It is obvious when you have been working as a personal trainer in Dublin for 5 years alongside working with hundreds of clients that a calorie is not just a calorie.
I love the calorie debate.
Eat less (consume less calories than you need to run the engine) and do more exercise.
Simple. How many times have we been told this?
The truth is we DO eat too much and we DO very little exercise.
But what if you are careful about what you eat. You know you never eat to excess, drink a few glasses of wine a week, exercise by taking walks etc etc.
You know who you are. At least you may have a friend who seems to fit the above.
Yet still the fat loss efforts are stuck.
The calorie control approach to weight loss does have some merit. If you have the attention to detail of an accountant and actually enjoy counting calories then this approach may work.
It is the first step that we ask our clients to do. Tedious – yes. Necessary – absolutely. Without it you will be guessing your nutrition. You will be guessing how much you eat, when you eat it and what you unconsciously do with food.
Grab a pen and a pad and start to jot down everything you eat and drink for a minimum of 7-10 days.
Suddenly those half-a-dozen biscuits with your tea at 9pm suddenly appear as less appealing when they are in pen and ink.
Weight loss, however, is habit forming not calorie counting.
Why are we so fat?
Because we have chosen foods that work against us in the grand evolutionary scale.
We have acquired the habit of consuming too much sugar in our diets, too much grain, wheat and starches.
In essence our genetic code hasn’t changed on 50,000 years since our Paleolithic Ancestors. So why is it we consume foods that are at best 10,000 years old?
In fact the process of refining grain and our widespread access to it is not even this old. Some may argue that this has happened globally since the 1950s.
In Ireland we consume too much Alcohol.
My time in Europe this year working with some of the best strength coaches in the world was filled with one enlightening observation about Irish Sport.
“Isn’t that 20 sweating alcoholics running around a field with sticks”
I couldn’t disagree with him.
“Ah yeah, isn’t that the country that pours beer on its cornflakes?”
Probably a bit of an exaggeration.
When I question alcohol intake above and beyond the norms, I am looked at like I am from another planet.
Is there an in-built gene in the Irish that thinks that the rest of the world are not party animals if they don’t have 20 pints when they hit the town?
When it comes to fat loss, habit forming takes time. 21 days per habit if you go by the scientific literature.
I don’t think there is anyone one in the world who can seemingly flick a switch and change they way they behave, eat, train and live overnight.
So accept that firstly this will take time. And then set up a plan to change one habit at a time. Review this weekly. Be in a position to measure your progress.
If, for example, I asked you to have meat and nuts for breakfast every morning, a week later how compliant would you be?
7 mornings out of 7 is 100%. Great.
1 morning out of 7 is 14%. Still needs some work.
Until you nail this habit there is little point focusing on another. I like to use the phrase “Chase One Rabbit at a time”.
The skill comes in identifying what habit to change first and then subsequent habits.
I was scratching my head one day to really crack what was going wrong with this client. She was doing everything right. I mean everything.
However, it wasn’t until I saw here out with her child with a can of coke in her hand that the penny dropped.
“How many of those, do you have a day?”
“Only a couple” she said
Those two cans of coke, with 10 teaspoons of sugar in each were shooting her insulin levels up and blunting her fat loss efforts. Take away the coke – take away the fat.
One habit changed was quickly followed by results.
My advice to you would be to write down your ‘bad’ habits, particularly the habits you are conscious of. Then in the opposite column write how you will change them.
Tackle one of these per week and watch the pounds fly off.
John Lark is a personal trainer in Dubin. He can be found at www.john-lark.com
