Mindset
Rome wasn’t built in a day and you aren’t going to course-correct your unhealthy habits in a day.
Tough love moment: you didn’t gain the weight in 6-weeks and you aren’t going to lose it all in 6-weeks. Sadly, many people forget this, and then one to two months into their efforts to lose weight, they give up because they haven’t had this spectacular transformation.
Last week, I discussed how marketing leads people to believe that some foods are better choices than others. Similarly, marketing leads you to believe you should be further along than you are. Just stand in line at the grocery store and you will see numerous magazine headlines such as “how she lost 30 pounds in 30 days” or highlighting how yet another movie star bounced back to her pre-baby figure. Many of us have heard or or seen the infomercials for “6-pack abs in 6 weeks.” One other observation about many of these headlines and product slogans–they are targeted at women. They are preying on the insecurities of women. This is not to say that there aren’t men who are self-conscious about their weight struggles as well. There certainly are. However, there is often a lot more pressure for women to maintain a slimmer figure. For example, a “Dad bod,” where a man has an unhealthy physique, is often celebrated. On the other hand, no one is celebrating the “Mom bod” that is similarly unhealthy.
My goal for you: ignore all that crap. Just like I want you to rise above the marketing nonsense and learn how to make better-informed food choices, I would like you to ignore the “noise” of marketing that leads you to believe that you aren’t making progress “fast” enough.
Instead, focus on being even just 1% better everyday in whatever way possible. I want you to focus on progress according to YOU, because that is all that matters. Something I like to remind people of is “we start where we start and we go from there.”
I don’t care that you didn’t get your protein intake perfect by the end of the week. I care that you improved a little bit each day.
I don’t care that you didn’t get your hydration intake perfect on the first day. I care that maybe you drank just a little bit more than yesterday.
I don’t care that you didn’t get in five (5) perfect workouts this week. I care that you did something positive to move your body most days, even if it was just a walk.
Focusing on the little things and doing those consistently will get you way further ahead than focusing on the big things once or twice.
Some other friendly words of encouragement: don’t compare your chapter one (1) to someone else’s chapter 20. Everyone progresses in their own time. You are not behind or ahead of any schedule other than your own. Focus on the best way for you to be consistent in doing the little things and that is where you will find the progress you are looking for.
Education
When people fall short of their goals, it’s often because they didn’t do well in regards to one of the three “P’s:” preparing, planning or prioritizing. The three “P’s” principle comes from Precision Nutrition, but I have also added a fourth P: perfection. When people strive for perfection, that is where they tend to fail as well. Let’s review each of them.
Preparing
As the saying goes, “failure to plan is planning to fail.” When it comes to improving your health or fitness, the concept still applies.
Meal prepping, or preparing components of your meals such as the sides or at least the main ingredient, is at the top of the list. However, one can practice other forms of preparation to help increase their chances of success. Additional examples of preparation:
- Setting clothes out for the next day
- Packing gym clothes for after work and putting them in your car the night before
- Packing your lunch for work the next day
- Filling up your water bottles for the day to meet your hydration goal
- Make your list for the store to help ensure you don’t forget foods or key ingredients that are key to your healthier meals for the upcoming week.
Meal prepping is a key habit to practice developing. People tend to overthink it or over complicate it. The more you try to skip this step, the harder you are making it on yourself. The more you try to wing it, the more you are leaving your goals to chance.
In the Achieve Wellness & Fitness private Facebook group, I post a lot of easy meal prep ideas. Many of my group members and clients do the same. You are welcome to join the group by clicking or tapping on the button below. (Please note, if you do not answer the group entrance questions, you will not be admitted to the group.)
Planning
Accomplishing your goals requires some planning. If you go forth into each day hoping for things to work out…you’re just going to be living on that “hopium.”
I don’t just hop on a plane and hope it is going to my desired vacation spot, I plan for it. I don’t just hope I have enough money to buy a house, I plan for it. I don’t just take random classes to get a degree, I plan for it.
We accept planning other aspects of our lives, yet, we often carry such opposition to putting effort into planning for our nutrition, fitness, or health.
A small bit of planning, even just 5 minutes here and 5 minutes there, can go a really long way. Precision Nutrition likes to refer to these as “5 minute actions.” Some examples of these are: planning your meals for tomorrow the night before, filling up your water bottles for the day to accomplish your hydration goal, or laying out your clothes the night before for the gym tomorrow.
Prioritizing
The harsh reality: if you don’t make time for your health now, you will be forced to make time for your illness later.
Having worked as a nurse in the hospital, I have never heard someone report that an unexpected hospital stay came at the right time for them. Most often, quite the opposite.
It is up to you to prioritize your health…no one else is going to do it for you.
Many times, people will cite money and time as to why they cannot devote more towards their health. I can likely go off on a tangent on how it is far more expensive and time consuming to manage through illness as well, but perhaps I will save that for another time.
For those with the rebuttal of not having enough time, one can simply look at the screen time on their phone. It’s likely that you will see that you do in fact have some available to you that can be better spent improving your health. Something interesting I recently did was do a time study relative to the time spent on my business. I wanted to see where I was spending my time in various activities and how much. It might be an interesting activity for people to try in their personal lives to see what opportunities they have for improvement in their pursuit of what matters most to them.
There are many people who cite finances as a challenge to them improving their health and that is understandable as well; however, it is not an excuse to do nothing. For example, walking is free. With some planning and meal prep as suggested above, it’s cheaper to cook for yourself and take your lunch or other meal with you to work than it is to eat out all the time. Another helpful activity to gain insight into whether you can afford help from a coach or to join a gym is to look at your financial statements and that will show you where your priorities are. I’m not here to judge you for your spending. I am just as guilty at spending on nonsense myself. However, that is after I have adjusted for the priorities in my life that will help me move forward towards my goals.
Conclusion
Preparing, planning, and prioritizing go hand-in-hand. If it means something to you, then those “three P’s” gotta come together. Take one of them out, and your goal becomes more challenging to accomplish.
We have some great examples of what some 5-minute actions would be in Week 1 of our Healthy Habits Lesson Plan, a component of our Nutrition Kickstart program. If you’d like to receive that, email Coach Candice at coachcandiced@gmail.com with the subject line, “Healthy Habits Lesson 1” and she will be happy to send it to you.
*At Achieve Wellness & Fitness, we have programs for all budgets. Before you count yourself out as being able to afford working with us, please check in with us first. The consultation is FREE! Click the button below to book your consultation, our No Sweat Intro, today!
Homework
Many times people are out of touch with what a portion size is. Last week, we started with some label reading to increase awareness around this. This week, I’d like to build on that with some actual measuring.
I’d like you to break out actual measuring spoons, not the teaspoons or tablespoons that you might eat with as these are not accurate. Also, get together some measuring cups.
Personally, I also like using a food scale…it helps me not dirty measuring cups! With the food scale, I can put an ingredient in my bowl or on my plate to measure it, then hit “tare” to zero out the weight again, then measure the next ingredient.
Your homework this week:
1) About 3-5 times per day, read the label of something you eat regularly, note the serving size, and measure it out. Make notes of what surprised you. As always, feel free to share in the Facebook group about what you learned or surprised you.
2) This week, I also want you to take note of your activity. If you have a watch that tracks your steps, about how many steps do you get in each day? If you don’t have a watch that tracks your steps, for those that carry their phone on them, many times, your phone will track your activity as well. If either of those two options don’t work for you, perhaps do a time study for yourself and take note of the intermittent times you were active throughout the day.
You can make notes for each day then at the end of the week. At the end of the week, make note of your average. To do that, tally up your totals and divide by seven (7). We’ll discuss this more next week ; )
Missed the Book Intro and Weeks 1 & 2, please check out the Achieve Wellness & Fitness blog where you can find those previous messages.