with, signing out staff, and then closing up.

I had an hours commute home.

And the next day started at 06:30 am for me, in the Gym with clients.

My Manager came through to say goodbye, and I personally felt like I just needed a bit of quiet time, to crack on with the work I had to get done - but alas, my Manager had other ideas and gave me a lot more other work to be done.

I could feel my anxiety rise. I could feel how victimised I felt and how overwhelmed I was feeling. There was no way I was going to leave on time, manage other parts of my life, and complete all tasks ahead of me.

But instead of communicating that.

I did an Andy (see above GIF).

At this point in my life, I didn’t have the skill or ability or relationship to communicate my feelings properly in that moment, and I just accepted my place as the guy who had everyone else’s work dumped on me.

I was very lucky in the sense that I could select the sort of shifts and hours I worked at this job and upon reflection, realising how stressed I felt, I made a very brave decision the next time I needed to submit what hours I was able to work - I simply stopped stating I was available to close up and moved on from there.

I never punched a wall again.

This brings me to my next point…

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Stress Buster 1: Boundaries (respect space and time for others)

Before writing this article, I reached out to everyone on my Email List (subscribe here) to ask for helpful suggestions and strategies to be healthy in the office that they have experienced.

But one response came through which was the following:

“One more editorial suggestion is to be mindful of coworkers taking personal time during the workday. Respect it. For example, If someone is taking personal time to eat lunch (should be away from their desk/office space) don’t interrupt them with work things. Either join them and engage in conversation about things outside of work or leave them alone to have those precious moments"

I love everyone on my email list so much - they are the most rounded and holistic bunch of people I have ever met - you really should join the party here.

And Boundaries in the Office are so very important.

Boundaries for your co-workers are of course important, but not more important than the boundaries you set yourself.

It is when these boundaries break down and are not respected, that your stress will immediately spike. But here’s the rub, people will only respect you if you respect yourself first.

It all comes from you.

Boundaries you should set in the Workplace

Not being smelt is top of the list - obvs!

Home Time and Start Time: In your job, you have a contract. This contract explicitly will state the time you are scheduled to start your work, and the time you are scheduled to finish your work. You should stick to these times for at least 90% of your time when you are at work - as they will be the marker upon which you balance your home life - and if your home life isn’t compromised then your stress levels will automatically be lowered. I understand the desire to climb the ladder, to work within the unexpected rules of the Corporate Work to climb said ladder and look to be doing that little bit more. But if that little bit more, becomes a lot more, you will be far less productive and effective than you think you will be, because you will be more stressed out. There comes a point when doing more equals doing an awful lot less.

Lunch Time: This one drives me crazy. Stop working through your lunch. Just stop it. Stop thinking you are being a superhero by eating and working at the same time. You aren’t. In fact, by not taking adequate rest, you are hindering your ability to actually be productive. And by being less productive, in the long term, you are going to increase your stress levels.

Don’t believe me?

This study from the University of Illinois [4] took 84 participants, who were set memory tasks for an hour, and the study set out to find out why we have trouble focussing on one task for a very long time, and why our focus on that task begins to diminish.

Thye had two groups - one group who were focussed on the task the whole time, and another who were given two brief breaks during the task. The group that were allowed breaks were focused during the entire experiment.

Added to that, with regards to your ability to spend time with your food, you will greatly decrease the chances of your likelihood to overeat either in the moment or later in the day. By spending time with your food, and treating your body with self-love, feeding it properly, and giving yourself the correct amount of time to enjoy your meal, you feel much more satiated than if you ate distracted.

Communication outside of work hours: Stop letting your boss, or your colleague message you 24-7. This also means you have to stop messaging them 24-7 as well. You are only required to answer work calls, during work hours.

This is another example of where I had to put my foot down with my Corporate Job. I would get calls when I was with clients in the Gym, I would get calls on the way to work, on the way home. I would get calls at lunch when I was on the loo.

It drove me mad. Let a man toilet in peace.

In fact, we had an ongoing job in the Office about communication. The Office I worked in was an operations office, and therefore we needed Radio Comms as well. Now whenever one of my Managers needed something, there was no “one way of communicating”. Or rather there was, as in, every single channel would go berserk.

I would get a landline phone call, a radio call, a mobile call and usually a text message as well asking me to respond - all the while I was dealing with an actual human in front of me.

Everything beeped, crackled and rang - to say it created stress would be an understatement.

Every day we were WUPHED - put the sound on for this video:

Boundaries are hard to implement initially in the office. But when you put them in place, and crucially when YOU start respecting them, others will as well. It all starts with you.

As I was writing this Blog Post a new story hit the BBC which I personally find inspiring and depressing all at the same time. Its called “Portugal bans bosses texting staff after-hours” [10]

Portugal has introduced laws titled “right to rest” and is designed to help improve work-life balance. They have passed them to help improve migration to the country for Digital Workers, and there are a whole host of other rules involved as well. One key one is that employees have a right to work from home without prior notice if they have children under the age of 8.

This is one incredible piece of legislation that Covid has helped bring along. When Covid hit the UK I was more keenly aware with my clients that were used to trekking into the City of London each day and living the office life, how much more balanced they felt initially being able to work from home in a much more flexible manner with the understanding of their employees. It was one thing from the Pandemic that I hoped would take root and grow - and that companies would be more open-minded to the needs of their employees.

But time will tell on that one….

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Stress Buster 2: Having a purpose at work

I remember the moment this clicked for me in my Corporate Job. For a long time, it just felt like I was showing up, doing mindless paperwork, and going home. It made me feel numb - and then after a very in-depth conversation with one of my managers, I came to realise that by providing staff for exhibitions and functions, and how food is a very crucial part of bringing people together at events like this, my job wasn’t simply filling in shifts on a planner - it was being a conduit of creating friendships and business relationships.

I know this to be true in my work as a Coach as well.

It’s a much more obvious “purpose” to have - to help people change their lives - but it makes working a joy - and not a stressor at all.

Now, I’m not naive enough to say that even if you do adore your job, like I do, working and helping people get stronger, improve their relationships with food and themselves, and help above all build up their confidence in my Strong and Confident Program, that you won’t get stressed out by it. Of course, you will because work is a stressor.

This study [5] by Washington University surveyed 1109 people and found that: “Having a written personal statement of purpose helped people in various ways, including coping with stress and finding happiness”

Therefore if you are reading this, grab a pen and paper and write down what your higher purpose in your professional life is. It is my personal opinion that it shouldn’t revolve around money - if you can’t think of a greater reason to do your job than to make money, then maybe you need to find a new job.

If you aren’t this excited to get a promotion…how connected to your higher purpose are you really?

Human beings need a purpose from everything we do in life to make us feel productive and to help give our lives meaning. Personally, I have rotted away in a couple of jobs, and it is not a fun way to live - even though I may have been better off financially in them, that is simply not enough.

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Stress Buster 3: Movement and Physical Wellbeing in the Office

8 hours sitting in an office is not conducive to physical wellbeing. But I know you already know that.

And me simply sitting here telling you how to move in the Office is going to be futile.

I remember once I pulled out a Foam Roller to help my recovery after a tough game refereeing, and it was on my lunch break, but my Manager looked at me in disgust and told me to never do that again.

I then also asked for a stand-up desk…do you know how expensive they are? Added to that, having the energy to stand up for 8 hours every day whilst at work, is more tiring than it sounds.

And come on - Desk Chair Yoga…I can’t believe that anyone who works in an office actually does that in front of their colleagues and in their suits…

There is a dichotomy here. You must balance your ability to be productive with your physical health and your ability to not lose your job.

My best advice for trying to manage your physical health in the office would be this:

1. Break up your Lunch Breaks - give yourself 20 minutes to sit and be with your food, to focus on eating and looking after yourself there, and 20mins for a brisk walk outside.

2. Take regular movement breaks from your work - once an hour if possible, just get up and stretch your legs, a brief walk up and down the stairs, make a cup of tea for others in the office, or just stand and stare out of the window.

3. Have a physical hobby outside of the office - try and have a hobby you do outside of the office - whether that be swimming, going to the Gym, Stand Up Paddle Boarding, Walking, or getting outside with the children.

4. Move during your meetings - this one might take a bit of getting used to, but when you have a one-on-one meeting with a colleague, ask if you can do it whilst moving or walking. Or failing that, every time you are on the phone - stand up. This will not only be better for your health but also better for your productivity.

When asking for tips on this Article, one of the email responses I received was:

“You can also get an accountabilabuddy (copyright from SouthPark the tv show) to help you leave the office to get some movement or a workout in at a certain time. Think of it like a human alarm clock coming to find out if you have prioritized your health and/or wellness for that day and gone out and done some moving around, in whatever form you enjoy”

Find some like-minded colleagues, and work together to change the culture in your office. Remember if you want to change you have to initiate it, stick to it, and allow others to respect it by respecting it yourself first.

Personally, I also think an Annual Office Fun Run, Tough Mudder or some other physical activity for the group is always a good idea to bring a collective togetherness and a little more focus to the movement you will be doing.

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Stress Buster 4: Nutrition - especially Water

As I mentioned in my introduction - where I worked we had open access to some glorious food. Lunch was laid on for us every day, and although often what I could eat was out of my control in terms of content I was very lucky to not have to think about what to take to work for lunch each day - this naturally lowered my stress.

I’m not going to sit here and tell you how to lose weight in the Office - as that is a very simple answer which I go into detail in another Blog Post which has helped thousands of people lose weight already: What is a Calorie Deficit Diet Plan?

But I am going to outline how looking after your nutrition in all areas of life will help you feel less stressed. Most people have a slight voice in their head that is trying to guide them towards more optimal health or at the very least stay in balance with where they currently are.

Now an Office is an environment in terms of your diet and nutrition that will significantly challenge in your mind what you are working towards. These opposing forces in your life will cause stress. You want to enjoy Jeanette’s Birthday Donuts, but you also want to “keep healthy”.

The best way to manage this is with acceptance and understanding.

You have every right to give yourself permission to enjoy the Birthday Donut, and then get on with the rest of your day. These occurrences in the Office are not stopping you from succeeding - what you do for the majority of your time is stopping you from succeeding.

It’s very easy for us to blame the obvious. In this case, the gooey Krispy Kremes, because we are perpetually told that they are bad or naughty foods. But, they aren’t. They are just food. Food that brings you closely socially to your colleagues, and food that breaks up the monotony of staring at the spreadsheets.

As long as your diet elsewhere in your life is congruent to your Goals, then you should be able to enjoy these moments with your colleagues without it stressing you out, and thinking that one Krispy Kreme has led to weight gain or you feeling unhealthy. I promise you it hasn’t. It’s just the story you tell yourself that will lead to stressing you out the more you respond in that way.

There is an inherent conflict with nutrition that leads to stress and then ultimately failure in line with your Goals. When you constantly “give into temptation” and believe it to be affecting you too much for your goals, you will give up on your goals. The best way to get rid of that conflict is by giving yourself freedom and permission to enjoy these moments in isolation for what they are - rather than feeling like you are in a constant fight with your environment.

The other topic here is that of Water.

This study [6] demonstrates the effect that staying hydrated has on your mental health, cognition and physical health. Far too often in the Office did I forget to drink enough water, because I find that the demands of the work didn’t necessarily make me thirsty - a stark contrast to how much I drink when I used to work on the Gym Floor with clients.

The more dehydrated you are, the more anxious you might feel. You will also feel less fatigued and Water will improve digestion - something that sitting isn’t too helpful for.

I recommend to all of my clients to drink 3 litres a day. If you can make 2 litres of it at least clear water, the other litre you will likely pick up from other drinks and your food intake.

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Other Ways To Manage Stress

Stress is a topic that I delve into a lot with clients because of simply how much it interferes with health and fitness. The biggest ingredient with Stress is how it will affect your ability to choose food that will nourish you.

And stress from the Offic e can very much lead to stress at home - and before you know it - you’re constantly stressed over silly things like losing your phone….

And you learn to manage that with your food - as opposed to dealing with why you are choosing those foods in particular.

So here are my other top tips to help you cope with the stressors of the office, whether you are in the office or not.

1. Get Strict on Sleep

I have a whole other Blog Post outlining why sleep is so important for your stress levels right here: Why Does Sleep Affect Your Weight Loss?

Therefore I won’t get into the nitty-gritty of it now, but Sleep is the single most important facet of your ability to cope with stress, and you ignore it at the peril of your health.

If you struggle to switch off at night and/or find yourself waking up in the middle of the night then I would suggest listening to sleep stories to help you get into a deep and wonderful sleep. As children, we used to always settle down with a story, and now we are in the age of technology its iPhones and Netflix before bed - two things that will not help you sleep - just like with your children.

On my YouTube Channel I have some Sleep Stories as well as Sleep Meditations.

My favourite is my Sleep Story about The Ancient Roman Town of Aquae Sulis - give it a go - and remember if you don’t ever finish the Sleep Story I will certainly not be offended…

2. Meditate

I do not meditate anywhere near as much as I should. But then again, I’m not as stressed out now as much as I used to be. In fact, I used to Meditate a lot more when I worked in the Office. I would put my headphones in, be working on a project and away I would go, meditating as I worked. Listening to calming sounds and allowing my focus to fall into free-flow as opposed to working through tension.

And sometimes I would take myself off, and actually do a guided meditation when I really needed to. For some reason, I just can’t make it a habit when I’m in a less stressful situation myself - like now and the job I do.

I have a Free Meditation Course called The Daily Stillness you can enjoy. You get 10-minute meditations, each and every day for 30 days. If you would like to try it out then please click here.

Here is the very first Meditation you get sent if you want to “try before you commit”:

3. Move Frequently

You’ve probably heard that exercise releases positive endorphins. Which it does, because our body is designed to be moved, however, I fully appreciate that these positive endorphins happen once you’ve exercised, and they simply aren’t enough of a reward if you are anxious/worried about exercising, begin with. Added to that, I’ve had many workouts that didn’t make me feel as high as a kite, but just a simple lovely sense of accomplishment. I often feel that the idea of positive endorphins is overhyped and we expect it to feel like snorting a line…which it obviously doesn’t - not that I have ever experienced that feeling either.

Movement helps us process our emotions, especially our negative ones. It gives us a great sense of achievement - provided you enter into a relationship with movement without the goal of losing weight. Always move to feel Strong and Confident.

Added to that, movement helps us sleep better - and anything that helps our superpower against stress we should certainly engage with.

If you need some workouts to get you started then please head here: Free Fitness Goodies

4. Get Into Nature

There are two very important studies that back this point up.

The first was done in the 1980s and they found that giving hospital patients a view of a tree from their hospital bed needed less pain medication and recovered faster than those who only saw brick walls - and this has been backed up by the American Psychological Association [7] in 2016.

The second is a study [8] done in 2001 at the University of Illinois found that people coped better with big life decisions when living in an Inner City Environment if they had nearby trees and grass - compared to those who were just surrounded by concrete.

Personally, I know this to be true as well. I now live on the Gold Coast in Australia, after having lived in South East England my whole life - and the sheer amount of tress, access to Beaches and the ability to walk in the Rainforest here always helps me de-stress, and arguably my living situation is more stressful here, but I don’t feel that stress as much as I did when living in England.

There is something beautifully humbling about nature. It reminds you very simply how big the world is, how magnificent it is and how insignificant as a human you are. It brings you perspective. The human race has a habit of living in its own Soap Opera and nature takes you away from that.

When you see the Pacific Ocean, or a Sea Turtle, or Dolphins Swimming. When you look at Giant Redwoods and see the intricate ecosystem of the forest you understand that if you missed a deadline at work or that little comment that Steve said the other day about your work is insignificant. It's just not important. You learn a different perspective.

We are on this earth, if we are lucky, for 80 years. The earth has existed for 4.53 billion years. The earth spins 1000 miles per hour. So what happened to you yesterday, is now 24,000 miles or 38,624kms away from where you are right now.

It such a spec in time, you wouldn't even be able to see it.

And that’s liberating. It’s humbling. It’s beautiful.

So beautiful, you should be dancing about it!

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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 how better to balance your health and the Office you work in.

Across this website, I have other Articles all about managing your health and movement:

• Six Strategies to Help Stop Late Night Food Cravings

• Why Does Sleep Effect Your Weight Loss?

• Is 10,000 Steps A Day Enough To Lose Weight and be Healthy?

You also have a unique opportunity to grab a Free Month of Coaching from me as a thank you for reading this article. To find out more bout coaching with me, all you need to do is click on the button below - and then apply.

Thank you so much for reading my article - I really hope you found it helpful.

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References:

1. Who.int. 2021. Constitution of the World Health Organization. [online] Available at: <https://www.who.int/about/governance/constitution> [Accessed 3 November 2021].

2. Verywell Mind. 2021. Do You Have a Stress-Prone Personality?. [online] Available at: <https://www.verywellmind.com/why-do-stressors-affect-people-differently-3145061> [Accessed 4 November 2021].

3. Atsunori Ariga, Alejandro Lleras, Brief and rare mental “breaks” keep you focused: Deactivation and reactivation of task goals preempt vigilance decrements, Cognition, Volume 118, Issue 3,2011, [online] Available at: <https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2010.12.007>

4. Anon, 2021. Apa.org. Available at: https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/stress/2017/state-nation.pdf [Accessed 2021].

5. Liska D, Mah E, Brisbois T, Barrios PL, Baker LB, Spriet LL. Narrative Review of Hydration and Selected Health Outcomes in the General Population. Nutrients. 2019;11(1):70. Published 2019 Jan 1. doi:10.3390/nu11010070

6. Anon, 16/10/2016 green is good for you. Available at: http://www.unature.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Green-is-good-for-you.pdf [Accessed November 12, 2021].

7. Anon, Coping with PPoverty impacts environment ... - csu.edu. Available at: https://www.csu.edu/cerc/researchreports/documents/CopingWithPpovertyImpactsEnvironmentAttentionInTheInnerCity2001.pdf [Accessed November 12, 2021].

8. Anon, Why millennial managers are burned out. BBC Worklife. Available at: https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20211109-why-millennial-managers-are-burned-out [Accessed November 13, 2021].

9. Anon, 2021. Portugal bans bosses texting staff after-hours. BBC News. Available at: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-59263300 [Accessed November 13, 2021].

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.

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Table of Contents for: Why Does Sleep Affect Your Weight Loss?

1. The Link between Sleep, Depression and Weight Gain

2. The link between Sleep, Stress and Weight Gain

3. The link between Sleep, Hunger Hormones, and Weight Gain

4. The link between Sleep, Reduced Movement, and Weight Gain

5. How To Improve Your Sleep

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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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

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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:

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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.

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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.

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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.

1. Distracting your mind and taking them on a journey

2. 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.

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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

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References:

1. 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].

2. Who.int. 2021. Mental health. [online] Available at: <https://www.who.int/health-topics/mental-health#tab=tab_2> [Accessed 24 May 2021].

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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].

8. 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.

9. 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

10. 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.

11. Nigms.nih.gov. 2021. Circadian Rhythms. [online] Available at: <https://nigms.nih.gov/education/fact-sheets/Pages/Circadian-Rhythms.aspx> [Accessed 3 June 2021].

12. 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 Can College Students Stay Fit and Healthy?

Out of the blue…well sort of…I was approached to write an article for Platform which is the Student Paper at Nottingham Trent University.

To say this is an honour for me is an understatement and the position that students find themselves in throughout the UK at the moment due to the Global Pandemic I really hope this will help them right now….but also long into the future.

In this article, I hope to be able to give you a plan, an understanding and a guide that helps students not just at Nottingham Trent University, but throughout the world, to help you figure out to keep fit and healthy and look after yourselves as students, but also for the rest of your lives.

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Table of Contents for “How Can College Students Stay Fit and Healthy?”

1. Who is The Gym Starter?

2. How To Manage Food on a Budget

3. How To Workout in a Dorm Room

4. How Can Exercise Help Your Mental Wellbeing As A Student

5. Parting Advice for Students

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Who Is The Gym Starter?

My real name is Adam, or Coach Adam. I have a congenital heart disease, used to live in London, but now live on the Gold Coast, Australia with my beautiful fiancee.

My University experience was a little different to yours, as I went to a Drama School in London and trained to be an Actor., which meant I hads to 12 hours a day 6 days a week for the best part of three years to get my degree.

I did more hours at University in a day than one of my friends did in a week at Lectures as he was studying a Computer Gaming degree.

So I suppose you’re thinking, how can someone who hasn’t been a typical student, tell me, a student, how to look after myself?

Well I suppose I have lived on tight budgets and eating Beans On Toast for the best part of the last 15 years of my life, as Acting is hardly a lucrative business, and I have spent the best part of my life since graduating working 6 jobs just to get food on my table.

I worked as:

• A Personal Trainer

• An Actor

• A Theatre School Director

• A Semi-Professional Referee

• A Washer Upper

• A Staffing Support Assistant at the ExCel Centre

I know what it is like to be time poor, have deadlines and the pressures of workign every which way and never feeling like you have time to yourself. I also know what it is like to have very little control over your food intake, and to be so exhausted both mentally and physically that the last thing I wanted to do was workout.

And even still I struggle, even though my life has somewhat settled. I now work in an amazing Personal Training Studio here on the Gold Coast, I am still pursuing my Acting and just love helping people figure out this crazy little thing called life.

I became The Gym Starter because I have always loved helping people feel confident about themselves…and I have noticed since the upsurge of Social Media, confidence seems to be a personality trait that is becoming more and more scarce in the world, especially amongst our College Student population.

The constant comparison of what you see on Instagram compared to real life, the constant desire to live up to what you create and the sheer awful information and lies that exist in places like Instagram and TikTok are not helping students enter and exist in reality in such a crucial moment in your lives when you need confidence the most.

Being a student at College is scary. Away from home. Meeting lots and lots of new people. Taking independent responsibility for your study. A lot of time to kill. Being poor financially. Let alone trying to keep fit and healthy as well.

Its terrifying. I remember the imposter syndrome and the constant checking of the bank balance well.

The awkward phone call home asking for another tenner because you had to pay for your grocery deliver this week.

The last thing you need is feeling inadequate about your health and fitness too.

All because of Social Media.

So I’m here to help you. To give you a real perspective on what you should reasonably expect.

And to hopefully take away some of the anxiety you are feeling in terms of your health and fitness as a student…especially in 2021…global pandemic and all.

So take a moment.

Big Deep breath.

In for 10….

Out for 10….

My very first point stands as this: I cannot tell you to get healthy. I am a Personal Trainer, not a Doctor, and am not here to discuss your Health. Health is very different for everyone, and the markers for each person vary greatly.

What I can say is that movement, eating certain foods, and using my advice to look after yourself might indeed make you feel a lot better about yourself. There is a correlation between what I discuss and how that might improve health in certain people, but it is no guarantee.

What I can guarantee is I will make you feel a lot better about how you are living your life, how you are using your body and your energy levels in general, as well as your improved mood. If you deem that as being healthier…that’s up to you. Not me.

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How To Manage Food On A Budget

This isn’t an easy topic, as we all have very different budgets to live in with our food.

And I would suggest you are doing a pretty good job at this point if you are still alive.

There is a common thread in society that eating “healthy” is more expensive, and this is true [1].

But that doesn’t mean that you can’t do things to help yourself in this department.

Here are my top 5 tips for eating on a budget:

1. Buy Frozen Fruits and Vegetables - especially Vegetables. Too many times in my life have I gone to the fridge to find the Courgette I forgot about and now it is rotten to the core. You don’t need to worry about whether they have enough a nutrient profile or not, it’s a daft argument that shouldn’t exist because it creates a needless barrier to entry. Eating any Vegetables will help you, frozen or otherwise. But Frozen Vegetables are often easier to weigh out if you need to measure your food, They are really simple to cook…just put them in a Wok, and away you go…and they taste just lovely. The other huge advantage to these is that they are bulky foods. They will fill you up for longer than a Dominos Pizza meaning you will spend less money overall on food.

Side Note: If you are a “fussy” eater, or simply “don’t eat vegetables” then it’s a hard truth, but you need to start working on that. To simply say you don’t eat vegetables is absurd because all Vegetables have different tastes and different textures. Taste Buds regenerate over time, and the more you expose yourself slowly to something you dislike the more you will develop a taste for it. Just like when you didn’t like the taste of beer and coffee when you were younger…now it seems to be rather lovely. Stop being lazy with Vegetables. It might be that you were indulged too much in your childhood, and now you are now paying the cost of that as an adult. An adult that doesn’t eat any Vegetables is simply ignorant (unless they suffer from very particular digestive issues).

2. Plan Your Meals Weekly, and budget for them - spend some time sitting down creating a two-week meal plan for yourself. That way you can easily budget for what you ate going to eat as well. A big problem with finance in terms of food is the desire to always be eating something different. Many of my friends who I work with online are advised to eat the same foods time and time again for a number of reasons. They know the nutritional profile of the food (Calories, Protein, Carbohydrate and Fat content) as well as the fact it is financially better for them. When you have a plan and stick to it, it will help you so much to manage your money. You don’t need as much variety in the foods you eat as you think you do. We all eat on average the same 8 or 9 meals, especially when we are cooking from home.

3. Eat out Less Often - sounds so simple right? But I am aware of how hard this is to do in reality. The Costa Coffee isn’t so much of an issue… its the Muffin and Toasted Sandwich that comes from the trip too, before you know it, a Mocha Chocca Skinny Vanilla Three Shot Latte (or whatever the kids are drinking these days) plus a Muffin and a Tuna Toastie has cost you £15. Added to that…its’s cost in terms of how much it will fill you up as well, combined with the number of calories you are consuming all in one go. It’s just not that wise. If you are going for a coffee…which I am a huge fan of…then make sure it is just a Coffee you order.

4. Buy In Bulk - especially your Carbohydrates. Buy big packs of Rice and Pasta. They will last forever and are so much cheaper than buying the Microwave packs that Uncle Ben makes. In the food industry, there is always a higher cost associated with convenience.

5. Spend Time Cooking - if you don’t know how to cook…learn. It really doesn’t have to be that complex. Every day for lunch when I was at Drama School I used to cook fried eggs and beans on toast. It was better for me than eating at Subway, it was cheaper for me than eating at Subway and it had a much better nutrient profile than eating at Subway. And it took about the same amount of time as going to Subway. We live in a world where cooking is really intimidating. For many years I was great at executing a gourmet meal, but when it came to just cooking everyday food that wasn’t Instagram worthy, because it was just normal food, I didn’t know what to do. What you see on the Internet isn’t the real world. There is nothing wrong with a few sausages, some mashed potato, and some frozen veggies on a plate…you just don’t think there is because it doesn’t look good enough for yout IG Story.

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How To Workout In A Dorm Room

Right now, during a Global Pandemic and everlasting lockdowns, I’m not sure you need my advice on how to workout in a Dorm Room.

There are certain times in a person’s life where working out just isn’t feasible, and putting yourself under more and more pressure to live up to an outcome that you don’t need to live up to will have a wider negative effect on you.

I’d never force someone to work out if they are grieving.

Or are stressed to the eyeballs with work and worry about a loved one.

There are times when it is ok to say - actually - I just am not going to work out, and that’s ok.

I have recently moved to Australia and had to do a Two Week Quarantine in a single Hotel Room. I had the intention to workout. I had my TRX with me. But I didn’t work out as much as I hoped to, and there is nothing wrong with that. The room and my personal circumstances didn’t provide me with the energy I needed to workout.

And I’m fine with that.

And if that is you…you should be fine with that too.

I would also love for you to reconsider what you think a workout should be. You probably do not have a Leg Press Machine in your Dorm Room, so it’s just daft to have the same expectations of a workout, that you would have if you had access to a Gym Floor.

Meditation can be a workout.

Yoga can be a workout.

10 Push Ups can be a workout.

A walk can be a workout.

What I am trying to say is that it doesn’t all have to be Deadlifts and Dumbells - you need to have greater empathy for yourself and what you can achieve.

And this isn’t just true when you are in the midst of a Global Pandemic. This is true when you are up to your eyeballs in Dissertations and Essays. This is true when you are working, studying, and living on top of trying to keep fit.

Sometimes in life, it’s more important to take 4 or 5 steps back…so that you can then take another 10 forward further down the track.

Managing your stress is indeed a workout.

But if you are the type of person who is chomping at the bit to do something physical besides what I have laid out above then my top recommendation to you is the following.

Get a Suspension Trainer. Not a TRX - they are far too expensive for what they are…and you don’t have the funds.

$25 (about £14.99) on Amazon.com.au you can get a Suspension Trainer or at Decathlon its the same price.

The Suspension Trainer was designed by a Navy Seal who wanted to be able to work out in any environment he found himself in. Especially small spaces.

And they are just blooming wonderful.

Then you can do these workouts:

Please feel free to amend the workouts as you see fit to your ability level.

I always write online programs to an RPE Scale to gauge intensity as opposed to dictating how much weight, as I have never met you, and then Reps and Sets as we all are slightly different in this regard. . If you want to increase your decrease your intensity then change the Reps or timings as you see fit.

For more information on the RPE Scale head to this article: How To Plan and Design A Home Workout - The Ultimate Guide

If you can’t get a Suspension Trainer then you can get my free book: The Beginners Bodyweight Workout Guide

The book has 56 Workouts you can do…all bodyweight based…all just 10mins a day too!

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How Does Exercise Help Your Mental Health?

Every Personal Trainer in the world will sit here and advocate the benefits of exercise for your mental health.

They will then also try and sell you detox teas, show you very thin bodies as the ideal or simply tell you to “Eat Less, Move More”

Which completely undoes the benefit to your mental health.

Movement in and of itself will make you feel better about who you are, but when you start aligning that behaviour with behaviours of weight loss for acceptance amongst your peers, or to try and get a six-pack or even so that you can get laid…

A problem begins to occur.

Suddenly your movement is no longer beneficial for your mental health, suddenly it is a punishment for it.

So to gain the advantages for your Mental Wellbeing in association with fitness and movement you must make sure that you are focussing on your movement for reasons beyond superficiality.

There are many, many, many outcomes in fitness that will not lead to improved Mental Health and can send you into much poorer places with that.

And these nearly always come down to a number of factors:

• Desperation: “I must lose weight in 3 months”

• Pressure: “I must weight 3 stone less to feel normal”

• Self Acceptance: “He will never like me if I’m not skinny”

• Self Worth: “I can’t look at myself until I weight X amount”

When you are engaging in physical activity to try and “fix” something akin to what I have laid out above…you will experience much poorer mental health as a result.

Because what you desire will never come quick enough.

Fitness is a stubborn thing, that takes discipline, hard work and consistency. So much so I don’t feel like I have ever truly mastered anything in my fitness because I always fall down on these pillars.

But I am also not under any pressure to achieve any of the outcomes above.

The reason movement helps your mental health is quite well known at this point:

• Can improve your confidence

• Can improve cognitive function

• Can send you into a productive state

• Can give you a sense of achievement

• Can teach you discipline

• Can help change your outlook on life

But what I really think is true about how Movement and Fitness can aid your mental health is that it makes you creative.

I have written a 2000-word article on the topic for you, and that makes me feel amazing.

Makes me feel creative. When you shape and craft a workout and then execute it, it gives you a creative outlet that all humans need.

And the best bit?

There really isn’t a high barrier of entry. You don’t have to be able to be a musician or a painter.

You don’t have to be a singer or a wordsmith.

You just have to be a human.

And guess what…you are one.

So you can already be extremely creative with your movement and your body, enjoy the benefits of movement for your confidence, for your cognitive function and for your productivity…

And then your mental health will improve.

Get into Fitness to be creative.

For as long as that is the beating drum of why you are doing what you are doing…

Especially during a pandemic…

Then you will fly my friend.

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What’s Next?

Across this website, I have other Articles all about managing your physical and nutritional health:

• How To Stay Full In A Calorie Deficit Without Being Hungry

• 4 Week Strength Workout - A Video Guide

• How To Count Calories

Added to that it would be AMAZING if you joined my free Facebook Group.

It is called Straightforward Fat Loss.

I do one Live Training a week in there based on topics which are designed to make your Fat Loss Journey as straightforward as possible.

It would be so wonderful to see you in there…to join just click on the button below and you will by transported at the speed of light to a grateful and welcoming bunch of people who really do just want to help everyone as much as they can.

Thank you so much for reading my article. I hope it has helped you…

Speak again soon,

Coach Adam

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References:

1. Jones NRV, Conklin AI, Suhrcke M, Monsivais P (2014) The Growing Price Gap between More and Less Healthy Foods: Analysis of a Novel Longitudinal UK Dataset. PLoS ONE 9(10): e109343. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0109343

Is A Calorie Deficit All That Matters For Weight Loss? | The Truth of Energy Balance

Without a doubt, I am known as a Calorie Deficit advocate, and I am proud to be one.

I am a believer in the fact that to either gain weight or lose weight you need to understand the principle of Calories In vs Calories Out.

Science is irrefutable on the topic. [1,2]

But what goes into the make up of Calories In vs Calories Out needs far more context. 

There are many people out there that simply think “Calories In vs Calories Out” is causing the problem in terms of Weight Gain and Obesity.

The Health At Every Size (HAES) movement, the Body Positive Movement which are both movements I support, would argue against the constant bombardment of the rhetoric of losing weight equals results and that you can’t be healthy unless you are thin, and the problems that are perpetuating in our society, and they aren’t wrong.

Problems that are leading so many people into very dark places with regards to the relationship with the self. And that is simply not good enough.

But they also think that anyone who utters the words “calorie deficit” is a proponent of everything they stand against — and that the two cannot co-exist. 

There are many people who think that if you are overweight, you are simply lazy and lack willpower, an opinion that should be abhorrent to anyone who hears it and comes from a place of complete ignorance for what “The Truth Of Energy Balance” really is, combined with a complete lack of empathy for peoples humanity. 

Because: “Science innit.” 

And here I am. 

Someone who loves helping people; someone who is on the side of both people being positive about themselves, and allowing them to work on Goals that they want to achieve. Someone who believes in the Science and a Personal Trainer that feels he is being crushed from both sides. Someone who wants to very much empower people to take responsibility for their health, whilst disarming those who simply place blame on people having never walked a day in their shoes. 

Some people think that my approach to educating people on a Calorie Deficit isn’t right or fair for people's mental health and physical wellbeing. 

Science says that a Calorie Deficit is required for weight loss. 

Science also says that looking at why people eat excess calories is equally important in being able to help people with their weight. 

The fitness industry is divided between these two…and I believe in both. 

There is a bridge to be built — and if you can understand this bridge when it comes to Energy Balance you too will begin to understand why you may have struggled in the past so much for your fitness success, or why others struggle with it too. I’m not saying that you don’t have to take responsibility for your health, of course, you do. 

But when you start looking at the context of what goes into Calories In and Calories Out you can start to work with your environment to help create that change and achieve your goals. 

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Table of Contents for: Is A Calorie Deficit All That Matters To Lose Weight? The Truth of Energy Balance”

1. What is the truth behind energy balance?

2. Calories In is not simply “how much you eat”

3. The conclusion to “Calories In”

4. Calories Out is not simply “how much you burn”

5. The Conclusion to “Calories Out”

6. Overall Conclusion and Summation

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You can also watch a summary of this Blog Post right here:

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Is A Calorie Deficit All That Matters For Weight Loss?

The Truth of Energy Balance

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What Is The Truth Behind Energy Balance?

via GIPHY

There is the science which I touched on above. 

The simple fact that Calories are units of measure of energy in food.

In the same way, a Mile is a unit of measure for distance. A calorie is a unit of measure for energy, and if we consume more energy than our body needs it will be stored somewhere. 

In the same way that if you travel four miles down the road, you are indeed four miles further on from your starting point. 

To adjust this storage of energy your body can indeed work these calories away and if you do this often enough and in enough quantity, you will then reduce the mass of your body. 

Hence the energy balance equation of:

Calories In vs Calories Out

Or

“Eat Less, Move More” a phrase that is dogged and plagued with ignorance. 

For more information on why Eat Less, Move More is an unhelpful term head here: https://www.thegymstarter.com/blog/2020/7/28/why-eat-less-move-more-is-causing-the-problem-not-curing-it

The energy balance equation is very simple and straightforward, and like with all things simple and straightforward it is going to be fraught with problems. 

And this is the truth behind Energy Balance.

Is A Calorie Deficit All That Matters For Weight Loss?

The Truth of Energy Balance

Calories In is not simply “how much you eat”

To view it thus is to oversimplify your human condition. 

And Science supports us here too. 

The factors that lend themselves to Calories In are the following:

Personal Economic Factors, Social Factors, Community Factors, Genetic Factors, Medical Factors, and Emotional Factors.

Personal Economic Factors

When the UK Government launched its new “Tackling Obesity: empowering adults and children to live healthier lives” plan there were many people on the telly box stating that:

“It's not more expensive to eat healthily”  

Which is a falsehood. 

In 2014 the University of East Anglia and the University of Cambridge teamed up with The British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research UK, Economic and Social Research Council, Medical Research Council, the National Institute for Health Research, and the Wellcome Trust and produced a paper which looked at the growing price gap between healthy and unhealthy foods in the UK. 

They concluded:

“Since 2002, more healthy foods and beverages have been consistently more expensive than less healthy ones, with a growing gap between them. This trend is likely to make healthier diets less affordable over time, which may have implications for individual food security and population health, and it may exacerbate social inequalities in health.” [3]

and the results found:

“In 2012 the average price of more healthy foods was about three times higher — £7.49 for 1,000kcal compared to £2.50 for 1,000kcal of less healthy foods” [4]

There are limitations to this study, namely that foods were judged per 1000kcal, and healthier foods are generally less calorie-dense. 

Aside from this, I am writing this article at the end of 2020, which has been a year of great economic unrest and at a time where the poverty gap in most western societies is widening also.

I’ve said this before and I will say it again;

“When someone doesn’t know where their next meal is coming from, they aren’t going to worry about the quality of that meal…they are just going to be thankful they got to eat today”

Is A Calorie Deficit All That Matters For Weight Loss?

The Truth of Energy Balance

Social Factors

This works both ways. 

Having a very active social life can lead to a lack of control over your diet. I think we all find it hard to understand our calorie intake when we are eating out more and enjoying ourselves socially. 

But the solution to that is simple in that you can choose to not go out as a way of balancing your caloric intake and the effect it might be having on your physical health. 

There is however a flip side.

What if you don’t have the choice, to begin with? What if you never have the option to meet friends and go for dinner? What if you can’t afford dinner out? What if you don’t drive and don’t like getting public transport places? What if you have to stay home to look after the children? What if you are in a controlling domestic relationship and it's just not an option to enjoy yourself in that way because the consequences are too great?

Boredom is a key indicator as a cause of Obesity.

California State University (Edward E. Abramson et al, 1977) conducted a study where they took a group of Obese Individuals and people who are rated as “Normal” on the BMI scale. They were fed until satiated, then asked to complete an interesting and boring task…whilst the food was readily available to them. The results were:

“That the obese consumed significantly more food than normals, and that boredom markedly increases food consumption for both obese and normals” [5]

And then in 2012 another study titled: “Eating when bored: revision of the emotional eating scale with a focus on boredom” concluded the following:

“These results suggest that boredom is an important construct and that it should be considered a separate dimension of emotional eating” [6]

Is A Calorie Deficit All That Matters For Weight Loss?

The Truth of Energy Balance

Community Factors

In the UK 10.2million or about 1/6th of the population live in a Food Desert.

Defined as the following: “Areas which are poorly served by food stores”

A report by the Social Marker Foundation, funded by Kellogs (make of that what you will), looked at “What are the barriers to eating healthily in the UK?” [7] and it found the following:

• For those living in poverty, 15% of all household expenditure is spent on food, compared to 10% of those not living in poverty.

• Just under a fifth (17%) of households surveyed as part of this research said groceries put a strain on their finances. For individuals with a household income of £10,000 or less, about two fifths (39%) said groceries were a strain on finances, as did about a quarter (23%) of those with a household income of between £10,000 and £20,000.

• Some survey respondents stated that high and unaffordable food prices have led to a range of behavioral responses. Across all households one in ten (10%) said that they had cut back on their own level of food consumption so that others in their family (such as children) can eat. This figure stands at 14% among households with an income of less than £10,000.

• A quarter of individuals (25%) said that they felt that healthy and nutritious food was unaffordable in the UK.

• Access to food may be a barrier for individuals living in “food deserts” — areas that are poorly served by food stores. In these areas, individuals without a car or with disabilities that hinder mobility may find it difficult to easily access a wide range of healthy, affordable food products

These are just a few of their findings. 

The truth of the barriers to eating healthily in the UK is simply terrifying, and I would encourage you to read the rest of the study here.

But Community means a lot more than just your location and access to food. 

What about your education? The availability of work? The availability of being able to attend a Gym? 

A study in Seoul, South Korea found the following:

“Lower socioeconomic status increases obesity. This is due to the intake of high-calorie and low-nutrition foods or environments that limit time and access to regular physical activities”

and a 2008 study, Frank et al, which was looking at “Walkability in neighborhoods” found the following:

“Male residents of more walkable neighborhoods were less likely to be obese or overweight”

and

“walking was consistently higher for all groups in the more walkable neighborhoods” [8]

Now imagine that for a second; you are more likely to be Obese simply because you don’t feel safe walking in your neighborhood, or your neighborhood isn’t accessible for walking for whatever reason. 

This is before we even begin to look at things like education availability, public transport options, healthcare options, and public funding for areas to help with many of these factors. 

Quite simply, where you are born and raised, through no fault of your own, could have a huge impact on your susceptibility to Obesity. 

Is A Calorie Deficit All That Matters For Weight Loss?

The Truth of Energy Balance

Genetic Factors

As it stands, you cannot be genetically obese. 

Your risk factors towards obesity increase as you age if you have a high-risk variant of a gene called FTO. [9]

This gene exists in everyone, and there are some people in the population who have a high-risk version of the gene and the gene controls your impulsivity, and if you are a carrier of the high-risk version of FTO you might find high-fat food more enjoyable [9].

However, studies have also found that those with this variant of the FTO respond just as well to weight loss treatment as anyone else. 

BUT (and its a big but) — carriers of this gene are more likely to store body fat because 

“people with two copies of the variant weigh on average 3kg more and are 1.7 times more likely to be obese” [10]

So what does all this mean? Well, firstly it means that for some people, it just is harder to lose weight because the clock keeps ticking, and they are starting from a different place genetically. 

But it doesn’t mean that you can’t necessarily take charge of your health and fitness — but aligning your goals to what the scale says might be a foolish way to go about it. 

Of the people my cited research included just 20% of them had two copies of the FTO Gene, and 48% carried one copy. Therefore the likelihood of your genetic makeup affecting your bodyweight is the last place to look if you aren’t getting the results you desire. 

It does however show that some people need more nuance in their understanding of why controlling calories in is so hard.

Is A Calorie Deficit All That Matters For Weight Loss?

The Truth of Energy Balance

Hormonal Issues

Then again, there are many other metabolic conditions that might affect your ability to sustain a calorie deficit and therefore lose weight. 

Conditions such as PCOS, Thyroid Issues, Hashimoto’s Disease, and Diabetes to name a few. 

Again, these conditions are not a life sentence to forever gaining weight, but they do blur the lines for you.

In all the research I have done on Hypothyroidism in relation to weight loss I have found this conclusion:

“In general, 5–10 pounds of body weight may be attributable to the thyroid, depending on the severity of the hypothyroidism. Finally, if weight gain is the only symptom of hypothyroidism that is present, it is less likely that the weight gain is solely due to the thyroid.” [11]

I have personally helped many people with PCOS lose and sustain weight loss, but it certainly requires a different skillset from the client. In relation to Hashimotos, I have never personally worked with someone who has this, however, I am aware of many success stories in this field, as well as those who have Diabetes. 

Hormonal issues ontop of everything else might make your weight loss journey a little slower and it might make it a little harder. But it by no means that it is not possible for you. 

Is A Calorie Deficit All That Matters For Weight Loss?

The Truth of Energy Balance

Medical Factors and Weight Stigmatisation in Society at Large

The sheer amount of medical conditions that might affect someone’s ability to stay in a Calorie Deficit is almost never-ending.

This also feeds into the other aspect of the energy balance equation which is Calories Out. 

For example, someone who has Arthritis is far less likely to be able to engage in physical activity. 

But the bigger issue in the field of Medical Factors is the constant Weight Stigmatisation that those with larger body mass face whenever they are seeing their Doctors. 

The first two minutes of this TedTalk demonstrates this very powerfully. 

Added to that in a 2015 study looked directly at this and they have stated the following:

“There is considerable evidence that such attitudes influence person-perceptions, judgment, interpersonal behavior, and decision-making. These attitudes may impact the care they provide. Experiences of or expectations for poor treatment may cause stress and avoidance of care, mistrust of doctors, and poor adherence among patients with obesity. Stigma can reduce the quality of care for patients with obesity despite the best intentions of healthcare providers to provide high-quality care.” [12]

The title of the study is: “Impact of weight bias and stigma on quality of care and outcomes for patients with obesity” [12]

In my opinion, that shouldn’t even have to exist as a study, but alas it does — I suppose Doctors are just human too. 

You see this has an impact on the “Calories In” side of the equation because we know that when people are subjected to Weight Stigmatisation it leads to an increase in caloric consumption. 

As the following Obesity Research Journal study found in 2011:

Overweight women who watched the stigmatizing video ate more than three times as many kilocalories as overweight women who watched the neutral video (302.82 vs. 89.00 kcal), and significantly more calories than the normal-weight individuals who watched either the stigmatizing or the neutral video

and

These findings suggest that among overweight women, exposure to weight stigmatizing material may lead to increased caloric consumption [16]

Weight sitgmatization happens everywhere. This particular study showed participants a video — and that was a contorlled environment. But it’s a lot harder to control this in the big wide world when you have no say in what you see on Billboards, TV ads, the Media Headlines, Social Media, and the sheer ignorant opinion of others who haven’t read an article like this and really looked at the Science beyond “Calories In vs Calories Out”. 

That is a lot of exposure. 

In a 2018 opinion article published on the BioMed Editorial Website, they looked at “How and why weight stigma drives the obesity ‘epidemic’ and harms health”

Researchers concluded the following:

“Weight stigma is likely to drive weight gain and poor health and thus should be eradicated. This effort can begin by training compassionate and knowledgeable healthcare providers who will deliver better care and ultimately lessen the negative effects of weight stigma.” [13]

Is A Calorie Deficit All That Matters For Weight Loss?

The Truth of Energy Balance

Emotional Factors and Disordered Eating 

The direct link between Emotional Eating and weight gain is incredibly clear to see. The constant feed in our society of the binge and restrict cycle makes up the majority of my work and the sheer majority of my colleagues work in the Fitness Industry. 

This is due to a problem that the Fitness Industry created for itself, in helping the media prioritize the “thin ideal” as a marker of health and we are now walking headfirst into issues such as Obesity as well as many Eating Disorders like Bulimia, Anorexia, and Binge Eating Disorders.  

Combined with all of the factors that surround emotional eating and disordered eating you must also look at the past trauma of people who are obese. 

For instance, some people use weight gain as a way of making themselves invisible and undesirable to the opposite sex as Justin Faden et al (2012) found that:

73% of patients undergoing psychiatric hospitalization following gastric bypass have a history of sexual abuse. [14]

Then let's look at Mental well-being in relation to Obesity. 

A meta-analysis published in 2008 in the Journal of Health Psychology found that:

“Combining data from 16 studies the results confirmed that, after controlling for potential confounding variables, depressed compared to nondepressed people were at significantly higher risk for developing obesity. The risk among depressed people for later obesity was particularly high for adolescent females.” [15]

Which will then lead us to Social Media usage and the effect that can have on Calories In.

The International Journal of Eating Disorders published a study in 2019 and found that:

“A clear pattern of association was found between Social Media usage and Disordered Eating cognitions and behaviors with this exploratory study confirming that these relationships occur at younger‐age than previously investigated.[16]”

Is A Calorie Deficit All That Matters For Weight Loss?

The Truth of Energy Balance

The conclusion to “Calories In”

I think thus far this article has made it very, very clear that the depth to Calories In is so deep and so great that simply understanding the Energy Balance Equation as “In vs Out” just isn’t enough. 

And the terrifying part? I have picked just a few examples. The world is littered with many other aspects of what makes Calories In so complex too. This isn’t the whole picture of the equation. It is merely a snapshot that I can comprehend.

Yes, Calories In will need to be reduced for a successful weight loss journey, but when you view the spider web of what really goes into Calories In you begin to see that there is a whole world of social science and physical science that needs to be understood as well.

This understanding leads to one thing: empathy. 

Empathy for the person you are working with and therefore building a bridge to the Calories In, side of the energy balance equation. 

Is A Calorie Deficit All That Matters For Weight Loss?

The Truth of Energy Balance

Calories Out is not simply “how much you burn”

On the other side of the Energy Balance equation, you have Calories Out. 

And this is just as complex as Calories In. 

The Factors that lead to Calories Out are the following:

Weight Sitgmatisaiton, Fat Phobic Attitudes, A Lack of Self Confidence, Inaccessible Gyms and Arresting Environments, Repeated Failure.

The age-old proverb of “you can take a horse to water but you can’t make it drink” is the overriding theme here.

I have already explored the relationship between poverty and obesity in this article, so let us assume that said person has the finances to join a gym in the first place. 

They have the “motivation” to be at the gym and they are there primarily to try and get their weight down and to help with their Obesity. 

What kind of experience do you think this person will have? How many other people do you think they will see in the Gym that they can relate to? 

Plus the mirrors. Wicklund and Duval in 1971, put together a study upon which they found:

Viewing oneself via mirrors has been shown to increase levels of objective SA (situational awarenss) via self-evaluation, leading to increased awareness of the discrepancy between an individual’s current self and his or her “ideal” self [17]

The mirrors literally stop people from being motivated to workout. 

Then there are the machines. I personally find some of the seats uncomfortable on these machines, and I am 6ft 4in and weigh 80kgs.

Then the marketing of the Gym. Everywhere you look there is a poster of a very fit person telling you to simply “get in shape in 12 weeks”.

Like it is that easy. 

Add to that the attitudes of people within the Gym. The personal trainer someone might talk to about their goals, and then the very basic nutrition plan you receive that has no preference for food you actually like. Combined with the fact that if you want some more education and someone to show you the ropes, well, that's going to cost you extra on top of your membership. 

In researching this article I came across the following study: “Obese persons’ physical activity experiences and motivations across weight changes: a qualitative exploratory study” [18]

This study has stories from people who are obese and have tried to exercise to help with their weight loss. 

“I’d been on [another trip] maybe 15 years ago where the hiking club actually left me on a mountain because I couldn’t keep up, and [they] said you can sit here and wait for us to come down and get you, or you can go down by yourself. But you’re not coming with us; we’re not waiting for you anymore.” [18]

This is an actual person who was left on the side of a mountain by a Hiking Group. 

Just let that sink in a little bit. 

If that was you…how would you feel?

I’m not sure if you have ever seen me lift weights and the faces I pull…but it's not exactly attractive. This is the closest GIF I could find:

Now imagine you are someone who is already extremely self-conscious. 

“… It’s kind of intimidating … you’re doing something that’s making your body move in all sorts of ways that is not attractive, and you feel like everyone’s going to see this.” [18]

This is a barrier to “Calories Out” that is very real and very true.

In this study they concluded the following:

“Finding an environment in which participants felt safe and encouraged to be active was extremely important, and instances of such inclusion had major ramifications on social wellbeing” [18]

But I personally think this sums it up the most:

“While participants had pleasure-related reasons for engaging in physical activity, this enjoyment could be overshadowed by the grip of caloric fear or dread of a demobilized future; a need for performative achievement or a thinner body; or the need to be a conspicuous exception to potentially stigmatizing anti-obesity messaging. Focusing on their health and fitness achievements and behaviors may have helped participants cope with their sizes in a stigmatizing climate. However, participants could still be overwhelmed by pressures to always be healthier or more active, and many participants had histories of disordered eating and activity practices.” [18]

Is A Calorie Deficit All That Matters For Weight Loss?

The Truth of Energy Balance

The Conclusion to “Calories Out”

Simply saying “exercise more” is base and unfair to say to humans who have panic attacks when they walk into a gym because of how arresting that environment is.

Telling them to just go for a run, when they already feel very self-aware isn’t helpful either — aside from the fact that running is an extremely hard form of exercise on your joints.

And added to that…listen to this story from Latoya Shauntay Snell who was heckled at mile 22 of a marathon by a man on the sidelines who shouted:

“It's going to take your fat ass forever”

Even people who aren’t struggling with their weight find it incredibly hard to find the motivation to workout and exercise. To simply reduce someone who is struggling as someone who is “just too lazy” is being a complete hypocrite towards your own struggles with being able to maintain a level of physical activity.

Just Do It; Just Don’t Cut It

In Conclusion

Quite simply…you can lose weight without exercise, and if you find exercise extremely triggering there are things you can do to still achieve weight loss goals without exercise.

That being said…I advise against losing weight without exercise.

I also advise against making weight loss the sole reason you want to exercise.

Caloric Control is required when it comes to your Diet in order to control your weight, but giving yourself more understanding and empathy for the context of what that truly means can actually give you a release from the constant wheel house of failure you seem to find yourself on.

What is most interesting in the study “Obese persons’ physical activity experiences and motivations across weight changes: a qualitative exploratory study” is that they identify two other reasons these people want to exercise:

• Maintenance of functioning and mobility;

• Pleasure derived from activity.

A Calorie Deficit clearly isn’t all that matters when it comes to exercise. The preservation of the self and finding movement as a means of enjoyment can mean so much to a person, far above and beyond what a weight loss success will give them.

The more I look, the more data I find that suggests that learning to fall in love with the movement of your body will make you so much happier than just worrying about losing weight.

“Stop foccusing on Re-duction of the body and start focussing on Pro-duction”

And finally;

These findings imply that to encourage physical activity among individuals with diverse weight histories and attitudes, physical activity messaging and programming may benefit from moving beyond a weight loss focus. Many participants in the present study found physical activity rewarding in itself. Disappointment in weight loss aims could be a disincentive to physical activity. Furthermore, physical activity messaging should feature a variety of bodies and abilities, as should activity venues and classes…An inclusive model of physical activity for people of all sizes would focus on enjoyment, pleasurable accomplishment, and social belonging emergent during physical activity, rather than focusing on possibly unachievable or ultimately exclusionary endpoints.

Personally I quite like that.

An inclusive model of physical activity.

If you put that at the heart of what you do clearly a calorie deficit is unequivocally not “all that matters”.

What’s Next?

I have plenty more articles about weight loss for females throughout this website.

Here is a selection I think would make great further reading for you:

1. Why Eat Less, Move More is causing the problem, not curing it

2. How To Actually Lose Weight with PCOS

3. Is Your Metabolism Broken?

You are also invited to get a bundle of Fat Loss Goodies from me including:

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”

Get yourself a free customized Calorie Calculator

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References:

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2. Fleming, J.A., Kris-Etherton, P.M. Macronutrient Content of the Diet: What Do We Know About Energy Balance and Weight Maintenance?. Curr Obes Rep 5, 208–213 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13679-016-0209-8

3. Jones NRV, Conklin AI, Suhrcke M, Monsivais P (2014) The Growing Price Gap between More and Less Healthy Foods: Analysis of a Novel Longitudinal UK Dataset. PLoS ONE 9(10): e109343. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0109343

4. nhs.uk. 2020. ‘Healthy Foods Expensive’ Claim Is Unrealistic. [online] Available at: <https://www.nhs.uk/news/food-and-diet/healthy-foods-expensive-claim-is-unrealistic/> [Accessed 22 November 2020].

5. Abramson, Edwaed E., Stinson Shawn G., (1977).
   Boredom and eating in obese and non-obese individuals,
   Addictive Behaviors, Volume 2, Issue 4, 1977, Pages 181–185 https://doi.org/10.1016/0306-4603(77)90015-6.

6. Moynihan AB, van Tilburg WA, Igou ER, Wisman A, Donnelly AE, Mulcaire JB. Eaten up by boredom: consuming food to escape awareness of the bored self. Front Psychol. 2015;6:369. Published 2015 Apr 1. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00369

7. Social Market Foundation. 2020. What Are The Barriers To Eating Healthily In The UK? — Social Market Foundation. [online] Available at: <https://www.smf.co.uk/publications/barriers-eating-healthily-uk/> [Accessed 23 November 2020].

8. Frank LD, Kerr J, Sallis JF, Miles R, Chapman J. A hierarchy of sociodemographic and environmental correlates of walking and obesity. Prev Med. 2008 Aug;47(2):172–8. doi: 10.1016/j.ypmed.2008.04.004. Epub 2008 Apr 22. PMID: 18565576.

9. nhs.uk. 2020. FTO ‘Fat Gene’ May Make People More Impulsive. [online] Available at: <https://www.nhs.uk/news/genetics-and-stem-cells/fto-fat-gene-may-make-people-more-impulsive/> [Accessed 23 November 2020].

10. nhs.uk. 2020. People With ‘Obesity Gene’ Can Still Lose Weight. [online] Available at: <https://www.nhs.uk/news/obesity/people-with-obesity-gene-can-still-lose-weight/> [Accessed 23 November 2020].

11. British Thyroid Foundation. 2020. Thyroid And Weight — The Science. [online] Available at: <https://www.btf-thyroid.org/thyroid-and-weight-the-science> [Accessed 25 June 2020].

12. Phelan SM, Burgess DJ, Yeazel MW, Hellerstedt WL, Griffin JM, van Ryn M. Impact of weight bias and stigma on quality of care and outcomes for patients with obesity. Obes Rev. 2015;16(4):319–326. doi:10.1111/obr.12266

13. Tomiyama, A., Carr, D., Granberg, E. et al. How and why weight stigma drives the obesity ‘epidemic’ and harms health. BMC Med 16, 123 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12916-018-1116-5

14. Faden, J., Leonard, D., O’Reardon, J., & Hanson, R. (2013). Obesity as a defense mechanism. International journal of surgery case reports, 4(1), 127–129. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijscr.2012.10.011

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I've Been Dealing With Imposter Syndrome My Entire Life

Have you ever heard the phrase:

“Jack of all trades…Master of none”

Well, that’s me. Or rather that’s what my own brain thinks of me. I think it’s also the story I have been told throughout my life as well. 

I have done many things: 

• Worked as a Magician 

• Worked as an Actor 

• Been a Semi-Pro Soccer Referee

• Worked in Finance

• Worked as a Personal Trainer

• Worked as a Marketer

• Worked as a Voice Over Artist

• Worked as a Sports Writer

• Worked as a Film Producer

• Worked as a Stage Manager

• Been CEO of a Theatre School Company 

A lot of things and I’m only 33 years old. In and of themselves they have all had success. They have all bought me happiness and an element of fulfillment. But, except for Personal Training, none of them have ever met up to Society’s norms of success for their field. 

I was always that likable kid. But never THE kid. I would always be third or fourth last from getting picked for the playground football team. I remember at College we had a students vs teachers Basketball game. I made the bench. I played for a total of 7 minutes. 

Let’s look at my High School Grades; I got straight B’s in 12 subjects.

I joined a Cricket Team. I was only ever trusted to Bowl to the 11th Batsman…and was known as the “That fielder guy”.

At Drama School, I graduated with a 2:1. My biggest achievement there was Olly Gomm saying to me: “You had a great third year. I really thought you would get a 1st” 

Olly got a 1st. Alas, I didn’t. I’m not a “1st kind of guy”.

I was also told at Drama School from my head of acting that my roles in the profession would be; I can remember Annie saying it to me now, “Rodney from Only Fools and Horses, Adam, you’re the best friend, the guy next door”

I’m a steady hand. The middle of the road. The guy you can rely on. I’m Benvolio, not Romeo. I’m Rosencrantz, not Hamlet. I’m Fabian, not Sir Andrew Aguecheek.

FYI…Fabian is the best part I have ever played. 

I do have some achievements in my life; I was Head Boy at school, which is no mean feat, but so was Alex Hocking the straight-A student who I always played second fiddle to in the eyes of my peers and teachers (not Alex, he’s a lovely man). 

I got into Drama School at 18 years of age. That is pretty much unheard of. But what it did to me was pretty rough, as I was one of the youngest, one of the most in-experienced actors in the year and felt well out of my depth for at least 2 years of my 3 years at Drama School.

I tell you all of this not because it’s fun to list my minor achievements and failures, but because understanding the person I am, and the narrative that has been throughout my life as the “nearly guy” the “nice guy” is crucial to understanding what my Imposter Syndrome is, and how I have to deal with it, hopefully giving you some ideas on how to keep moving forward when you get attacked by this anxiety. 

I learned from an early age that greatness was not something I was destined for. I’m not sure where that lesson came from, but I knew it to be true. 

However, I never listened to it. 

I never gave in. 

When I set my eyes on going to Drama School there wasn’t a soul on the planet that was going to stop me. I became very hedonistic, very stubborn, and very determined to achieve what I openly set out to achieve. Many, many people told me not to. Many, many people told me to “get a proper job” however the other voices I could hear in my mind were those of the bullies that had plagued my life. 

Telling me things like: 

“You’re not good looking enough to be an actor”

“You’re not good enough to be an actor”

“What makes you think you will get into Drama School?”

“Are you serious? You’re not even the best actor in our year”

And I wasn’t about to let them win. 

So I worked. 

Hard. 

I didn’t work just a little bit. I worked like a pig. I read every book I could, I saw every play I could, I watched, listened and absorbed as much information about how to become an Actor that I could possibly get my hands on. I wasn’t going to relent. I practiced my Monologues on Christmas Day, I used self-affirmations for my dream each and every day, I designed my life from the moment I made being an actor my goal, I designed my life to make that dream come true. 

I was like an athlete. Up early, training each day, not going to Social Events, and getting caught up in things that didn’t serve my goal. 

I was razor focussed

There wasn’t anything that was going to stop me. Especially my bullies. 

And this theme of working hard. This theme of being relentless is the thing that keeps my imposter syndrome at bay, and I notice it creeps up on me every time my workload drops. 

I now work as an Online Personal Trainer and I have to say that being in a much more public environment has definitely caused more imposter like feelings. 

Let me take you back to Hamley’s in Regent Street when I first started working as a Magician. I learned magic at the age of 16 on the film set of “About A Boy”, film sets are very boring places with a lot of waiting around and I happened to pick up a deck of cards and start learning how to manipulate them. Once Drama School was over, I decided to use this as a backup to earn some money. I so happened to start hanging out with a little group of Magicians based in Kent, who are without a doubt some of the top close-up magicians the UK has to offer. These guys were being flown all over Europe to perform at very exclusive parties for some very rich people.

I have always wanted to live my life by this one rule: 

“If you’re the best person in the room at what you do, you’re in the wrong room”

So I tried to cut it with these Magicians. But I was well out of my depth, and I knew deep down I would never get to their level. I felt like an imposter, and I knew I couldn’t work my way out of it this time…

Because I didn’t want to. I was crippled by my Imposter Syndrome. I didn’t think I could ever work hard enough to get as good as these people. 

So I gave up.

I let myself down. 

And now as a Personal Trainer, I still live by the same rule. 

But I’m not going to let myself down.

At Drama School, I worked my butt off. I worked my butt off before I got there, and when I got there. We had to do 6 days a week, 12 hours a day for three years. 

I had two days off in three years, both for Hospital Appointments for my Heart Condition. 

As a Personal Trainer, I surround myself by the best in the business. I get them as Guests on my Podcast, I listen to their Podcasts, I read their books and I go to them for help. 

But this is a double-edged sword. 

Because when I hear them speak, when I hear them coach others, I have this very loud thought in my head:

“You will never be as good as them. All you do is repeat what you hear and copy what they say. They are better than you will ever be. What’s the point?”

Sometimes this thought drills me to a standstill. 

Sometimes I can pass it off as nonsense and carry on with my day.

But one thing it will never do is make me give up.

I know that hard work. Not just being tired. But relentless, obsessive hard work will one day shut that voice up. I don’t know when I don’t know how, but I know that it will. 

And I know this to be true because I did get into Drama School. 

I did stand on the Olivier Stage and speak Shakespeare. 

I can achieve what I want when I lose my ego, and knuckle down. 

Yes, I might be a jack of all trades, but I also know that whenever I apply myself to something, I make it work, through passion, confidence, and being honest with myself and those around me. 

Being a “Jack of All Trades” isn’t necessarily a bad thing when you have a job that requires extreme empathy and understanding of other people in many many many different situations. 

In fact, I’m learning to turn my weakness into my strength. Being a “Jack of All Trades” is helping me learn how to be a master of one.

I might not reach greatness. 

But I don’t need that. What I do need is to make sure that to those around me I remain humble, I remain honest, and I remain nice. 

It’s nice to be nice. 

And we all know that ‘nice guy's finish last’.

I’m ok with that.

Because in the same way, I would tell someone who wants to lose weight that there is no time limit, there is no rush. 

That you only fail when you give up.

I too am telling myself that I am not going to fail this time. I might well be Mr. Mediocre. I might well be Benvolio and not Romeo. 

But hard work always pays off in the end. 

And my pay off will be when that voice no longer screams: 

“You’re not good enough” 

I don’t need it to say:

“You’re so brilliant at what you do” either.

Silence will be more than enough. 

Afterall;

“Silence is the perfectest herald of joy” — Much Ado About Nothing, William Shakespeare

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And above all remember this…for as long as you are trying your best no one can ask for more from you.

Coach Adam

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