It’s that time of year again when many of us renew our resolutions for the year. The easy thing to do here (and most common in our experience) is to come up with a fat loss goal; drop a dress size, get a six pack, fit into my skinny jeans again, blah blah. We always aim to steer people away from these goals as they’re based upon a negative relationship with your body for a start, plus it’s no fun weighing and measuring your food and your waistline day in day out. In fact the harder people pursue this goal the more likely they are to fail at it.
How to SHIFT the Excess Weight
If you’re new to Fitter Food and still struggling with all the conflicting information out there about how to lose weight our approach is a lifestyle once that starts with removing processed and refined food, cooking your own meals, balancing hormones that govern body composition, effective training, stressing less and sleeping more. We outline all of this in detail in our latest book with all the essential information plus over 150 recipes or for £1 you can sign up to our Fitter 365 membership site where we are about to launch a FREE 28 Day Body Transformation Plan called EPIC in 2016.
Or you can grab a cuppa and get stuck into some other blogs we’ve written on fat loss strategies, steps to shifting stubborn stomach fat, fat loss solutions and training for fat loss here and here.
Fat Loss Fails
The problem we see frequently is that people may know this information yet struggle to sustain their fat loss results. For some people it’s impossible if you don’t address the WHY and HOW you gain weight in the first place. As the new year is a good time for reflection use your resolutions as an opportunity to ensure you’re not in the same place when 2017 comes around. Take some time out to consider the following:
Why do I gain weight?
Why do I feel I NEED (enter appropriate crutch… alcohol/chocolate/ cheese/crisps…)
Why don’t I want to get out of bed in the morning?
Why don’t I want to exercise?
The answer is often because we’re unfulfilled, unhappy, bored, insecure, fearful, anxious….you get the picture. We seek comfort and escape by shutting ourselves away from the world with a large bar or chocolate or a bottle of wine. The other outcome of this behaviour is that our waistline can then become the problem or rather the distraction so we don’t have to deal with the bigger issues. From a health perspective it’s important to stop this situation occurring over and over again and enable yourself to strike up a healthy relationship with your body, for this to happen change needs to occur upstream.
The FITTER approach to fat loss is to basically stick two fingers up at it and turn your focus to more exciting and positive goals. There’s a great line in this Talk Like TED book where they ask successful entrepreneurs, “What makes your heart sing?” They all know the answer instinctively because they’re out there making it happen. The sad thing is many people are stuck in a cycle of dieting, punishing exercise regimes, self-loathing, comfort eating and guilt and have completely forgotten what once made their heart sing.
It’s time to start asking yourself this question. What makes you REALLY happy, what gives you butterflies in your tum? What makes you excited and nervous at the same time? What makes your heart race…. and sing? Because if you’re experiencing these emotional adventures on a regular basis you’re not going to be thinking about cake, cookies or how much cardio you’ve done this week.
The best quote we came cross recently was this:
“The happiest people are those that are too busy to notice whether they are or not!” William Feather
If you’re not a busy, happy person then you need to step back and reprioritise things in life a little. Here’s my top 5 tips for you when it comes to putting together some goals and resolutions for 2016:
1) Do Something That Scares You
Many of us suffer from anxiety and stress on a daily basis from things that really shouldn’t cause us to experience those emotions. We fret about sending emails, commutes, how many gym sessions we’ve done and how many kilos we piled on over the weekend. It’s good for us to experience a little fear but in the form of a goal or ambition that puts you out of your comfort zone. So when I say “do something that scares you” I mean think BIG! If your job isn’t doing this for you than consider a total career change. If your training has plateaued then set yourself a new training challenge, join a new class or enter a competition. If you’re lacking in confidence do something that involves building it like signing up to Toastmasters. If you want a new academic or mental challenge consider taking lessons in something; learn a new language or gain some qualifications this year. If your gut feelings is “I’d love to do that BUT…” then DO it! I’ve been tinkering with idea of getting trained as yoga teacher despite a fear of headstands (it always feels like I’m squishing my brain) BUT I’m going to go for it, also I can then teach yoga classes on our EPIC Fitter retreats yay!
2) Plan Experiences & Make Memories
At the end of 2014 I felt a little sadness about the fact that I’d just not spent enough time with friends and family, or when I did I had work related issues on my mind. In 2015 we made a concerted effort to travel and see more places, friends and have new experiences. We travelled, windsurfed, cycled, drank G&T’s in the sun, met up with old pals, ate pizzas and laughed a lot. I took as many photos as I could to capture all the wonderful times so I can look back and smile about the memories. Spend your evenings planning some EPIC adventures this year…see new places, try new foods and jump into new activities.
3) Get Creative
Being creative is awesome for stress management because when our creative brain is in gear we’re no longer in fight or flight mode. We’re all good at something too, however, often we’re just too busy to let our imagination run free. Being creative is incredibly mindful it takes us away from our daily worries and we can put together beautiful things that make those around us happy too. You could consider taking part in performing arts, playing an instrument, drawing, painting, ceramics, creative writing or making chocolate. At Fitter Food we love coming up with different ways of communicating awesome health and nutrition information, for us creating new recipes, illustrations, webinars and eBooks is one of the best part of what we do. In 2016 we’re getting savvy with video editing so we can really bring Fitter Food and #bemorehamish to life.
4) Focus on Fulfilment
To be able to fulfil your ambitions and dreams for 2016 you need to feel motivated, energised and ready for action. There’s lots to achieve and the clock is ticking, we can’t afford to waste time feeling tired, crappy or “hangry” so basing your nutrition on Fitter Food, getting your blood sugar levels stable, ensuring your gut health and hormones are in check and keeping your sleep health on track are all essential. Set yourself goals that will leave you feeling satisfied and content about how you spent 2016 and then fuel it with a FITTER lifestyle to make sure there are no excuses. We put together EPIC in 2016 for this very reason, to show you how the information and principles we educate look on a day to day basis. The plan is free to our 365 members and we’ve extended the sign up deadline due to popular demand. You can find full details on our Facebook page HERE.
5) Enjoy Every Chocolate
I started this year in Assici on a trip to help my Auntie, who was fighting a battle against cancer. I vividly remember wandering around the shops and all were full of Baci chocolates. It made me smile as I remembered my auntie bringing them with her every time she visited the UK. She wanted to sit me down and tell me the history of Baci and how they orginated from Perugia, each time I just wished she’d hurry up with the story and open the Baci! I didn’t eat any Baci in Assici, I was too anxious and stressed about what I could do to save my Auntie, yet all she wanted to do was take us out around Assici to see the spectacular views, eat delicious local food and raise a glass with friends. Her final moments were spent enjoying everything she loved.
Just before Xmas Matt and I randomly ended up in a Pizza Express having a Xmas meal together before I flew to Portugal, they served the after dinner espressos with Baci would you believe! I don’t think it was any coincidence it was my Auntie reminding me to enjoy every chocolate. One of the greatest things you can do this year is switch off from our online existence a little more and mindfully enjoy all the time you spend with loved ones, be in the moment and savour every second of it, otherwise you’ll may look back on 2016 and regret how much time you wasted on the insignificant things in life.
Have an EPIC 2016, I plan to 🙂
