Guilt Free - Strength and Fitness

Recently, I have been having to deal with an issue most of my clients have admitted to me. It' isn't the first time I have heard it and I am writing this blog post out of concern for anyone else who is struggling with this issue. Even some of my best trainees open this up. If they miss a training session or go slack on their diet they feel guilty!

Now to me, feeling guilty about missing a training session of messing up on the diet once or for a few days is a sign of trouble showing up. I don't ever want any of my clients or those I advise feeling guilty over missing a session or cheating on thier meals. To be feeling guilty will stop and make you think you are just doing things without reults coming. While I don't advocate being lazy and just giving excuses and the ' I'm like this only' excuse which is also terrible for your overall health, fitness and strength goals, being guilty also doesn't do any good.

Buried guilt is a sneaky thing which will come back to hit you hard when you least expect it. It builds patterns into your mentality keeping you weak. As a result you will not be able to go forward. Yes your body might push harder the next time but its more damaging in the long run. Guilt turns toxic inside of you and it drains your strength. Here are just some of the effects of guilt:

• Cortisol levels go up increasing stress.
• Headaches and Backaches
• Cardiovascular disease
• Gastrointestinal disorder
• Steady decline of the immune system
• Contributes significantly to depression and anxiety.

As you can see from the above list non of this is helping in your effort to stay healthy, fit , strong and living a long life. If brought in to the exercise and diet parts of your life, you are just going to go on with a mindset hoping to have results and you you will just be 'spinning your wheels' without going anywhere. Many times that mindset can be hidden and you don't even realise it. Soon its taking its toll on you, then results get further and further and finally you drop out of living a healthy lifestyle or continuing that journey. 

If you miss a training session or a few training sessions or your diet hasn't been clean for a while - whether you were being slack or things just happened that got too much in the way there are a few things you can do:

• Face reality - As long as you are living and breathing there is hope. Acknowledge to yourself you missed up that schedule and get back on track quickly! Forgive yourself and get up. There is more strength in standing up and getting on to the path again especially after you trip up. Don't wallow in the guilt and self pity.
• Get a coach and stay accountable - Find a good coach or trainer. They can help mentor you and give you the support that you need.
• Find a social support group - If you are already training in a group, these could be the right people to give you the support you need, especially if they are all networked to the same coach who mentors you all.
• You can learn 'pre-emptive strikes' or 'counter- attacks' to help you stay on your plan.

There are two examples that I can give to which I saw this work and work well. The first is my own experience and my second transformation. 

The second comes from a client of mine who was seeing me for nutritional coaching. She came to me in September of this year.  From September to October she was struggling to start effectively on the plan and no results whatsoever. To make matters worse nearly all her initial conversations and texts conveyed the message that she was stressed out and she would tell me at times she felt guilty. I told her that she first needed to stop feeling guilty and stressed out. At the beginning of November we met up and she was a different person. She had started to lose weight, her skin was clearer, her voice was calmer and she had more confidence about her. The gamechanger - she worked hard but threw out the extra baggage of being stressed and the guilt of not being able to stick to her plan. She has lost about 5kgs from October end till now.

Don't let guilt hold you down. Life does happen. Things do get tough. However, there is no reason to carry around mental toxic waste like guilt with you especially when things are not going your way. It will just do more harm than than good. Get over it, stand up and keep going. Practice Guilt free strength and fitness.

Intangible but Powerful Fitness Goal keys

After a year and a half of struggling with maintaining my fitness levels and weight I have learnt a lot more as I continued to train clients.

I am just fresh out of my 2nd transformation and the results this time have been much more rapid than my previous one. I wanted to share with all of you some overlooked keys but most important keys to weight loss, losing fat and building muscle and strength.

1) Mindset and focus: You have probably heard it time and time again - set a goal when you want weight loss.
This locks in your focus. The goal set can also be to gain muscle and strength. However an important factor to look for when you are setting a goal is to be realistic and set a timeline.

2) Be honest: Take a long hard look at yourself and be honest. Tell the truth to yourself. 'I am fat and it's not healthy. I need to lose weight.'  It takes guts to stand in front of a mirror and tell yourself that. Many times we are scared to admit it aloud. Stop running. Embrace it. Locate yourself and only then can you move forward.

3) Responsible:- Responsibility is important. To lose weight you need a simple but effective plan. You have to find one which you know you can stick with for that particular period of time in both nutrition, exercise and rest. You already know you can't lose weight eating whatever you want or when 'cheat day' is every 48 hours. If it's your diet, take some time to find out what is an effective plan that you can stay consistent with till you lose weight. Don't just keep putting in everything into your mouth. If it's exercise, don't just jump into P90, Insanity, Zumba or the latest in thing -  find the one that's right for you. If you need to, get a trainer to design a program for you.

'Eat responsibly, Train Responsibly and Rest Responsibly'

4) Consistency - Once you find an appropriate plan of action to lose weight start it and stay consistent and committed to it. It is not in the 3 days of doing it but in the full journey. In my case in the 2nd transformation, my weight showed no changes in the first two weeks. However in the 3rd week it showed a weight loss of 4kgs! (no thats not a typo). By the time I entered the beginning of the 5th week I was down by 7kgs!  However, if  I had given up within the first two weeks I would have not seen anything except a fatter version of me or at the worst the same old fat version of me.

5) Stay calm: It's important to remember not to stress out on a weight loss plan (or anytime for that matter). Excessive stress will result in cortisol being released and make you gain weight. When I was in transformation I got more rest, went and had more fun, enjoyed more quiet time and introspection than the previous months. I not only got to know myself better but reached my goal in record time. 

    Don't stress out over the fact that you have to lose weight either. Yes you acknowledge it and embrace the fact that you need to lose weight but things will start getting better when you relax. This really happened with a client of mine over the last 3 months. She could not lose weight in 2 months and was always stressing out over it. So I had to keep telling her to relax. Then about a month ago she told me she lost 3kgs. Nothing changed in her diet pattern. Her exercise regime was far from effective  since she was just starting strength training, but she just took things calmly and she lost weigh almost immediately. (you can read my article on de-stress here.)

These are keys that will help you in your weight loss journey. These are hardly talked about or emphasized but they are just as important as nutrition, exercise and rest when it comes to losing weight. 

Worry- The Silent Killer

I am back again onto blogging! Our year had quite a start and challenging events upto now. It just seems that everything hit us all at one go... good times and tough times.

Training has been going well. It just so happened that most of the ones who came up told me one thing -

'I am mentally stressed'

The number of health issues coming up from here was frightening

1) High Blood Pressure

2) Hormonal Imbalance

3) Gastric trouble

4) Depression

5) Fat gain and obesity

6) Fatigue

The list went on and on. 

So since I had committed to prioritise Rehab as a trainer I thought I would work with these people as well. 

Then I got the worst call of all......

'Gideon, come home quick! Dad met with an accident and he is in the hospital!'

I had just seen him 2 hours earlier.

The cause of the accident for my dad was a blackout caused by High BP. You have to understand something about my dad. He is my coach. He is tough and built like a tank. At 73 years old he deadlifts about 180 kgs and Squats about 130 kgs. 

He was alone riding a scooter and then suddenly had a blackout. After the analysis they found many micro bleeds in the head. The doctors who attended to him said one thing. He worried too much and that increased his BP and caused micro bleeds and as a result a blackout. 

I just saw a professional strength athlete being knocked down by a thing called worry. 

People please hear me..... Worry is a killer. Its a silent killer. And also most of the time its about things that dont happen.

You have to learn how to control your thoughts and avoid worry. Old time strongmen and athletes knew one thing about strength.....they could not let strength robbers come in and one of them was worry.

They enjoyed life and also regularly practiced meditation to focus their mind and control their thoughts. They knew life in the real world was tough. There were real problems. They however trained their minds and bodies to be strong. 

Jesus Christ himself lived his life and said...'Dont worry about things.' For someone who set a global example I would think he would know what he was talking about.

How do you stop worrying? There are quite a few things you can do.

1) Meditate - Take time to think of good things and how to solve problems. Focus on controlling your thoughts.

2) Do not Procrastinate - If there are things you can do right away, do it!

3) Enjoy life - There are good times in life. Enjoy it with your family and friends.

4) Laugh -  Laugh out. Laughing keeps your heart cheerful and light. 

5) Exercise - Exercise is a good way to deal with stress both mental and physical.

6) Eat Well- Eat good healthy food at the right times. More often than not if you are  (really) hungry then emotions because of chemical reactions in the body cloud your judgment.

Dad is much better now and well on his way to recovering. My clients are doing much better and are getting mentally clearer. 

To all my readers and followers I leave you with this.........

I am sure you know a lot of people who need this post. Please share it with them. 

  

Another lesson learnt from another client - Discipline and Honesty

The other day a client of mine asked me after a session, 'Do you also train?' Now, while that might seem like 'DUH', it got me thinking. Sometimes clients questions can take us off guard and also keep us in check. It has been quite a busy month for me and my training frequency has reduced but I made time to train at least twice a week for 15 minutes. I was so glad I managed to do that.

Imagine if I had to tell the client, 'No, actually I have not been training recently because I was really busy?' Instead of building them up I would have given the message that its ok to avoid training if there was a 'so and so' reason. 

'Oh c'mon, you didn't need to tell them.' That might be true. That also means it would have backfired on my character. No one would have known except me but in all honesty that would have weakened my resolve and authority as a trainer to ask them to do something or make a suggestion. These clients look up to us for maintaining their health but I also believe as personal trainers there is an element which goes deeper. It is setting an example and standard.

Stay honest and true to yourself. You will be able to handle 'curve balls' that suddenly get thrown at you from your client. As a trainer your own personal disciplines are necessary to be an authority and make an impact while training. Also, when you do that you come from a position of authority to be able to tell your clients what to do.

Discipline and honesty helps you through any aspect of life. As trainers I think this is especially true and important as we also set the example of being role models. It also helps to practice what you preach. If you need to stay on track find someone you can trust and stay accountable to so you can keep sharp. My wife keeps me accountable with something as little as a posture deviation. It gets irritating sometimes but I know its for my good and getting me sharper and stronger in character and skill to do what I have to do.

Practice living being true to what you stand for. Might be a bit difficult at the beginning but if you are consistent it will become a part of your life.

If this post has encouraged you send it out to someone else who you think needs it. If you need any help with Lifestyle Coaching or fitness, send me a message.

Having fun, Monkeying around, Breaking Barriers and Celebrating Achievements

Training sessions should be fun. That is something I learnt from Matt Marshall or at least got it reinforced in my mind from him. Thats exactly what I did today. I was waiting for a client to show up and I decided to have some fun on the kids playground - just monkey around on the monkey bars!!

Well I know it doesn't sound too modest but I was impressed with my speed and body movement. I just ran, jumped and swung around and hung around and also found out where all I had made improvements. Movements I thought still had a long way to go just flowed nicely and......for lack of a better word happened. It was sad that there was no video and no cameras but I did feel like I made my entry into the world of bar athletes.

Here is what went down:

3 single arm Pull ups:) from a 2 second single arm hold previously.

Front levers  

Reverse pull ups 

Upside down Pull ups 

Isometric holds on parallel bars for 15 seconds

I am thankful to God for this and to all the people who kept encouraging me to push past my limits with bodyweight training I want to thank you as well. I am going to take some time out today and celebrate!!

Why I respect Aerobics and Zumba

I personally am not too interested in aerobics or zumba. I really don't do trainings with them. However, time to time I do workouts with them just to check where I stand with speed, co-ordination and mobility and also to keep the basic skills sharp when training clients for warmups or cardio.

 I know there are more 'macho' ways to check this but I remember when I first did aerobics in my ISSA training. I was struggling to keep up. I was so proud of the fact that I could lift weights and knew the techniques and theory really well and here I was struggling to move, struggling to keep up with the tempo, struggling to breathe - I was humbled by the so called 'Ladies Exercises'. It is pretty ironic when you see a bunch of guys who throw weights around come in with a swagger and then 7 minutes later blunder and stumble all over themselves!

From a trainer and student point of view I came back with a new respect for aerobics and zumba. It does challenge the cardio vascular capacity and puts into light personal co-ordination and balance. For me, I was stiff and struggling.

Today, I still would not use them in my own training sessions. However, I would not come back saying that they are a waste of time. I think they have their own place in conditioning. I also think where it gets annoying to me is when the big box 'fitness centers' use them as latest fad workouts and the in thing to get people without any absolute consideration to see their members get their health and fitness levels better.

I am of the opinion that aerobics and zumba with serious weight training sessions will produce great results for fat loss, muscle building and overall general health and fitness. Oh yeah and if you are someone who loves too dance you are going to have a lot of fun!! My only advice is please find a good trainer in aerobics or zumba and make sure they also throw in and advise strength training sessions.

If you are looking for a good Personal Trainer and Zumba Instructor in Bangalore, India please click on the link below.

http://kavyashankar.zumba.com/

Mind Muscle Connection: Concentration when training

To get the most out of your training you have to be focused and get a mind muscle connection. It is just not about lifting weights or how many reps you can crank out. To build quality muscle you have to make sure the right muscles are contracting or working.

This also helps keep your form in check and as a result prevent injury, gain strength and grow some muscle. It is not as easy as it sounds though. When I first started off, my dad (who is my coach) always used to tell me 'Concentrate, work the muscle.'

This is my one main technique that  I rely on if I need to gain strength or size quickly. I slow things down, concentrate, check my form and lift or execute. Its not about slowing down the tempo but more about 'getting into the muscle.' This is especially true of body weight training.

I remember at one time my bicep development had just plateaued. I was lifting 40kgs-50kgs at that time on bicep curls. I could not figure it out. Everything other body part that I was increasing weight on had me growing on strength and size but my biceps had just stalled. So I stripped of weight down to 10- 15 kgs and I started to lift the weight again.................slowly! I just concentrated on feeling the muscle contract and my form. In about two weeks my biceps were fired up and lifting heavier but more importantly....accurately.

The mind muscle connection is also important as you start to lift heavier weight or progress in body weight training. The muscle mechanics and memory get set and that leaves you free to concentrate on some big pulls or lifts. Imagine lifting a 200kg weight and the muscles were trained wrong. Or if you were using a body weight bridge or pushup level you are learning? What are the chances that would be wasted hard work? Or of an injury waiting to happen?

If you are looking to enhance your results go ahead and literally rethink and refocus over your training patterns. It will unlock a whole new world to you.

Back to training

After a week, it feels great to get back into training. I went in for a 25 minute bodyweight training session. Although I wasn't too happy with the intensity, I was happy that I made a comeback after one week.

One thing I did have going for me was the undereating phase of my nutrition in the previous week. I managed to stick to that religiously. Then I ended the week with about a 8 Km walk. It was a breath of fresh air to get out into the sunshine, take a walk ALONE, clear my head and also push a mental toughness build up. I had to go on that walk because my bike was out at the service station and I had to go pick it up before a certain time. So I used the walk as a training session as well. There were times on that walk I wanted to just get a lift from someone but I challenged myself to finish it. I made it on time, got my bike and came back home. It felt good. I had won something deeper. It was not spectacular but I know I got somewhere with it.

Some of you might have a question about why the 'fitness pro' didn't train for a whole week. Well, I'm a human being, not a machine. 

Here is what went down in my previous week.

1) At times I was just plain lazy. I had the opportunity to crank out at least 30 push ups but I did not do it.

2) Life goes on: With my 4 week old daughter at home, I'm getting used to new demands and schedules.

Things do happen but embrace it and move on. I had to accept the fact that I was lazy at times.I also had to accept the fact that schedules were demanding. I could have solved the issue of one of them by just getting off my rear end but did not. What is important is that I made a comeback. To those of you struggling to get back on track with anything I can say this - start as quickly as possible. It does not matter how long it takes to get back to full flow but start and stay consistent.

All the best.

Motivation for Nutrition