Category: Daily

There was a time when I wouldn’t even consider training unless I had an hour for it. Then, we had a kid.

And that hour turned into 45 minutes. Four days a week became three. I had a good two-year run with that schedule and felt better training less than I used to.

Then, COVID. And another kid. Then, lockdowns and working from home and no daycare and 9pm curfews and toilet paper wars and I am getting out of breath writing this.

But you see where this is going. Having 45 minutes for training is as reasonable as hoping for Slayer to put out a Christmas album.

Like everyone else, I’ve had to adjust my expectations about what’s a good workout.

Now the week is a raging success if I get in two uninterrupted 20 minute workouts. That’s usually a quick warm up followed by kettlebell swings and push-ups or overhead presses. Maybe a set of carries in the end.

And most of the time, that’s with a three-year-old sitting on me while I do push-ups.

I need more. For my sanity. So I’ve added tiny training moments wherever I can. Instead of just counting workouts, I now add up my weekly training time total.

And all these count:

• Pullups on soccer goals while playing with the kids in the park.
• Pushing the pram up the steepest hill when coming home from the park.
• Step-ups or single leg squats on the couch while building a cubby house.
• Carrying the kids around the house while playing. With random lunges and squats in the mix.
• Crawling around the lounge room with a child desperately trying to cling to me.
• Feeding the one-year-old while doing a handstand. Ok, this doesn’t happen. I can barely sit and breathe during meal times.

There’s no specific template to any of this. Anything that even remotely feels like training counts. The guiding principle is to do whatever I can whenever I can.

Technically, my entire week is a one long workout. Except that I count the rest between sets in hours and days instead of minutes.

The only goal is to emerge from the lockdown on one glorious day without having lost too much of strength and fitness. And ideally without a potbelly. But we’ll see about that.

Because how good is lockdown curfew cake.

In a moment of invincibility mixed with blue-eyed arrogance, we’ve all rushed through to the second step. Whether it’s buying a book, a course, or singing lessons from Ralph. We’ve all payed for something we didn’t end up using. Signed up for something we couldn’t fully commit to. All because we made the mistake of skipping the first step.

Before signing any dotted lines or wiring a single dollar, we have to make a plan. This is the first step. However loose it might be. We have to decide…

How much time we’re going to allocate to whatever we’re signing up for?
When in the week are we going to spend that time?
And how are we going to spend it?

Then we need to take an honest look at our loose plan. To open up our calendar to see if any of that will actually work in real life. Or whether we’re about to sign up for something we can’t finish. And not only waste money, but also our willpower and perhaps a piece of our self-worth.

Considering everything else we’ve got going on, have we over-committed? What if something unexpected comes along? Big or small. Have we left enough white space in the calendar to still stick to our plan? Even if it means changing our original approach.

It doesn’t have to be perfect. And neither do we. But can we reasonably expect our plan to give us the results we seek in whatever we’re about to sign up for? Or are we going to add unnecessary stress to our days by getting into something we can’t afford time-wise?

There’s wisdom in admitting that now might not be the best time.

You might feel immensely motivated about lifting your butt. I get it. I too wish for a better butt. But that enthusiasm about a beautifully elevated rear end will not last. Relying on pure aesthetics as a motivator when starting and trying to maintain a lifestyle change doesn’t cut it. No matter how you’re trying to slice it.

Wanting “to look good” works great for those who have to look perky for whatever reason. Movie stars, underwear models, Instagram influencers selling organic coconut oil, and narcissistic ex-partners. But settling for “to look good” will not float you and me.

We, that’s people who don’t star in movies or promote coconut oil, need deeper reasons and motivations to keep going when life throws its hard, annoyingly shaped, and unchewable pinecones at us. Looking good can be one of the motivators. But more likely, it’s just one of the many benefits of taking care of our health, strength and wellbeing.

Dig deep to find your motivations. Don’t settle for easy, mainstream answers. You’re getting close once your reasons prompt at least a semi-emotional reaction. That motivation is going to carry you through when “to look good” won’t.

You might even get a perkier butt in the process. And someone might even ask you to promote their organic coconut oil one day. Yay.

Most people experience the following mental parade in the first six weeks of beginning a lifestyle change:

1. Blind excitement and enthusiasm
2. The realisation of over commitment
3. Awareness that this shit is super hard
4. Overwhelm
5. Disappointment and overpowering thoughts of quitting

Most people approach a lifestyle change with a black and white mentality. Either we do it 100% or we don’t do it at all. And we expect to get it right straight away without a struggle or without a failure. And it’s a problem that leads to a lot of folks dropping out. But I have the antidote. And it’s free.

We should think of a lifestyle change the same we think of owning any other new skill. Be it learning Spanish, or the guitar. You don’t go from a beginner to a master in 12 weeks. It’s a continuum.

You wouldn’t expect to have deeply philosophical conversations in Spanish about the global power dynamics after 12 weeks of practice. And if you just learned how to hold the guitar the right way, you don’t expect to know how to play Mastodon’s entire back catalogue 12 weeks from now.

Yet we leave all of our reasonable thinking behind with a lifestyle change, adopting a healthier diet or starting an exercise routine. Most of us expect to master these almost immediately. Or at least within 12 weeks. Without a hiccup. Which then leads to disappointment, and often, quitting.

We give up because we think it’s not for us. That we don’t have the willpower and the discipline to do it. When the fact is that, we’re just learning new skills. And whether we like it or not, it’s going to be a struggle. Like most Adam Sandler movies, it’s going to suck sometimes.

The good news is that all skills get better with practice.

It has to go hand in hand in with a beginner’s body. When you’re first starting out, it helps to acknowledge and accept that you’re a beginner. To accept it as your starting point. To have the patience to learn (or to relearn) the exercises and to get the technique dialled in.

To acknowledge that in the long term you’re better off starting with less intensity in your workouts and gradually adding to it. To manage your body, but also to manage your mind and stay disciplined enough to keep showing up. Because very few people enjoy having the figurative shit beat out of them in workouts.

Sure, it’s one thing to make training challenging. Even tough. But for those who are crawling out of each training session, I wonder how long they’re going to keep showing up. Because, and this is a fact, most of us like to keep doing things that we at least remotely enjoy. It’s only for so long that we are going to keep sucking a lollipop with the wrapper on. It just isn’t enjoyable. No matter how much positive thinking we try to twist in it.

Breaking, changing, and learning habits is no different. If we make it too difficult in the beginning and set the bar too high, we’re doomed to give up sooner rather than later. It’s hard to keep showing up if we’re consistently falling short of the high bar goals we set for ourselves.

The better option, for most of us, is to set the bar lower. High enough so we still have to make an effort and grow from the challenge. But low enough that with a bit of stretch we can get over it without falling on our face.

It’s ok to fail occasionally. I’ll even argue that if we want to grow, learn and succeed it’s necessary to fail. But no one likes to fail and fall down all the time. No matter how much into kinky they might be.

Making things easy doesn’t sound very sexy. Especially when all you want to do is to copy what your uber-fit triathlete friend Sandra does. But you’re not Sandra. Well, you might be Sandra. But you’re probably not your uber-fit triathlete friend Sandra. And that’s ok. Start where you’re at. Not where your uber-fit triathlete friend Sandra is.

Constantly putting our well-being second, saying yes to more work, worrying about other people’s opinions and not managing stress, recovery and sleep are all going to stand in the way when trying to make a lifestyle change. These are Byzantine and annoyingly multi-faceted situations. Opening them can feel like trying to solve a motor oiled Rubik’s Cube with one arm and closed eyes. And often because of this, nothing gets done about them.

Which then stops people from getting the results they want. Embarking on a lifestyle change safari by only focusing on eating more vegetables and working out is better than nothing. But often about as useful as a coffee cup that can’t go in the dishwasher. I mean, that’s far from a functional everyday crockery.

Anyhow. Sometimes it’s possible to improve the situation with little everyday actions: mindfulness, meditation, time in the nature, having a hobby, keeping a gratitude diary, helping others without expecting nothing in return, (coming up for a breath in the middle of a list…. and let’s go again) or reducing alcohol, caffeine, nicotine, screen time, news.

But often these issues require bigger changes: starting therapy, visiting a sleep clinic, ending a relationship, pushing massive dicks out of our circle of supremacy, or changing careers. Sometimes we have to take decisive action to change how we live our life.

And as complicated as dealing with all this might be, here’s the upside: often when we work on them, the fitness results happen too. We might even end up looking better naked. Whoa.

If stress, sleep and fatigue are bringing you down, I recommend this free online test at This Way Up. You’ll get an actionable help on how to improve the way you feel. For free. And considering how our lives have been affected in the last year and a half, we should all probably do this.

https://thiswayup.org.au/take-a-test-tool/

Following rules works well for short-term transformations. Rules give us a straight “do this” path forward. That’s why it’s appealing to sign up for something that gives us a clear plug-and-play approach to losing weight and getting in shape. A strict calorie restricted meal plans fall into this category.

They work well for those who are already successfully doing the basics of healthy eating. And now want to tighten things up briefly to reach a specific short-term goal. All you need is the willpower to do what you’ve been told to do and the results will follow.

Unfortunately, these short-term transformations are often sold as the entry point for people who are just (re)starting their health and fitness journey. The catch is that these rule-based transformations don’t teach us anything, expect how to follow rules.

Our lives don’t give a shit about our diet rules. Stuff happens. Kids get diarrheal just when work wants us to put in more hours because Brian quit. And then our cats get diarrheal too. And somehow the neighbour we barely know gets her head stuck in their outdoor coal oven and screams for our help. Again.

What do we do when we don’t have the time and space to follow the rules? We quit. Because it’s too difficult and too rigid to follow rules when we are just trying to muddle through life.

The better, more flexible and sustainable option is to learn principles. A framework that doesn’t give us all the answers forces us to learn by trying, struggling, failing, and eventually learning what works, for us. When we put in the struggle, we build knowledge and resiliency to adjust our eating and training based on what life throws at us. Even if it’s double headed plastic forks aimed at our forehead.

We don’t need fitter people. We need more fit people. There are plenty of fitness professionals who cater to those already fit. To those who have established a strength training habit. I am more interested in helping someone to move from zero weekly strength workouts to doing two a week. As far as my limited understanding in colour coded population graphs and maths goes, that’s a shitload of people.

Imagine for a moment that 1% of those non-training people would make strength training a weekly habit. How much healthier would the world be? What would it do to the economy if people would age with vigour, take less sick days and need fewer healthcare services? What would it do to our individual happiness?

But allow me to dream. What about going from 1% to 2%? I. can’t. even.

We know from science that the older we get the more important strength training is for our autonomy and functional longevity. Even if someone is already active in other ways, strength training twice a week takes our physical health and resiliency to withstand life’s scissor kicks up another notch or three.

Unless your job involves manual labour, you work in a barn equipped with the hippest tech of the late 1800s, or spend considerate time free-climbing mountains (and let’s face it, neither you nor me fit into those categories), it’s hard to replicate the benefits of strength training without actually doing it. And, if you haven’t started yet, the best time to start is now.

So, if you are currently not doing strength training, or doing it once a week or less and scrambling with consistency, I’d like to hear from you. What do you struggle with it? Why? What would make it easier for you to show up twice a week?

If you used to train, but stopped, what made you stop? Why? What would help you get started again with strength training?

And if you’ve struggled in the past, but have now been consistently doing strength training twice a week for over six months, I’d like to hear from you too. What helped you make the shift?

Please share with me either publicly on social media or privately at joonas(at)repsandtherest.com. Let’s start a conversation. I hope we can both learn something.

Are you chasing a number on the scale because it’s what you used to weigh in high school? Do you step on the scale each morning to determine your self-value for the day ahead?

You already know how your relationship is with the scale. When used with detachment, the scale can be a dutiful servant. But when we tie our identity to the number in front of us, the scale becomes the master and makes us its slave.

Is the scale adding value to your life, or working against you? It’s not uncommon to make the number on a scale an oppressing part of our identity. It’s not uncommon to switch the cage of carrying extra weight and being unfit to another cage, the scale.

All you can do with a scale is to watch the number. You can’t directly control it. Yes, it can provide focus to see whether the things you’re working on are indeed working. But, I’d argue it’s the worst number to focus on. Especially if you can’t look at the number objectively.

Ditch the scale. Pick another number and wrap your identity around that. Focus on actions you can control, not the outcome.

Getting in the daily steps. Having balanced meals. Training three days a week. Then stack these actions on top of each other. If you must focus on an outcome, see how your clothes are fitting over time.

When you have ten to twenty weekly or daily actions you can tick off, the weight will come down. And it will happen whether or not you step on the scale.

Most of us have something we know we should probably do, but just can’t make it into a habit. Training, eating vegetables, drinking water, getting in the daily steps, meditation, running our hands through the soft Saharan sand, whatever.

Years ago my friends were trying to convince me of the benefits of cold exposure. Specifically, cold showers and ice baths. The upsides of cold exposure read like à la carte menu at an all mighty healer’s restaurant: reduces chronic pain, inflammation and eases aching muscles, and improves sleep. I’m sure there was more. Most of it came down to improving performance or some other super athletic endeavour. And I was not sold. None of that really means anything to me.

I gave cold showers a half-hearted attempt. Probably lasting all of two days. But it was too fucking uncomfortable. None of the benefits meant enough for me to lean into that uncomfortable feeling and keep going. So, I quit. And felt quite good about it. Warm, even.

Not for me.

Fast forward to early this year. Another expert talking about the benefits of cold. Yawn. But unlike most of the others, he didn’t froth over the performance enhancing aspects of it. No, instead he focused on how effective cold exposure is in reducing stress. Now I was listening. He had me convinced within three minutes.

He was explaining the benefits in a way that spoke directly to what I was struggling with, stress. And I’ve been proudly hooked on cold ever since. A big deal for someone who grew up near the Artic Circle and has been avoiding cold for the last 15 years.

So, look into the habits that you can’t do with consistency. See if you can find reasons and benefits that you might have missed before. Benefits that speak directly to something that you struggle with. Then, use that as your motivation. To keep going when the shit gets uncomfortable.

“It” might be the best thing in the world. But the best for who? For some? Sure. But if we don’t need the promised results, there is no amount of reasoning to convince us to try whatever the best thing in the world is. No matter how brilliant it might be. Sure, putting vaseline behind my ears might improve my hearing, but I don’t want to hear any better. I made that up so please don’t try it. And if you do, and it does work, I’d like to get some credit for it.

If we don’t believe the efforts are worth the results, there is nothing someone else can do to change our mind. The reasons and results have to be specific enough that they ease our most painful and persistent struggles.