Live longer.
Improve the quality of those years.
Compress the morbidity/disability decades to years. Maybe even months.
Nothing’s given. But the actions we take today increase the odds in our favour.
I can’t think of anything as effective as strength training for improving those odds.
Keep at it.
And if you haven’t started yet, today’s the day for it.
-J
One of the coaching clients is training for the NYC marathon, and she’s been gradually racking up the kilometres in the last four months.
She’s also managing a business and navigating family life with two kids.
It’s been hectic.
She’s on holiday this week, and we were discussing how her training should look for the week. It took us a few messages back and forth to come up with the most effective plan:
Do whatever she feels is right for her body and mind: chill. Relax. Take it easy. Rest.
Instead of doing what she feels she should be doing: more running and strength workouts.
Here’s where it’s at.
Reaching big goals takes a lot of discipline and focus. And that goes both for the work and the rest.
Especially as we get older.
-J
I have obsessive, perfectionist tendencies whenever I set myself a habit-based goal.
If I decide not to drink alcohol for a year, there is no way you can convince me otherwise.
If I decide to do push ups when I make my morning coffee, I will do push ups regardless of how my body feels that day.
If I decide not to eat meat, I will live off room-temperature tin beans if I have to.
The upside is that I am good at keeping myself accountable.
The downside is that I become very rigid in my approach. I force these habits, regardless of how logical or appropriate. Times when skipping a day would make sense if for nothing else than to increase the joy in life.
And the more days I string together, the harder it is for me to break the habit. Because doing so makes me feel like failing.
A few years back, I started to feel like I was being held hostage by the healthy habits I kept setting. I felt like my past self controlled my actions instead of my present self.
So I started to break long strings of habits intentionally. More so, I became more conscious of not letting myself build a habit into a super long string in the first place. Just to release the pressure of having to keep going with a perfect record.
And for someone who was often held back because of perfection, this has been one of the keys to learning to be ok with just good enough.
-J
We all do.
It’s an inevitable part of getting to your goals.
The key is not to let your failure-induced negative thoughts about yourself define who you are.
Ideally, you want to acknowledge what’s going on. And then move forward without dwelling on the negativity for longer than necessary.
In Good Inside, Dr Becky Kennedy has a mantra when parenting moments have us feeling disappointed or mad in our reactions:
“I am not my latest behaviour. I am not my latest behaviour.”
It’s a fitting mantra for when struggling with health and fitness-related behaviours too.
-J
ps. “failure” is probably a harsh word to use here. But it did make for a captivating headline.
What are the results you desire with your health and fitness?
Do those desires match the reality of everything that you’ve got going on with your life?
Not only the reality of your external circumstances. But also the reality of simply not being a 20-year-old anymore. Sorry.
And if the reality and desires don’t match, what changes will help you narrow that gap?
-J
Let’s play a game. You have to distil your daily health and fitness-related activities to just 20 minutes.
That covers any physical activity and meal planning, cooking and whatnot—all of it.
What would make the cut? What would you stop doing, delegate or streamline?
Placing yourself in such a situation forces you to think outside the box to adopt the first principle of thinking. Breaking down a problem into its basic elements and building a solution from scratch.
It’s about ruthless prioritisation. You’re making sure that the time you spend reclaiming your energy and strength really has an impact.
Leaving you more time for yourself and your family.
-J
I was messaging a new client this morning as she was planning her training schedule for the months ahead.
That’s the easy part, right? Put the workouts into your calendar.
The more challenging part, of course, is doing the workouts.
And so, I asked what she needs to put in place to increase the likelihood of doing those scheduled workouts.
She’d been thinking about the same thing. Her answer was to reduce the friction by setting up her permanent workout space.
Since she doesn’t have to set up the training space each time, there’s one less excuse not to do the workout.
What do you need to put in place to get your workouts in this week?
Get the clothes ready? Pour the sand off your shoes? Pull the kettlebells from the closet? Lock the kids in the basement with a bag of marshmallows and an iPad?
Do it tonight.
-J
I’ve seen all kinds of weird things in my 12+ years in the health and fitness industry.
But then I saw this on Instagram or somewhere the other day. And it’s such a ball of new-age-bs-nonsense that it’s worth sharing.
“The key to manifesting your biggest dreams is to learn how to raise your vibration.”
“The most powerful offering we’ll ever have is our own frequency.”
“It’s time to feel true alignment and watch the synchronicities unfold.”
WTF.
But also, gimme some of that.
-J
When I first started blogging in 2015, I wrote a post about my morning routine (please don’t search for it).
Something about getting up at 5 am, meditating, reading, journaling, having a coffee and probably 16 other things before 6.30 am.
And then, I encouraged the readers to create their morning routine to really live their best life. And I was dead serious when I wrote it.
Then we had kids.
And I realised how ridiculous, unachievable and arrogant that previous blog (and most of my other blogs) were to people I wanted to help.
Most of us juggle a handful or two of roles daily. I don’t know about you, but a successful morning routine for me right now is eating my porridge with less than three interruptions.
And I am really living my best life if I remember to wear pants when walking out the front door.
-J
Most of my clients don’t start from a total zero. They’re already doing some form of activity.
Whether it’s purposeful exercise such as going for a walk. Or incidental activity such as walking to get the morning coffee. And all of them want to do more.
Here’s a reasonable progression for increasing your weekly activity.
Week 1-4
45min strength/week
5000 steps a day
Week 5-8
+ 45min cardio/week
+ 2000 steps on each day
Week 9-12
+ 45min either cardio or strength, depending on which you prefer / week
Week 12-16
+ 45min the one that you didn’t prefer
+ 1000 steps each day
Now, that’s the ideal. But it doesn’t always work out that way. And for you to get to those numbers, it might take longer.
What does your progression look like?
-J