I love this pic – it makes me laugh 🙂
When talking to clients about diet, their weight-loss goals, exercise and general body-image, I quite often get told, “it’s OK for you, you’re lucky, you’re nice and slim…..”, etc. Weeeeell not really. It may have been true when I was 20, but I’m not (ahem) 20 anymore, and since my longest lasting and most successful relationship has been with chocolate, the only way I can deal with this is by working my motherf**kin @ss off 🙂
I’ve written before about having realistic, achievable and measurable goals and about the importance of being comfortable in the skin we’re in, whatever our size or shape but today I want to talk about the tricky subject of motivation, particularly for weight loss, and in starting or getting back to doing some exercise.
Weight Loss
I really do know what it’s like to look at the scales and think, “bloody hell, I’m never going to lose this weight, I might as well have another Double Decker.” I put on 3 stone when I was pregnant 🙂 In my experience, there are a couple of things to bear in mind when it comes to managing weight:
- Have a realistic plan – a change to more healthy-eating and getting a grip on portion control is going to make you MUCH happier AND be more effective for most people than trying some crazy crash diet or missing meals.
- If you have a cake, don’t worry about it. It’s not the end of the world. Guilt will make you think “Oh I might as well not bother now, I’ll have another Double Decker,” (are you seeing a theme here…?!). Don’t fall into that trap. If you feel like you’ve somehow failed yourself, you’ll start beating yourself up about it, and it’s much better to be in a positive frame of mind when making lifestyle changes than a negative one 🙂
- Be prepared. For example, if I don’t have breakfast I will genuinely eat 2 Double Deckers, a packet of crisps and probably the papers on my desk by about 10.30am, so I either have porridge with a banana and raisins (slow-release carbs, protein, loads of vitamins and minerals, bit of good fat), oat crackers with peanut butter and an apple (the same), or my patented peanut butter and banana muffins (mail me for the recipe). My top tip for when you HAVE to have chocolate is Malteasers – I speak as someone who can quite easily finish one of those “sharing” bags myself (!) – so I keep the bag in the fridge and just put a few in a little bag for when I’m out and about and want choc.
- Life is short, enjoy yourself; but if your weight is really bothering you, then a healthy eating plan and some exercise is in order…
Exercise
As you know, I love yoga – it’s great for strengthening and toning, for improving balance, stabilising joints, keeping good back health, improving body confidence, and establishing world peace (OK, I might be exaggerating the last one…). It can also be a great cardio workout, and provide some head-space for mindfulness and meditation.
However, as part of a fully-rounded, challenging and interesting exercise regime, I (and quite a few of my PT clients, obvs!) like to mix it up a bit, and we’ll do boxing, ballet, old-school gym work, bootcamp workouts, HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) circuits, weights, and any number of variations and permutations thereof.
What I’m saying is that there IS a type of exercise that you’ll enjoy (and will therefore keep you motivated), you just need to find it.
The benefits of exercise go way beyond weight loss, obviously, but if you want to manage your weight, you’ll need to take some exercise – I love talking about this – drop me a line and chat with me, and start working your mother**kin a$$ off 🙂
