Category: Daily

A big part of the Ark of the Covenant-like appeal of the 1250-calorie diets and nut-busting workouts is due to their off-the-shelf accessibility. The ease of use. Like buying a new fridge, you don’t have to read the instruction manual to get going.

With a fridge, you power up the fucker, open the door and shove in the lonely jar of cocktail onions. The only thing still edible after the previous Hitachi let out its last whirl of cool. And you’re done. Long live the new Hitachi.

But you’re not plugging in a new fridge when your goal is to reclaim your energy and strength after years of hiatus.

You’re trying to build a sixteen-shelf, oblong, wall-mountable, childproof IKEA bookcase with seven decorative side wings and something that looks like a siskonmakkara holder. And no human can put that together without gripping the Ikea instructions with humility and respect typically reserved only for the King James Bible.

Reading your lifestyle change manual is about introspection. About getting to the root of your struggle. And then finding the solutions to overcome that struggle by rewriting the instructions.

Doing all that work is difficult and uncomfortable. And way harder than randomly piling off-the-shelf solutions and hoping one would work like that new Hitachi.

But you got this.

-J

You might attempt to resort to the Have Visible Kidneys in 6 Weeks diet and the Ultra Mega Punishment 5000 Deathwish workout plan when trying to reclaim your fitness. And I get the appeal.

After all, most of us have this twisted mindset that for something to work, it has to be painful. We have to feel the hurt. Something about a sentimental hero mentality trap: pushing through all the obstacles. Plus, it makes a damn good social media feed.

But as Germans so elegantly put it, it’s all scheiße. Just because you feel like you’re suffering and working hard doesn’t mean you’re working hard on the right things.

Your results-driven lifestyle change doesn’t start with punishment. It begins by building the foundation. By prioritising your rest and recovery, observing and challenging some of your current lifestyle habits and accepting the flexible approach to creating new habits.

Building the foundation doesn’t feel as productive as counting how many green half-olives you ate or crawling out of another 60-minute HIIT workout.

But once the foundation is tight, you won’t have to work as hard for the results.

-J

I got a couple of replies to the “what do you hate about the fitness industry?” question I asked a few days ago. Kevin Freidberg from 7secondwebsites.com replied with some killer insights that you can use in your life to help make exercises into a habit:

This is our email exchange condensed into one comment. Bold etc., are all my doing. Shared with permission.

“Honestly? Leaving the house. (Not even kidding)

I was always a member of some kind of gym my whole life and went maybe a few times a year.
Then we moved into a house where I could have my own office. And I bought the Mirror (now called Lululemon studio)

Ever since I got that thing, I’ve worked out an average of 5 days per week for over 2 years now.
I’m 50 and in the best shape of my life.

I do 30-minute strength training classes 4-5 days a week – sometimes every single day.
Sometimes I’ll squeeze in a cardio class.
I walk my dog every day (gotta get my 10K steps 🙂
Lots of meditation.
And I do intermittent fasting.

My back hurts so much less.
My mood is better.
My weight is ideal.“

The thing to focus on here isn’t that the Lululemon Studio is the solution to everyone’s struggle to build exercise into a habit.

Instead, Kevin found a way to incorporate more physical activity into his life with an approach that fits his lifestyle.

Or, as he puts it:

“…I finally found something that works for me. 
Yes, I’m quite fond of this mirror thing.
But only because of what it allows me to do. 
I tell my friends all the time, do whatever it takes to find that 1 thing that allows you to work out consistently.

Easier said than done, of course 😉“

Thanks for sharing, Kevin! These kinds of change stories give me all sorts of good feelings.

-J

I mean, it’s therapeutic. Something about the repetitive task that allows you to zone out. Or zone in. Whatever.

I am all for gardening and yard work as a part of the plan for boosting physical wellbeing. That shit’s good for you in so many ways.

But gardening and yard work on their own is probably not enough to physically get you what you want to do in 30 or 40 years. Getting off the toilet, climbing the stairs with conviction, carrying groceries…

Unless your yard work includes a fair bit of chopping wood and lifting heavy objects, it’s not enough.

Even if, right now, it feels like it is.

-J

I’m curious. What do you hate the most about the fitness industry?

Just hit reply and let me know. Don’t hold back. This is all 100% confidential.

Go!

-J

Self-control’s all about having the discipline to deny a strong impulse. Saying no to the fourth piece of apple pie. And silencing that loud motherfucker of a voice in your head that’s certain you don’t need to exercise today.

But wait. Isn’t it great to bend your mind to the bridge to push away the fourth piece of pie and muscle your way to the workout? Absolutely. But doing it by improving self-control is a road paved with stones shaped into fists and elbows.

First, riding the self-control horse named Discipline usually works great until you’re exhausted and stressed after a day’s work, haven’t eaten since 11am, know you can’t sleep because you have to prep something for the morning, and have your kids slamming doors at you when you forgot to buy Vegemite. The fourth piece of apple pie? Uhhh, yes, please, thank you very much.

And second, once you improve your self-control and coat your brain with the battle armour built of determination, then what? You still have to fend off these strong impulses in your head constantly.

It won’t stop. Your brain becomes an eternal battlefield of ye! no! ye! YE! NO! Sigh. That just sounds super unappealing. Even if you win most of these self-control battles.

Instead of building self-control, improve your self-regulation

Whereas self-control is about resisting strong impulses, self-regulation is about reducing the frequency and temperature of these impulses. It’s about tuning into your inner dialogue instead of just trying to fight off every urge that arises.

When you improve your self-regulation, you don’t have to have a mind of steel because the impulses aren’t there like they used to be. Bye bye ye! no! ye! YE! NO!

Here’s where it’s at.

The way to improve self-regulation is relatively straightforward.

1. Work on your stress management. Both in terms of how you handle stress and your overall stress load
2. Work on your rest/recovery. Whatever that means to you. Probably not golf though
3. Work on your thinking. If you’re one of those people who can’t meditate, learn to meditate
4. It might not be a bad idea to see a therapist, psychologist etc. Someone who went to more than a Sunday school to work with the mind

Any of these easy? Certainly not. But the good news is that as you improve your self-regulation, you’ll also improve many other aspects of your health. Instead of just spending time trying to master one-dimensional self-control.

-J

You’ve tried everything to change a habit that no longer serves who you want to be. That super-annoying (to you, mostly) part of your behaviour that’s in a raging conflict with your new health and fitness goals.

Mustering willpower didn’t work. Changing your environment didn’t work. Replacing the wine with tea and doughnuts with carrots didn’t work. You’ve tried it all. And it didn’t work.

The problem isn’t the habit. The problem is the inner dialogue that causes you to lean into the habit in the first place.

Because a deeply ingrained habit is often nothing more and nothing less than a physical reaction to something going on inside.

Focus on solving what’s happening inside. And you’ll change the habit.

What are you reacting to?

-J

Process goals are the actions and habits you take to reach your health goals. As in, “To reclaim my energy and strength, I will lift weights twice a week for 30 minutes and do a 20-minute dance class twice a week.” Or something like that.

Zero discomfort with your process goals (“Instead of the usual 90-minute interval, I will now get off the couch once an hour to get more Doritos.”) means it’s unlikely that your process goals move you closer to your big goal.

But if you aim for too much discomfort, you won’t stick to it (“I haven’t done any running for years, but starting tomorrow, I will run 60 minutes a day, backwards, up a hill, while towing my kids in a flat tyre wheelbarrow”).

There’s no universal rule on how much discomfort you can tolerate when changing lifestyle habits. But you’ll just have to start somewhere.

Here’s what I tell most new clients.

Your process goals should feel like a stretch, but you’re still 90% confident you can complete them most days.

Now, where did I leave that wheelbarrow?

-J

As I wrote yesterday, there’s nothing wrong with prioritising work over health as long as it’s a conscious decision. Sometimes there are no other options.

But prioritising work over health becomes an issue if you don’t set a strict deadline for when the work takes the backseat. A deadline for when you’ll make your health and fitness a priority again. Whether that’s five months or two years from now.

Because you don’t want to wake up seven years from now and tell your kids you can’t kick a soccer ball with them because your lungs will explode.

-J

Struggles and disappointment with our wellbeing arise when we’re not clear about our priorities.

When your work demands a humpbackwhale’s share of your time and energy, it’s unlikely that now’s the best time to reach for an ambitious fitness goal. Especially while juggling it all with the borderline insanity that comes with a growing family.

This might mean that instead of aiming for two or even one proper training sessions each week, you’ll find ways to do the minimum that keeps your health and fitness from going down the shitter. Just to keep your health spiralling into the abyss.

Are you going to be your healthiest self doing so? Hell No. But you’ve consciously decided to prioritise something else in your life, for now. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

-J