The Health and Fitness Truth Blog

New Year’s has come and gone and I for one am glad! It marks the end of the gluttony of the holiday season, and the beginning of a great time to “restart” and recharge. Many of us will make health and fitness resolutions this time of year, but will those resolutions really stick? Historically speaking, research tells us no: that 60% of us will forget about our exercise plans by April. Can we beat this sad statistic? I believe we can, but only if we work on our internal “mindset” BEFORE we begin to work on outside physical changes.

We all have an internal tape that plays constantly, often negative words we have heard as a child, or words created and echoed by past failures or setbacks. We must change this negative mindset into a positive one- we must “spin” things in a way to convince ourselves that we are strong, we can override a bad day, even a bad week, with healthy choices, and that exercise and eating well are a joy, not a burden.

For example:

• If your internal tape says “I’m so tired, I do not have energy to exercise” spin this to “I’m a bit fatigued from my day, but exercise will make me feel energized. I can’t wait to get on my treadmill!”
• If your internal tape says “I only have 20 minutes to exercise, It’s not worth it” change that tape to say “I’m going to use these 20 minutes to get a little exercise in- something is better than nothing! I’ll feel so much better afterward!”
• If your internal tape says “I must go on a diet, I can’t be trusted to make choices for myself” change that tape to “I am looking forward to learning to eat well and trust myself. I don’t need to deprive myself. No one is perfect. If I can make small changes every day, this will make a big difference.”
• If your internal tape says “I hate salads, what I really want is French fries!” change that mindset to “Salad is really healthy for me, and I need my vegetables. French fries won’t give me the healthy vitamins and minerals I need today.”

Exercise adherence and nutritional success is 80% mental. What separates those who succeed and those who fail, are those who do the “internal” work first. Start today- make a list of all the negative things you may usually say to yourself, and change them to positive thoughts. Keep that list near and read and repeat the mantra when needed. It makes a huge difference!

As you can imagine, when a new client calls me to inquire about personal training, the first thing they always say is “I need help to lose weight”. Of course this makes sense, as weight loss is the most common reason people hire a trainer. But for once, just once, I’d love to hear someone say “I need help because I need to exercise and eat better”. Too many of us, too many of my clients, obsess constantly about losing weight, and yet have not put enough thought into what needs to be done first- exercising and eating well. When people only care about losing weight, and not about being healthy, they are putting the horse before the cart.

In order to be successful at losing weight and maintaining weight loss, the FIRST thing you need to do is embrace the fact that you are going to have to exercise consistently and eat well. Instead of obsessing about your weight and waiting for some miracle to happen, or waiting until the trainer tells you what to do, how about putting your mental energies into planning your exercise and eating regimens?

• Evaluate your schedule to find times to exercise.
• Create a shopping menu that features healthy foods.
• Purge your home of unhealthy foods and trigger foods.
• Find an exercise partner.
• Talk to your family about your desire to get healthier through exercise and healthy eating.

Once you do this, you can then move ahead and begin to incorporate the healthy lifestyle changes you planned for. Once you begin to embrace exercise and eating well, your trainer will help you fine tune and develop these goals. Expecting the trainer to “motivate” you and “get you started” is not realistic- this is your job. Once you have done these things- guess what! YOU WILL LOSE WEIGHT! Now, the cart IS before the horse. You are on the road to reaching your goals of good health AND, weight loss as a RESULT of a healthy lifestyle, NOT as the sole REASON for a healthy lifestyle.

In one of the most comprehensive and rigorous analysis of 31 long term diet research studies, UCLA researchers undenyingly concluded that diets don’t work. While diets may help you lose 5 to 10% of your weight initially, this comprehensive analysis showed that most people gain all of their weight back AND MORE within several years.

Furthermore, the UCLA study concluded:

• Most people would’ve been better off not dieting at all. Their weight would’ve remained the same, and their bodies would not have suffered from the rapid weight loss and weight gain.
• Although this study paints a terrible picture of dieting, the actual effectiveness of diets is probably much worse, as many of the diet studies examined biased the diets to look more effective than they actually were.
• Most remarkably, one study of over 19,000 men showed that one of the best predictors of weight gain over the years of the study was having lost weight on a previous diet. Another study showed that both men and women who participated in a formal weight loss program gained significantly more weight over a two year period than those who had not participated in a weight loss program.
• Even when followed for four years, dieters continued to regain the weight lost on the initial diet.

Need any more reasons to stop dieting, start exercising and eating well?

Happy Holidays! If you are like me, you are feeling a little overfull and under-exercised. Naturally, this period of heavy eating and celebrating sets us up for thinking about our New Year’s Resolutions, many of which will center around exercising and losing weight. Unfortunately, statistics show that by April, most of us will have discarded our resolutions and sunk back into old unhealthy habits.

Through years of working in fitness, a big lesson I have learned is to make your fitness resolutions simple and doable. Many people make the mistake of trying to resolve to do too much too soon and hence burnout quickly. Instead of a resolution such as I am going to eat right, give up sweets, exercise every day and lose weight, try shooting for just one of those promises, and START SMALL.

If you are a non-exerciser, I suggest that you start here first. Exercise has so many positive effects on the physical, mental and emotional body, that it can be a tremendous jumpstart to other improvements in your life. Commit to beginning a simple exercise program three times a week. Shoot for 20 minutes of cardio such as walking, biking, jogging or using a cardio machine, depending on your likes and baseline fitness level. Three times a week is doable and will create feelings of success and self-efficacy, and thus you will want to move ahead eventually. Or, if you are currently just doing cardio workouts, add twice weekly strength training workouts. Choose 8-10 exercises that target ALL major muscle groups (not just the parts you don’t like!) and begin with 1 or two sets only, depending on your baseline fitness. You do not have to commit to daily weight training, or hours in the gym. Weight training can produce great results with just two sessions a week of 30-45 minutes- as long as you are working hard and targeting the correct muscle groups. Small steps such as these can last a life time, and isn’t this what it is all about?

Staying on track with exercise and healthy nutrition is always a challenge. But, it can be an even greater challenge during the holidays. We often lose track of our priorities- putting shopping, cleaning, socializing and work ahead of our health. By The New Year, we are left feeling sluggish and overfull. However, all is not written in stone!

We can make this a Holiday Season where we keep our healthy promises to ourselves and still enjoy the festivities. One sure fire way is journaling. Now, I don’t mean the deep, reflective journals some may keep to record thoughts and feelings. I mean a simple, no fuss, exercise and nutrition journal that can keep us accountable and conscious about our health. There are many ways to do this, depending on the details you want to include, and these logs can get very time consuming. Instead, I keep it real simple. I use a template for a calendar and post the calendar up over my computer where I see it every day. I use one entire column each day to record the exercise I performed, as well as foods eaten. If keeping food logs is too much stress right now, (although I highly suggest it- as food logs improve weight loss/maintenance success by 60-70%) just record exercise performed in each box rather than using the entire column. Your goal- to fill up 6 out of 7 boxes each week with some type of exercise. When you do not exercise- put a big O in the box. The visual effect of having too many O’s- or hardly any- is very motivating. You can download one of these sample log sheets from my website if you go to the Resources Section at www.personalbestpersonaltraining.com. Have a healthy, happy holiday season!