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How To Start Your Fitness Journey: A Guide for Beginners
As you probably know by now, I’m The Gym Starter, better known as Adam and I find it shocking that I haven’t written this article sooner.
I’m working on my own self compassion with this…a theme that will be key to this article…so if I can forgive myself, I’m hoping, you can too dear reader.
There was a phrase I was taught at Drama School when it came to writing:
“Don’t get it right, get it written”
Which along with self-compassion is one of the most important tasks for someone who wants to “start their fitness journey”
Before we begin, I just wanted to let you know that I have indeed written a Workout Guide exactly for you. It’s called The Beginners Bodyweight Workout Guide and is made up of 10-minute workouts, to do at home. It has 56 workouts in there and you can get this totally for free.
If you chose to acquire it, you are also acquiring me as your friend. This brings me joys untold but does come with a warning. The warning being: I will send you things. Helpful things. Things like Podcasts, Articles and thoughts…these thoughts might not always be appropriate, but in truth, isn’t that what makes friends friends?
To send me a friend request (and to get The Beginners Bodyweight Guide) just put your email in here:
TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR:
How To Start Your Fitness Journey:
Step 1: The truth behind being able to start
Step 2: Why is it called a journey?
Step 3: Releasing Expectations
Step 4: Understanding confidence
Step 5: Understanding there is no right/or wrong
Step 6: What Should You Do In The Gym?
Step 1: The Truth Behind Being Able To Start
At the point of which I am writing this…the number one hit on Google for this topic (a position I am hoping to overthrow) outlines 6 points about starting.
One of which is “create a vision board”.
I remember doing this once because I was told to do it. It didn’t connect me to my dreams, it just annoyed me - because it forced my brain into the world of comparison, and it constantly reminded me of where I wasn’t - not where I currently am.
Maybe I’m just bad at Vision Boards - and if that is your thing, then great, but I don’t think it offers much help here.
Starting a Fitness Journey might just be one of the hardest things someone is going to do.
And I just don’t think a Vision Board is really going to help someone overcome their fears.
Fears of:
Failure
The Gym Environment
Judgement from others
Resistance from loved ones
Overwhelm of information
Getting it wrong
It taking too long
and one of the biggest fears:
Not being good enough
For it is within these topics that we have to truly find the answers.
I could tell you all the practical stuff in the world:
Find a Gym you like
Ask for help from Personal Trainer at the Gym
Start with X workout
Eat-in a Calorie Deficit to lose weight
Get a Vision Board
But none of that is really going to create the lasting change you need until we deal with the fears that you have about fitness.
Fear is:
F alse
E xpectation
A ppearing
R eal
And having practical help, will not alleviate these false expectations, they will simply suspend them - and when they come home to roost again you will have fallen into the same pattern as before of starting then stopping and feeling like a failure.
The issue with allowing fear to dominate in the short term is that it feeds the fear in the longer term. By not addressing your fear when you first feel it, you give it more and more power over time, to the point it will dominate you more than it needs to.
All of those fears I listed above are very real, but the more you find the courage to work against them, the less significant the fear will feel.
And it is my job to help you find the courage to negotiate those fears in order to help you start your fitness journey.
You are here now. You are in a safe space.
Just this weekend I felt the need to reach out to an old client of the Strong & Confident Program.
She had her fears. She was very new to exercise and working out. She had never worked with a Coach before - and even though our time came to an end about a year ago, just the other day I sent her this:
This should always be the ultimate goal. To continue being active, to continue getting stronger, to be able to get rid of your fears, so the changes last forever. So they last the entire length of your journey… also known as: Life.
Step 2: Why Is It Called A Journey?
Just quickly, every time I put a Schitts Creek GIF into one of these articles, it slows me down, because I then have to go back and watch it all over again…HOW GOOD IS SCHITT’S CREEK?
Ok, I’ve now managed to prize myself away from Netflix. I need to be honest with you.
I have a love/hate relationship with the word “journey”.
But the more I see, and I am nearly 10 years into my Personal Training Career the more I understand why we use this word, and why I am currently in a phase of loving it more than hating it.
It comes down to the human experience. We live to experience, not to simply achieve.
In fact, the more you focus on achievement, quite often the more elusive it becomes.
Because what happens is you close yourself off to everything the journey has to offer.
A journey undulates.
A journey has a beginning (the topic if this article)
A middle
An end
A journey will be hard at times.
It will also be easy at times.
You will want to stop
You will want to speed it up
You will have to be patient
You will have to contend with things both in and out of your control
A journey changes as you experience it
It has phases
And it also guarantees you stay in the moment.
You have to be present.
If you want to get somewhere - you can’t rush the process of getting there. It will only ever take as long as it takes.
In Intuitive Eating: 4th Edition Evelyn Tribole states:
“We call it a journey because there is no judgement attached”
I might have paraphrased, but I like the effect of these words. The more we can disassociate with judgement from ourselves with regards to fitness, the more present in the human experience we can be.
I say we because this is something I have to work on as well.
Each month, I set my clients a monthly challenge - for February 2022 its to read a book by a psychologist. The book is by Dr Julie Smith, and is called “Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before”
In the section addressing the topic of self-acceptance, she explains that the “work is never done”. She reveals that on the journey of living a life of self-compassion, you do the work every day to live in align with unconditional self-acceptance; you never arrive.
And it is through the same lens that those who are successful in fitness view their fitness. It is this that makes it a journey for them.
And it is this that is the key to getting your journey started.
Step 3: Releasing Expectation
I talk about this very often with fitness - the biggest thing that will perpetuate your feelings of failure is your expectations of the result.
Its a very frustrating dichotomy:
We have to have a goal to get started on a fitness journey, but these goals can also be the reason you give up.
And it all comes down to your expectations.
Society at large has done a fantastic job on selling you the unachievable dream in terms of fitness. I’m not here to sour your hopes and dreams about getting started, but a realistic starting point for you would be to take what you want to achieve and then at least double the time frame in which you think it will be achievable.
By lengthening out your time frame, you will give yourself more space and time to allow your fitness to develop properly. The human body doesn’t change quickly, and more importantly the faster it does change the harder it is to sustain.
Many diets are built on your willpower, not habit transformation,
And your willpower will run out. As your life gets stressful. And your life will get stressful.
And when that happens, you won’t be able to live up to your expectations - which creates more stress, and the cycle will continue until you finally stop your fitness journey.
All because you tried to do too much, too soon and it just wasn’t sustainable.
Nor was it flexible.
My birthday is in early February. This means every new year I know it is futile to set huge expectations of fitness because |’m going to enjoy my birthday, and I won’t be able to keep up with a 4x a week program in the Gym at that time in my life.
For you, it could be lots of your friends are getting married, the school holidays, the Christmas/New Year combination or why is it that every single human in your family seems to have their birthday in the same month?
When these events which happen every year coincide with the 12 week period you gave yourself to “lose the weight” you obviously aren’t going to sacrifice making memories for going to the Gym.
And nor should you have to.
The only time you think you should have to is when you have far too strict a time frame to achieve your goals.
When you open up your time frame you create flexibility in your fitness journey to allow for your life.
This is crucial…because when it comes down to:
Life vs Fitness Journey
Life ALWAYS wins.
You should never have to pip one against the other - this is another reason we call it a journey. It has to have the ability to work with your life, not versus it.
Step 4: Understanding Confidence
Now that we have managed to take away your expectations, legitimised your fears and strategised on how to help you overcome them as well as actually figured out why it’s called a journey and how that will scope your attitude towards your future fitness I’m hoping you will feel a little more confident about starting.
Which is great.
And a good sign that you are setting yourself up for success, and not for repeated failure.
But confidence is a fickle thing.
And when you might actually be faced with a little more resistance it can evaporate quickly on us.
I’ve had many clients say to me over the years that they wished they had my confidence - and for many years I was never really sure where my confidence came from.
Then I heard something that bought it all into focus for me.
And I want you to remember this too.
Between where you are right now….and the confidence you wish to have is one word:
Courage
Now it’s important to remember this quote when discussing courage:
“Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, “I will try again tomorrow”
Courage comes in many forms. Sometimes it is the Braveheart-Esque bashing of the chest very masculine energy (FYI: I don’t have a great deal of that energy).
Sometimes it is having the courage to lead yourself with self-compassion.
Sometimes it’s having the courage to execute on the small things each day you said you would.
Confidence is something we must build at all different times in our lives. It is not something inherently given to you by God.
One reason I have confidence is because I have always been able to build a new comfort zone in new environments.
We can’t get confident unless we become comfortable. But you must keep levelling up your comfort zone to continue feeding your confidence. When you stop stretching out, when you stop trying to rebuild new zones of comfort in your life, you end up in what is known as a fixed mindset - and when you are challenged with a new environment or a new prospect ahead of you, like a fitness journey, you have no recent experience in building a new comfort zone, and so it seems all far too much to handle.
You stay where you are - and your confidence isn’t fed.
To build each new zone of comfort in your life you must have courage. This can be built slowly, or quickly, it really doesn't matter, but we do have to keep in order to keep driving our confidence and to not withdraw.
For example, at home I was always a very confident person, in my comfort zone and felt very capable at school…then I got into Drama School.
The first two years of my life at Drama School, yes; two years, I was low on confidence. I was out of my comfort zone by a long way and had to very slowly rebuild it alongside trying to figure out how to find out who I was in the world of a very elite Drama School full of extremely talented people.
I honestly never felt confident at Drama School, and in my abilities there, until my third year.
But I didn’t shy away. It was my dream coming true, I wasn’t going to stay at home and not show up each day. I just focussed on looking for my wins, trying to develop my ability, crafting my talent into a skill and rebuilding a comfort zone for me there on the first floor of a dingy building in Farringdon, London.
And that took courage. My courage took patience, it took self-compassion and it took a lot of failures and it took a lot of time. But I knew with every experience, both positive and negative, I would be able to make it my comfort zone - and when I managed that - I was a different person altogether.
And this is something I have done time and time and time again in my life.
The more comfort zones I have built, the more feedback I have in my life that I can figure it out. The easier it is to build again, and again, and again.
The above image shows where growth and therefore the building of your confidence lies.
Imagine the image as stepping stones over a river. You start on the first one, then once you are balanced and comfortable on that stone, you stretch your leg out, and move onto the next stone.
When you over stretch, you fall in and begin to panic.
But each time you stretch, you then find comfort again, and then you know you are ready to stretch once more. Avoiding panic.
Each Zone on the above diagram comes with words attached:
Comfort Zone: Unchallenged, Safe, Low Risk- Low Reward, Easy, Stable, Secure
Stretch Zone: Education focussed, Willing to learn, Find Purpose, Conquer Objectives, Anticipating, Excited
Panic Zone: Panic, Annoyed, Stressed, Lacks Self Confidence, Frustrated, Fed Up, Fearful, Effected by Opinions, Excuse Driven, Overwhelmed
We exist in all three zones in very different aspects of our lives. But let's convert this model into starting your Fitness Journey…because that is why you are here isn’t it?
In terms of Fitness, the Comfort Zone is not a good place to be. You will find your workouts uninteresting, you will find your journey monotonous, and progress will feel incredibly slow.
The Stretch Zone is where I try to keep all of my clients on my Strong and Confident Program. I think one of the most important aspects of a Fitness Journey is that of education - and I spend a lot of time trying to educate my clients on what they are doing. A fitness journey is a skill, and you can’t get better at that skill unless you learn more about it, and practice what you are learning.
My Weekly Forms for instance, which my clients use as a journal focus their minds on completing objectives, trying to get them excited about the progress they are journalling each week, and keeping them focussed on the purpose of living an active lifestyle and how they balance that into their lives.
Now, without a doubt, many of my clients miss the stretch zone and end up in the panic zone. They can feel overwhelmed, try to do too much at once, many of them lack self-confidence as a result of literally “over-stretching” all the time - and as you can imagine this undermines their ability to actually grow.
My job as their Personal Trainer is to write plans and workouts and check their form on exercises.
My role as their Coach is to keep them in the Stretch Zone.
And as you start your Fitness Journey - this will be your role too.
Don’t get overwhelmed by all the information, don’t worry about the result.
Focus on the process, not the outcome. The process is within your control, the output is not.
And by remaining in the stretch zone, you will stay rooted in the process, and build your confidence naturally. And as you grow, the way in which you stretch yourself will grow as well - ensuring constant development and growth throughout your Fitness Journey.
Step 5: Understanding There Is No Right or Wrong
Fitness can be a very overwhelming topic.
Wait: Where have you seen that word before in this article?
Overwhelm puts you into the Panic Zone.
Overwhelm can make you feel paralysed.
Overwhelm can make you feel like there’s no possible way you can do it.
And I’m sure whenever you have looked into “The Best Meal Plan” or “What Exercise is best for Fat Loss - Cardio or Weight Training” or even “How To Lose A Stone” the sheer amount of conflicting information has just made your brain go:
This is why truly getting to grips with the understanding that there is no right or wrong, just exploration is crucial as you start your journey.
Worrying about things that are well out of what you need to worry about isn’t going to help you.
At all.
To see whether or not you are achieving what you want to achieve with your fitness journey, all you need to do is the following:
One action every day that moves you further down the road
This could be increasing your step count day on day.
This could be increasing your step count on rest days, and doing your workout when it is planned.
This could be having a protein shake today.
This could be increasing your Vegetable intake.
Or my personal favourite:
Increase your sleep
And each day as you string together new behaviours you will make far greater progress, far quicker, than if you focus on what is right, or what is best.
I would go so far as to say, as long as today, you build in what you did yesterday - that is all you ever need to do really.
This doesn’t mean keep doing more.
Sometimes building on yesterday can mean having a rest day to allow the foundations to settle. It could mean listening to The Fitness Solution Podcast to educate and get a greater understanding of where you are at.
It could mean working out again.
You see, the options are actually limitless when you stop focussing on what is right and wrong and start focussing on what you want to explore.
And with limitless options, your journey will be full of colour, intrigue and excitement.
Step 6: What and How To Do. Not Why To Do It
This quote is another of my favourites.
“Practice makes progress permanent”
A lot of people when setting someone up on a fitness journey will try and get you to focus wholly on your “why”. Try and pull those emotional heartstrings:
You know the kind of stuff I mean:
To be able to play with my children
To feel more confident
To feel comfortable in photos
To feel sexy again
To reduce my tiredness
To improve my mental health
To reduce my feelings of anxiety
To get strong enough to fight a bear in the woods
The list goes on and on and on.
And I’m not demeaning why you want to do something, but when we attach whys to actions we frame them through judgement.
“To be able to play with my children” which could actually be “I’m too unfit and lazy to be able to enjoy time with my children”
“To feel sexy again” which could actually be “To feel less self-conscious and to feel desired by the opposite sex. To reduce my loneliness and to hopefully find some happiness through the attachment of another human”
And the truth behind the simpler forms of the whys is loaded with self-guilt, lack of self-compassion and brutal self-talk and inner feelings that will only focus you more on them.
You know why you are wanting to start a fitness journey - and really - you only need to use that as a motivator once.
That was your motivation for searching for this article on Google.
Now it’s about practical application.
Now it’s about building progress.
And making that progress permanent.
This is why, as you start your Fitness Journey it is vitally important you focus on “What to Do” and “How To Do It”.
What and How takes away the judgement of the “Why” and places you into a Stretch Zone.
Whereas focussing on the “Why” puts you into the Panic Zone.
Look at this practically. If you went to the Gym because you wanted to lose weight, a perfectly fair and reasonable goal, but you associate the action of going to the gym solely with why you are there.
“To lose weight” which could actually be “To feel more attractive to the opposite sex and to feel less judged by society”.
The Gym then becomes the place where you are going to get fixed, where you are going to try and remove your feelings - and that is not a nice energy to be working with when you are working out. It’s an energy that makes everything so much harder because you are focussed far too much on your negative self.
Therefore get focussed on the Practical.
What Should You Do In The Gym?
Honestly? Do what you enjoy.
That is your number one priority. As long as it is safe.
Don’t do what I have done on a couple of occasions.
Like fall off a treadmill at 18km/h. Yup I did that.
Try not to load a Deadlift Bar up unevenly by 20kgs, when thinking you’re going for a PB. Yup. I did that too.
Another thing I have done in the Gym that bought me no enjoyment. Enjoyment is key.
Because enjoyment is sustainable.
And…
Enjoyment is moveable. It’s so very easy to get caught up in optimal strength training for “best results”.
But if you hate doing it…you will never get to those “best results” because you won’t be able to do it for long enough.
Added to that by starting with what you enjoy, you can then build from there. What you enjoy can change over time as you get stronger, see results and keep consistent. What I enjoy now in the Gym is vastly different to what I enjoyed 3 or 4 years ago.
And that’s ok.
Because that means what I am doing right now is optimal for my results - because in four years time I will hopefully still be going and loving the benefits attached to being that consistent with my movement.
Let me tell you a little secret.
I used to get really caught up on what was the “ideal” thing for my clients - and it used to get in the way so much. Strength Training and Fitness for the vast majority of people isn’t that complex or needs to be overthought.
I used to feel so insignificant, and so unknowledgeable because I didn’t know the secret order of exercises to progress someone over a year.
I didn’t know what it felt like everyone else seemed to know…and that made me very worried indeed.
But there is no secret. Which is why I didn’t know it.
In fact…the thing that every other trainer seemed to know only got in the way of how they worked with people. They overthought it too much also.
The most optimal thing in strength training for the general population is showing up, and doing something that you enjoy.
Then from there, we can look at workouts that will progress you over time.
But that’s not as hard as it sounds. And don’t let it worry you.
The key principles to What to do in the Gym are:
Show Up
Enjoy what you do when you show up
Work on improving your form
Work on increasing the intensity of what you do in the Gym (heavier weights, longer runs, more sets and reps)
I have two workout Manuals I give away that work on these compelte principles.
The Confident and Strong Manual is a month of Gym Workouts and Home Workouts designed to be quick, accessible and straightforward for you.
They take care of all of the principles outlined above and will really help you start your Strength Training.
The Beginners Bodyweight Guide has a slightly lower barrier to entry and can be done at home. The workouts are just 10mins a day and include guided walks by myself as well - which is one of the most underrated forms of movement a human can do.
To get these manuals then all you have to do is put your email address in below and I will send the straight to you.
What’s Next?
I really hope you found this article useful, and you feel a lot more comfortable about starting your journey.
I also have some other articles you might find useful to help flesh out how to go about starting your Fitness Journey.
Thank you so much for being here - it means an awful lot to me.
Have a great day…
Coach Adam
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.
Table of Contents for “How Can College Students Stay Fit and Healthy?”
Who is The Gym Starter?
How To Manage Food on a Budget
How To Workout in a Dorm Room
How Can Exercise Help Your Mental Wellbeing As A Student
Parting Advice for Students
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.
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:
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.
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!
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.
What’s Next?
Across this website, I have other Articles all about managing your physical and nutritional health:
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
References:
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
What is Binge Eating Disorder?
What is Binge Eating Disorder?
Last night I had a wonderful chat with a client about Binge Eating.
And it got me thinking about how do we define what a Binge truly is?
Part of me wants to say that “Binge-Eating” is one of those terms we throw around these days as its becoming a little more of the zeitgeist.
And don’t get me wrong awareness of this is very very important and I would never undermine anyone bringing awareness to it, for others and themselves.
But how do we define it?
Standard rules say this: “The consumption of large quantities of food in a short period of time, typically as part of an eating disorder”
Which doesn’t really help us.
“Large Quantities of food”
Is this any food? Can you binge on Broccoli? Is large quantities relating to the calorie content only, or the grams of food you have eaten?
“Short Period of Time”
What is a short period of time? 1 hour? 1 Evening? One journey? One Month?
and then the part of it “typically being part of an eating disorder” doesn’t help either. As it opens up the fact if you don’t have an eating disorder you are too a Binge Eater.
Well, that’s no help…so what do you do now?
I try to avoid my clients from using the term “binge” due to it allowing them to sink into a world of negative self-talk.
Which is to be avoided at all times.
I would always prefer a client to refer to their food more objectively than subjectively. Calories are calories are calories.
Therefore in terms of a binge…maybe we could define it as eating 70% of their daily calories in a short period of time
Therefore if someone is eating 2000 calories a day.
In a matter of hours or an evening they will have needed to consume 70% of that.
1400 calories.
But this comes with problems in that 1400 calories is the same as just:
Two McDonalds Iced Vanilla Frappe
Two McDonalds Double Quarter Pounders with Cheese
A Big Mac Meal with a Hot Apple Pie
Now if you ate any of that at lunch time….I don’t think you would sit there and class what you just had as a Binge.
It seems almost too reasonable.
Which brings me to my next point.
Is it defined by emotion?
Ah-ha.
Does Binge Eating come down to whether or not you feel guilty about what you just ate?
And if it does….then we can’t define it in any way shape or form because we are all so bloody different in the way we feel about these things.
Sure, in the past I have eaten lots of food….probably beyond 70% of my daily calorie intake.
But I personally have never felt guilty about it.
I’ve never felt the need to purge it from my body in the form of exercise or excessive dieting.
Or worse: facing down the toilet.
I have only once ever felt like this, and that was after trying a cigarette for the first time when I was about 17. (sorry mum!)
It was menthol, and it was wonderful
I had two drags.
But the next day I woke up and knew I had to get rid of the craving that was building up inside me. So I went running and got rid of that craving.
Now, this was easy for me to do…because I don’t NEED cigarettes to live. In fact quite the opposite.
But with food, as it is our source of survival, I would not suggest purging the food from your body in any way shape or form because you are feeling guilty about what you did.
I think its best you just step away from what you have experienced.
Draw a line under it.
Get to bed
Say Fuck IT
And reset again tomorrow.
Again….
A lot easier said than done.
Conclusion….?
I have no idea. I’m, really not overly sure what constitutes a binge.
I think it must come down to “a feeling you have about yourself when you consume something to excess that you feel like you probably shouldn’t have in a shorter period of time than you feel is adequate”
But I really don’t know.
Maybe defining it isn’t something we need to worry about…
As a coach, I just need to listen to you when you say you did, respect your opinion of yourself and try to help you move away from those feelings about yourself, and help you reflect on why it occurred, and how we can manage it for next time.
Which is basically my philosophy to life.
Draw A Line Under It
Say Fuck It
Get to Bed
Start again tomorrow.
What are your thoughts? I would love to hear from you.
Let's Talk About Nike, baby...
I will get into the meat of this in a moment…but firstly I want to say…
THEY HAVE PARA MANNEQUINS TOO.
They have roundly supported a more proportionate slice of society. And I can’t help but feel the para mannequins need to be front and centre of all articles written on this too.
I have worked with a Para-Athlete for over a year now, and to simply say they are lost and forgotten in the world of rehab, fitness and fashion is an understatement.
NB: Having been to the Nike Store, I found only one Para Mannequin. So good. But not great.
A for effort from Nike anyway. Shame on every other media outlet, columnist and fitspo influencer who has briefly missed this point and taken the fight up either for or against the *fat* people.
A side note to the Tanya Golds amongst us: You can’t chose one part of society to support or slander if you are fighting for equality. Equality belongs to all.
Now that’s done…I will progress onto my views on the rest of the argument.
In a wholly divisive moment Nike’s marketing department has installed Plus Size Mannequins into their London Store for the world to see and talk about.
This has meant columnists around the world both on #bodypositive side of the equation and the #fightfat side are now arguing the merits and the not so merits of this move.
Is it promoting a bad body image? Is it fully inclusive?
Well…any sane human being with a right and salient mind should welcome the fact that this move has happened.
Is it perfect? No. Is it a clever bid for more money and marketing. Yes.
But does fitness wholly belong to everyone in every way shape and form? Yes.
Nike. Myself. Sky News or the Government have no right to tell anyone what exercise should be in someone’s life. And if that means someone who is clinically overweight wearying Dri Fit Sports Bras and Leggings…
You go girl! You do you!
Fitness is a human right. Not a god given right. It’s something we have to fight for.
Because if this mannequin helps you feel more powerful. If wearing these clothes makes you feel more confident, and you feel wholly a lot less judged by society for doing so.
Go and be the Athena you are and smash the shit out of anyone who says otherwise.
Fitness is a human right. Not a god given right. It’s something we have to fight for. It’s something we have to work for. And it’s something the human body deserves to be asked to do.
It’s not something that should happen naturally to us, and we should expect it to just “happen”
Therefore if this mannequin helps one person find a bit more courage to have a go at fitness, to find her human right and make a change then it can never be viewed as a negative thing.
The Daily Telegraph Columnist Tanya Gold said this about the mannequin:
“The new nike mannequin is obese. She is not readying herself for a run in her shiny new nike gear. She can’t run. She is more likely pre-diabetic on her way to a hip replacement”
Other than the only response words like that deserve which is a strong and firm : “Fuck right off”
The empathy and knowledge of Tanya Gold is very alarming. Even more alarming as Tanya herself is no stranger to having to fight addiction herself.
Firstly no one said this Mannequin had to run. She could go for a walk. She could do any movement. Because rather than blaming her and shaming her for these made up health conditions that Tanya seems to know about the mannequin…why don’t we encourage her to do something to help with these conditions.
Why are we not putting the message out there that this woman’s past does not have to dictate her future.
And that if she just does just one thing, makes one change it will help.
My other point is this.
Just because a human is “fat”, “overweight”, “obese” or any other body shape that’s not “healthy” it does not mean you cannot move. It doesn’t mean you can’t change and it doesn’t mean there is something wrong with them.
It just means that’s who they are at this moment in time.
And you know what.
That’s ok.
And anyone can wear what the hell they want. Anyone can do fitness in anyway shape or form that they want.
And no one has a right to tell them what is right or wrong about their choices.
Did you find this useful?
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And remember…for as long as you are trying your best no one can ask for more from you.
Coach Adam