6 Lessons from 6 Years
Your Key Takeaways
- Adherence trumps everything
- Don’t bite off more than you can chew
- Measure things on the Macro Level
- If you fall off the wagon; take action
- Expect the Dip & move forward anyway
- The Basics will always Rule
I usually write a round up email every year around Christmas time, but with it being our 6th anniversary last week and the official ‘re-launch’ of Doc Fitness with the re-vamp we recently completed, I thought it was best to get this article out now.
So, with that, here’s 6 core lessons that have attributed to our clients success over the years and what we believe, need to be at the forefront of how you approach your fat loss or muscle gain efforts.
If you lack in one or more of these areas, it might just be the eye-opener you need coming into 2020.
1: Adherence Trumps Everything
If you cannot stick to something, you won’t do it.
No matter how ‘good’ a training programme might appear, or how ‘fast’ a diet can help you shift the weight, if it’s unrealistic, you won’t do it.
Adherence is a massive factor within our training & nutritional programming for our clients.
We’ve it built into everything we do at Doc Fitness in Kilcolgan,
And the same goes for our online clients.
Yes, we base everything around evidence-based principles, but still, adhering to those principles is the key for the true behaviour change.
Any fool can help someone lose fat by putting them on a shitty diet.
We want to help you lose fat, tone up and do it all while living a real life, without reverting back to the start ever again.
2: Don’t bite off more than you can chew
I’m sure you’ve heard that clichéd saying at this stage now;
‘How do you eat an Elephant?’
-> ‘One bite at a time.’
And the same rings true when it comes to creating true change.
If you take on too much, you will probably get overwhelmed and pack it in.
I don’t care if you tell yourself; “I either go 100% all in or nothing at all”,
We have proudly coached thousands of clients over 6 years and we know that this mentality is just stupid,
Eventually, the ‘100% all in people’ end up failing and re-cycling through the same thing a couple of times before reality sets in.
I’m not saying you’re not committed, that’s different. But trying to change 100 different things at once just won’t work.
You are trying to change core habits that you’ve built up over the ears and that’s fecking hard.
See, I get it, changing small things at a time seems trivial,
– Drinking an extra pint of water per day doesn’t seem like much
But drinking that extra pint leads you to feel fresher, probably feel a bit more productive and energised for your workouts and leads to the snowball effect.
And we live in a World where things are INSTANT,
It only took you a few seconds to click into this article, why can’t fat loss just be as easy? Especially when you are marketed that is is the whole time?
Reality check; it isn’t.
Anyhow, I’ll leave this point with an analogy,
Pixels make up the screen you’re now looking at this article on.
On their own, they might seem like nothing,
But add thousands of pixels together and they make up the bigger picture.
That’s how habits work, they all come together to produce the results you want.
They may not seem like much in isolation, but believe me, 6 months from now, you’ll be a different person if you adopt this approach.
3: Measure things on the Macro level
I’m using the ‘weight and scales’ analogy for this one.
If you don’t know by now, your weight fluctuates daily.
So ‘weighing in’ once per week is again; stupid.
That’s why it’s key to measure things on the bigger picture level.
In this case, weighing in at least 2-3 times per week and taking the AVERAGE of that weight to get a more accurate description.
Even then, your weight may not show your true progress so you might need to measure it over 2 weeks.
The point is; you cannot get pissed off if you’re not where you want to be after 1-2 weeks.
Just like you can’t get pissed off if you have one to two bad meals,
The fact is; It does not matter!
What you do most of the time matters the most and you need to view things on the bigger picture.
Will 2-6 meals gone a bit arseways un-do the 100’s of meals that are conclusive to your goals? No.
Will one weekend gone a bit mad on alcohol and food un-do months of progress? No.
Will you notice progress every week? Probably not.
But you will over the long haul and that’s why you need to view things on the Macro Level.
Don’t miss the forest for the trees.
4: If you fall off the wagon; take action
If I had a euro for every time someone said “I’ve fallen off the wagon” this year, I’ve have about 7 euro.
However, on a serious note, this is up there with the most commons things we hear over a typical year.
And the reality is; it can cripple clients if they let it get to them.
For some, it’s triggered by a few days missed in the gym.
For some, it’s because they’ve been eating more calories than normal lately,
For some, they feel un-motivated & just can’t seem to get back on track.
WHATEVER THE SCENARIO, what you need to do is exactly the thing you’re avoiding.
>Great revelation there Dave<
But it’s true, ‘taking action’ is the antidote to a lot of things.
Missed a few gym sessions; get your workout gear ready, schedule it in & just do it.
If it’s not planned, it won’t get done.
Eating food that isn’t really what you want to be eating? Flip it on it’s head and do something about it.
See, it’s the story you tell yourself when these situations happen, and the best part? You can change that story and just get on with things.
5: Expect the DIP & move forward anyway
You will hit a period where you couldn’t care less about going to the gym or eating according to your goals.
No matter how motivated you might seem at the start, it does wane.
Cool thing is, there’s a science behind this so we know it happens.
We call it the ‘DIP’ and it’s actually something we teach our clients so they know how to handle it when it arises.
But it links directly to point 4, when it does happen, just knowing that ‘it will pass’ is a massive thing.
Problem is; this is where 99% of people give in, go back to the start and the same cycle happens over and over again.
But…
If you can’t past that ‘dip’, you’ve cracked the code so to speak.
That’s why having a coach/team of coaches and a strong support network is vital.
Check out this graphic to see exactly what I’m talking about which is taking from one of our clients goals workshops.
So, keeping the focus on your ‘reasons why’ you’re doing this is vital.
Problem with this, is that people NEVER set themselves proper goals, targets or true reasons why behind doing what you’re doing and at Doc Fitness, we build that into our coaching.
6: The Basics will always Rule
When I say basics, I really mean ‘principles’, but basics is just easy for people to grasp because we always like to preach; ‘have you looked after the basics first?’
When it comes to your resistance training, you need to be adhering to the principles there.
I.E:
- Progressive overload (doing a bit more over time)
- Training the 5 Key Human Movements as the foundation of your training (Squat, Push, Pull, Hinge, Core)
And then comes everything else after you’ve those basics covered.
Same goes for your Nutrition,
If it’s fat loss you’re after, you need to be in a caloric deficit for example. That’s based on science, not hearsay.
You need to look after that ‘basic fact’ first before you worry about;
- Is it ok to skip breakfast?
- Is it ok to eat 4 meals instead of 3?
- Is it ok to eat late in the evening?
All those questions can be answered once you’re looking after the basics first which matter the most, everything else is trivial.
And that’s it really, 6 Lessons Learned over 6 Years that contribute massively to our client’s overall success.
Are you doing all of them, one of them or none of them?
Food for thought coming into 2020 ?