A lean lifestyle is a choice

I was having a conversation with myself yesterday that went along the lines of:

"Why not have a mouthful of *insert name of any crap here* just like everyone else. Other people can eat treats so why can't you?"

"Living a fit lifestyle means eating to fuel a fit lifestyle. I don't see where *insert name of any processed crap* fits into the equation."

Needless to say, Vera Sluttinski is looking for a new home somewhere else with her mate Inner Gollum.

Anyone wanting to take on a boarder?


Living fit in the long term is really a lifestyle choice. I'm proud to honour myself with nutritious fare that keeps me on the top of my game!

Training today: Just taught an awesome Step class and now off to teach RPM!

Decide Commit Succeed

"Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go".- William Feather

Today's tag line comes from a well known fitness and DVD company (Beachbody.com) and really sums up long term success. Shelley has alluded to it in her blog earlier this week - decide what YOU want and really go for it. If you have your eyes on the prize you can endure the sacrifices you may make along the way for it. This doesn't apply to just body fat loss, it applies to all areas of life.

I'm really running with the above quote today. Essentially, I'm in "post comp mode" without having competed and although most of the time, I've been pretty 'even' with my nutrition, yesterday I allowed myself to get overtired and let the Inner Gollum in for a pity party. I felt like a complete failure for quite a long time - I could hear Gollum, after telling me it didn't matter and that I needed to live a little, rattling around in my brain telling my other good mate, the old Inner Critic, that I totally sucked because I failed and that it was so awful that I had done this to myself etc etc. The Inner Critic took me by surprise and had me questioning at one stage why I do what I do.

Being a fan of John Maxwell, I decided to "fail forward" - that is, get up, dust off straight away and begin to fight back against Gollum and the IC. I put Gollum in it's place by logging and preparing all of my meals for today and going straight to bed. I negated with the IC and told her that she was awfulizing about something that happens to the best of us. Something I used to believe was that by being a coach, by being an exercise physiologist, by "knowing" something about this field, that it would help me to become immune to failure where eating is concerned.

Being human, I can say this is not the case. I have to work at it all the time - as someone said once "life is managed, not cured" - I allowed tiredness and mental fatigue to open the door to patterns of destructive behaviour, which combined with other factors create the Food Beast which is alive in us all.

I hadn't planned on blogging about this at all, rather - go away, lick my wounds and go on as if failure never happens to me. But I'm blogging about it so that I can highlight to myself (and anyone else that may be interested), the value of what you can do after a "failure" to ensure your success in the future.

What this brought home to me is that I need to honour myself more with my own path (for a start, doing more with my own training/nutrition program) and avoid the path of too much work, not enough sleep and no time for myself. Failure has brought that into focus more and things are in motion so that the balance tips more in my favour.

I'm looking forward to this week, shuffling work to be in my favour, having some social time (lunch..yay!) and recharging with a sports massage.

Tools for Success and Self Motivation

I thought I would post a few ideas that work well for me in regards to eating well. I often get told that "I eat well no matter what". For the most part, I do eat well, but like everyone else in the universe I will occasionally overeat for a multitude of reasons eg the food tasted so good etc etc.

But after the comp is over or the transformation is complete what steps can you take to make sure that you are actually living a lifestyle and not a diet? First of all check that the way you are eating is not similar to a diet.

Being really rigid about food choices and keeping a list of "SAFE FOODS" - diet mentality.
Seeking perfection - DIET MENTALITY
Being open to trying different foods and experimenting with what works for your body - LIFESTYLE mentality.
Going with the FLOW but being CONSISTENT overall - LIFESTYLE MENTALITY.

What helps me maintain a good LIFESTYLE:
1) Eating for flavour/taste. I recommend eating similar amounts of carb and protein with each feeding for most people, but the other evening, I craved risotto. So I made the risotto per the recipe which was mostly carbohydrate, but then decided to add some poached chicken breast to the end result which was delicious. The ratio of carb to protein was definitely not EXACT or PERFECT, but the end result was CONSISTENT - always a bit of carb/bit of protein. Next meal was heavier in protein and lower in carb - at the end of the day - JUST RIGHT.
2)As outlined above, CONSISTENCY, NOT PERFECTION. One or two off the plan meals won't make any difference, competing or not - if this were the case, then there would be no hope for any of us in maintaining or achieving a lean physique.
3) Acceptance of where you are and intuition. Knowledge is power - if you know you're going to experience a few eating wobbles whilst things smooth out, then they are less frightening than if you're back into the gym and clean eating with your teeth clenched and eyeballs popping, lest you make a "mistake". Be intuitive about what you want. If you're craving an English Muffin with honey, don't eat your way around it - have what you want and balance out the next meal.
4) Eat slowly and eat sitting down - no fail strategies here!

Knowing WHY you want to live lean and love life is always at the cornerstone of a good transformation plan. Having this internal motivation will keep you going when external motivation fades (except for a humungous leverage). Internal motivation, when properly encouraged is never going to leave you. You're no different on the post comp side of the fence as you are on the pre comp .Be prepared to be consistent, no matter what. Failure cannot handle persistence. In other words, if you stumble, keep going anyway.

Keep working towards a LIFESTYLE frame of mind. You will fit and free!