Sometimes we need to be told things we don’t want to hear

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Guest Contributor: Noel Flynn from ABC GYM

Are you the person who wants the results but are not prepared to do the work? Perhaps you have a friend or family member who talks about getting in shape but spends all their time living the good life. I mentioned last week the ‘put it off’ brigade. I should know, I am one of them, not necessarily in terms of exercise or nutrition but as a man I will put off cleaning, in terms of business I will put off doing the taxes etc. So while it is ok to appear all high and mighty when it comes to being in shape, almost all of us have something we put off.

Perhaps you have knee pain or back pain but are too stubborn to do anything about it. Maybe you are not happy in your job but put off looking elsewhere. So when I appear to be talking about someone in these blog posts…..I am talking about YOU.

I have talked about blame in past blogs but usually we have nobody to blame but ourselves. Believe me I do not know of a bigger d***head than myself, in some areas of my life .But, I am going to have a rant and be a bit of a ass now.

If you are someone who is overweight, stop telling yourself it’s your genetics, or your kids fault, or your jobs fault. If you have fat to lose and you claim to not be able to afford a results driven training gym (as opposed to a cheap impersonal big box gym), it is not that you cannot afford it, you just have different priorities. Ok I know money can genuinely be an issue for people and if that is the case fair enough. Having said that I am going to talk about some things I am seeing and excuses I get.

I am talking about your everyday person who works a 9 to 5 and rents or owns a standard 3 bed semi-detached. You prioritise your dinner and drinks at the weekend, you prioritise your 2 holidays a year, your weekends away, you prioritise your birthday parties, you prioritise your magazine / tv / Netflix / god knows what subscription that you barely use but yet is too precious to let go BUT yet you moan about being overweight!!!!!

I see it all the time those who say they have no money but never miss a night out, have the best tv package with all the channels, can afford a take away every weekend and always seem to have the best of clothes.

However what really bugs me is the people who are jealous of others who are in shape, who moan about their own circumstances, who think being fit and healthy is something you do for 6 or 8 weeks. Seriously, I run a trial in my gym and you will get people who just do not want to put in the effort and every excuse under the sun will be given as to why they cannot make their appointments and they will fizzle out in 2 or 3 weeks have attended 2 or 3 times.you will get others who say ‘I don’t really need the trial because I am going to join until Christmas’.

Christmas is 10 weeks away, you think you will have your life sorted by Christmas yet you are 5 stone overweight and have yo-yo dieted and done every diet programme known to man. The fact that you have already decided you will be finished by Christmas means you will not succeed.

I may have offended some people there and I am not having a dig at anyone who enjoys holidays or nice things but if you can spend money on clothes, holidays, jewellery and make up (that adds to up large amounts annually) then you can afford to lose weight, you just do not want to badly enough.

Here is the thing when it comes to being in shape or succeeding at anything in life I suppose, the hurt and pain of NOT BEING in the shape you want to be in has got to be greater than the pain and effort of reaching your goals.

So if you think exercise is hard or eating right is not for you that is your decision and you are welcome to make that choice but have a think is it harder than shopping for the clothes you want but can never find. Is it harder than stepping on the scales and not being happy with the numbers you see, it is harder than looking at yourself from every angle possible in the mirror every day.

Succeeding at something generally is not easy and it always requires a lot of patience and bumps on the journey but in order to make something sustainable and something you do without having to think about, it needs to become a habit.

I have made these blogs a habit to write on a Friday but the week before last I was on a stag and missed it, it was a bump on the journey but it did not mean I stopped writing the blog. When something becomes a habit you do it unconsciously and therefore it does not consume your thoughts it does not overwhelm you.

My problem with diet programmes like weight watchers, slimming world and unislim is they consume your thoughts, you have to think about everything that you eat. The fact that foods can be named Sins creates a poor relationship with that food.

I have said it over and over again this blog is not a quick fix and I am prepared to bore people with that. Each week I will try to add a new habit to nail down before the next.

Last week the habit was Taking your time in regards thoughts and actions around food preparation right down to eating your food slowly and this leads into this week’s habit which is is simply: Eat until you are 80% full .Every time you eat over the next week, eat slowly and then stop eating when you are 80% full. This will take time to adjust to and it might mean upsetting a few ‘Irish mammies’ by not cleaning your plate but it is a great way of reaching sensible portion control. If you eat slowly enough your brain will start to recognise when you are approaching being full.

Notice I have not mentioned what to eat in any of these posts yet? You can look up what to eat anywhere, do you ever follow it? Maybe for a short while but did it ever become a habit?

SO your task for this week is now eat slowly and stop eating when 80% full, it does not matter what the food is, even if you want to binge over the weekend, at least nail down the habit of eating it slowly and come midweek we should be eating slowly and stopping once 80% full.

PS: Sinead and I are thinking of starting a Facebook group, as a community for the readers of the fitness blog, to hold each other accountable and share recipes and exercise tips but mostly to develop habits and a great relationship with exercise and nutrition. There will be rules around what can be posted but for the moment we are looking for expressions of interest, and if you are please comment on the facebook thread of this post and tag a friend you would like to be in there too. If we feel it is of interest to people we will get to get started as soon as possible.

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You can follow Noel on Snapchat on @abcgym and on Instagram here.

 

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1 Comment

  • Reply
    Eileen
    October 17, 2016 at 2:16 pm

    Great idea to start a facebook group

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