In our age obsession with weight loss and fat loss are we missing the bigger picture here writes Dublin based Personal Trainer, John Lark?
I believe we are. And seeing through this will mean a) less stress in trying to get to your target weight and b) LIVING rather than worrying about the scales say minute by minute.
The time is to focus on getting healthier. I mean ask yourself this – are healthy people overweight? No. Do they leave themselves open to degenerative disease? No.
Get healthy, and your problems will melt away. I guarantee it. And guess what? The journey is a lot smoother and more enjoyable. The pressure to ‘lose’, ‘tone’, firm-up’, ‘tighten’ is gone. The focus moves to drink more water, eat better quality foods, get some sleep etc etc. All of which are a lot easier to achieve.
One of the most enjoyable by-products apart is weight loss (if you are overweight), energy levels, lowered stress levels and a positive outlook on life.
Compare this to your quick fix fat loss programme. Weight loss – yes. However, with this will come the stress and negativity of the ‘will I or wont I make it?’.
Experts in body composition changes (losing fat and firming up muscles to create that lean and slender look) are experts in health and call upon allied health professionals to get results.
I mean if you are eating like a Spartan, drinking more water than a dolphin, training with the effort of a Olympian but sleeping 4 hours a night and going through a messy relationship break-up we all know that results will be hard to come by.
Sometimes it is not a case of pushing down harder on the accelerator, more a case of releasing the hand brake. A personal trainer will be able to find your handbrake.
Have you ever wondered why you find it hard to exercise or at least find it hard to muster the motivation to exercise?
The answer lies in the status of your health. In essence it is not your fault. Address your health and suddenly the clouds part and the will power appears in abundance. Brain chemicals and neurotransmitters are working against you rather than with you.
Low levels of dopamine and serotonin will scupper any well-intentioned plans.
Now that is not to say that you start blaming your malaise and lack of energy on good ole dopamine. Far from it. After all, it wasn’t an accident that that biscuit ended up in your mouth (and another one and another) or you chose to do nothing about the ever expanding waist line.
Get up, have a good breakfast, drink more water, take your fish oil and vitamin D and you will feel better almost immediately. Then the excuses will truly fly out the window.
Try training with any intensity dehydrated, devoid of sleep, pounded with stress on top of a lunch comprising of what your local service station’s a-la-carte of ribs and chips.
Yet 99 per cent of gym goers do this. End result – you drag yourself to ‘train’, workout with the intensity (what is needed to actually get a result) of a damp squib and get frustrated with your lack of results.
Get healthy THEN get fit. Don’t try and do this the other way round.
The beauty is that you will feel immediate gains in your health if begin with the big guns – drink more water, drop the animal and dairy proteins from every meal, consume more veggies, sleep and take time to release your stress boilers.
There is so much more to ‘getting fit’ than just ‘doing the work in the gym’. The bases need to be covered first before most of us even set foot in the gym.
Get my free report by signing up on my web site. Then take the few pointers in there and implement one-by-one.
Train as hard as you can on your nutrition as you do your body and you will find the new you very quickly.
Next week I will address some of these in more detail including a handy tip sheet that you can use to address your health immediately. The journey is far more important than the destination.
John Lark is a personal trainer in dublin.
