Show up. Even when you don’t feel like it.
Lean in. Especially when it feels overwhelmingly difficult.
Do the work. But also learn to rest without guilt.
Struggle. Then grow from it.
And accept that all of this will probably take longer than you’d like.
This could be the only thing you’ll ever need to improve your diet. But first, let’s make few assumptions about the way you currently eat.
Let’s assume you’re already eating a relatively healthy, wholefoods diet. You don’t need to be a clean (terrible term to describe eating, but bear with me here) eating tupperware robot. Not even close. But most of the foods you currently eat are considered healthy by most people. The kinds of foods that make you feel like each forkful is giving your organs a warm hug. Got it? Ok. Let’s also assume you’re already evenly spacing your meals throughout the day to avoid raging hunger at meal times.
What if instead of focusing on calories, portion sizes, or chewing slowly (all of which I sometimes recommend), you’d do something completely different? What if you’d simply focus on eating as much as you want? Not until you feel 80% full (as I often also recommend), but as much as you want.
Most of us are used to eating with some sort of guidelines and rulebook in our head. They are part of the baggage we collect as we grow. Advice and comments from well (or not-so-well) meaning parents, friends and experts that we have stored deep in our brain.We are afraid to let go of them as we think we would lose all self-control and wake up one day weighing 25kg more than we did yesterday.
It’s scary because ‘eat as much as you want’ doesn’t come with a thick rulebook. Yet, at it’s core, eating is suppose to be intuitive. We are not born with these weird, self-depriving eating rules that can make each meal time an epic battle of willpower between our stomach, brain and heart.
But slowly building up the courage to throw out the rulebook is the true freedom. The holy grail of intuitive eating. Returning your focus on how you feel while eating allows you to pay more attention to the actual enjoyment of food. The way it’s meant to be.
And yes, you’ll be wise to focus on healthier diet and meal times first. But once those two aspects are covered, try giving yourself the freedom to eat as much as you like. See where it takes you.
When asked what do they want, most people say they want to be stronger, fitter and healthier. And, although they don’t always say it, they want to look better naked. Fair enough. Nothing new here.
But all of that is just adjectives. Dust on the surface. Words we’ve conditioned ourselves to say. The stereotypical answer that gives us a quick way out of an uncomfortable situation.
It’s because of this rehearsed, meaningless answer that many people cannot reach that stronger, fitter and healthier version of themselves. They don’t want to lean into the uncomfortable feeling behind those words. Yet it’s exactly where we need to go to discover our true motivations.
What would it mean to become a stronger, fitter and healthier version of yourself? More freedom? A sense of achievement? Self-actualisation? More status?
What would it allow you to do that your current version can’t do? Self-transcendence? Access to somewhere or some place? A connection with someone or some place?
What would it allow you to feel? Hope? Belonging? Confidence? Power? Control?
And then, once you’ve gone under the surface, it’s time to dig deeper. Why is it that you want what you just discovered? You can go really deep in here. And yes, initially it’ll probably be as enjoyable as trying to glue together a pile of sawdust. But if you really want what you say you want, it’s worth the effort.
It’s fine to want to become stronger, fitter and healthier. But it’s often only after we blow off the dust and dig really deep that we realise what our true motivations are.
We all struggle. It’s how we approach struggle that determines our long-term results with the things that matter to us.
Feeling sorry for ourselves during struggle is a trap. It is our mind looking for an excuse to stop trying. It’s asking for our permission to quit. It wants us to give up and move on. But struggle is not something to feel disappointed about.
Struggling and failing are part of the learning process. They are signs we’re challenging our current self while trying to reach towards the next, ideally better and healthier, version of ourselves.
Start again.
I’ve said it before and I’ll said it again. I want people to walk away from workouts feeling they could do a bit more. This is particularly true for those who are new to it all. It takes time to learn where one’s limits are and how close to them you are. As the training age and confidence increases, you can start pushing yourself more. If you want to.
But I feel like I need to clarify something here. This doesn’t mean that training has to always be easy. It’s ok to feel tired immediately after a workout. Knowing you gave it your best. That’s how you progress.
But you shouldn’t have to carry that tiredness with you for the rest of the day. If you find yourself cranky, spacy, and overall “F!#* off, Mark!” for the rest of the day after each workout, you’re probably doing too much.
Maybe a poor sleep, high stress or mediocre eating habits are holding you back. Or maybe you’re doing too much to your fitness level. Either way, your day shouldn’t suck just because you did a workout.
Some workouts are low intensity, some are high. Most of them should feel about an eight out of ten.
Start easy. Keep it simple. Focus on making it into a habit. Not for 12 weeks. But to turn it into a lifelong routine, no different to brushing your teeth. You can always ramp it up later if you want to.
What’s the most efficient, sustainable and safest way to get to your goal? Not for everyone, but for you? This includes frequency, exercises, type of training and the environment. I’m sure there’s more.
There’s absolutely nothing you have to do. If it doesn’t feel right for you, don’t do it. Find an alternative that feels right.
Just because it’s uncomfortable doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t do it. It could mean the opposite. Maybe it’s a sign that it’s time to lean into that discomfort.
Never compromise longevity for performance. Both short or long-term. Unless you get paid to do so. Or have the financial and emotional funds to dig yourself out of it. Even then, it begs a question whether it’s worth it.
This is the only box I trust. All the truth stems from this box. My chosen box will never fail. It’s nice when all the answers fit into a one neat box. It makes our world feel a little safer. A bit more predictable.
Ketogenic diet. Paleo. Raw food diet. Vegan. Atkins. Zone. The list goes on. Only believing and trusting our own chosen system, and it’s all healing qualities, is at the same a powerful and a comforting place to be. The more we learn, the more indoctrinated we become. Give it time and eventually we come to define ourselves through the system we believe in.
The illusion of the system and its strength multiplies when there’s other people who also believe what we believe. More voices make it more convincing. And in groups we often fail to have the empathy for the people with other boxes. For those who believe just as strongly about what we think is wrong.
As you’ve probably realised, it’s not just diets. We see boxed thinking in training too. And every other facet in our lives. It dangerous. Both to our wellbeing and sanity.
Wouldn’t it be better to learn to see the good and bad sides of each box? Including our own. To have the empathy to see why someone else thinks the way they do. To consider why they might be right.
And finally, to have the rationality to disregard what doesn’t work, and keep what works. Even if it goes against the system we care about. Even if it doesn’t fit into our chosen box.
They’re watching.
All the good stories are set in the winter. I remember being a little kid, no more than seven or eight, wandering around our home and trying to find Dad. As I approached a room with a closed door, I heard some muffled grunting behind it. I peeked in.
There he was on the floor, trying to keep it quiet (probably to get a brief moment of peace to himself) doing ab crunches on an old rag rug. “What are you doing, Dad?!” It looked anything but normal to a little kid.
I remember other times, again in the middle of winter, when I’d take the steep concrete stairs into our basement. One careful step at a time, I would walk to the first fire door, somehow force it open and then hear it slam behind me.
A few more steps and I was at the second fire door leading to what we then used as our laundry. When my grandparents built the house in the 50s, it was an underground garage. Add hundreds of litres of oil stored for heating the home and the original wood-fired sauna, and you’ll get an idea of why all the fire doors.
Anyway, I am back at the second door. I’d peel open the twisted metal door and find Dad bench pressing, doing squats or arm curls. Windows packed with styrofoam on the inside and with snow on the outside to provide some insulation from the freezing arctic temperatures. It was cold in there in January and February. Going in wearing just a t-shirt would’ve been a sign of blind madness.
Dad had this homemade, rusty weights set that he bought from an old neighbour in the city they used to live. The lore is that the neighbour was a professional hockey player who sold the set as he graduated to the big league. Either way, gripping it made your hands smell like old iron. And if it would’ve been any colder in that basement, your hands would have gotten stuck to it for good.
Whatever training Dad was doing, either on the bedroom rag rug or in the basement, looked odd to me. But it was also intriguing. It made me curious about what it was all about. And why was he doing it to himself?
It wasn’t until much later, once I got to my mid-teens, that I started training myself. I’d make my way into the basement, trying to copy what I’d seen Dad do. While training there one day, I remember him coming in and saying that once I could bench 100kg, I would be as strong as him. That kept me going for years.
I started training and have kept training for the last 22 or 23 years because of the example that my Dad, intentionally or not, set. He didn’t tell me to do it. He just did it.
It’s the same reason I want my kids to notice me training in our garage every now and then. I hope they grow up to see training as an essential part of an active, healthy lifestyle. The same way as walking or eating vegetables is.
They’re only young. But I know they’re watching.
There are a lot of things we can measure with training. Reps, sets, time, distance, heart rate, steps, pants, weight, waist, consistency (my favorite) and more. The list can be as long as you want it to be.
The people with a data orientated mind like to track every possible trackable metric. It’s what keeps them engaged. For someone else, too much tracking becomes overwhelming. And a just another reason to not turn up.
Measure whatever keeps you accountable. Whatever keeps you showing up. Whatever suits your personality.
Regardless of whether you track everything or none of it, it comes down to this. Are you getting better (stronger, pain free, fitter, more energetic and so on) at the things that you care about and the activities you love doing?
In the end, that’s all that matters.
Periodically, it’s worth checking whether your training and fitness regime match what’s important to you. And since this lesson here is best illustrated by my evolution, please forgive me while I toot the horn that feels the most familiar. My own.
In my teens and twenties, my fitness routine was all about the looks. And so my training and the frequency and intensity I put in it reflected that. I trained, a lot. Everything revolved around getting in the daily workout and eating a certain way.
Combining that with the ego and know-it-all attitude of an insecure twenty-something and I was also injured and in pain, a lot.
Now in my late 30s with two kids, wife, business, more humility and less ego (I think!) my training reflects that. Workouts are rarely longer than 30 minutes (I’d like to inch closer to 45mins, but see the part about kids).
Rarely do I do over three sessions a week. Sometimes just two, based on what’s going on with life (i.e. kids). I walk as often as I can. Mostly with the kids in tow.
Now, when something doesn’t feel right in the workout, I adjust why I’m doing and try to find a better way. When I feel like I’ve done enough, I walk away to come back next time.
Compare that to my 20-something year old self who pushed through everything. Tiredness, pain, you name it. Because, male bravado and shirtless Brad Pitt movies and Bruce Willis and Die Hard and was John Rambo still a thing?
Today, no ego-driven training or lifting goal is worth risking an injury and the potential for missing out on family time. Sure, niggles still happen. But not to the extent that they affect life.
And yes, it’d be a lie to say that looks don’t still play some part in my training. If only I’d known what I know now when I was younger.
Oh, well.
Reflect what matters. Train accordingly.