We already know that I fully love this time of year for being all reflective, sitting on a rocking chair on the porch and casting my mind back through rose-tinted specs at all the amazing shit I’ve done the past twelve months. Well, it’s not quite that. It’s hours at a desk, exploding my mind onto paper, long discussions with coaches and hounding google for inspiration for the next twelve months. But you get the picture; it’s a time to be making a plan.
When it comes to making the training plan for the year ahead, I always come prepped to the discussion about any life changes and changes to my circumstances that are going to potentially get in the way of my proposed goals and dreams over the next twelve months. That way, my coach and I both know where we stand when it comes to the daily and weekly training plans.
When people make big plans for the future, when they set big goals, they too often forget that, as one entrepreneur recently expressed so well, “life keeps on life-ing“. Too right. You start on a Monday with all the intentions of getting up at 4am to meditate, sitting down to a beautifully fluffy omelette using the eggs from newly acquired backyard chickens and preparing all of the lunches, gym gear and neatly organised diary the night before for work so you can skip out of the door after work and straight into the weights room on your way home. In reality, you snoozed the alarm twenty times before finally rolling over and realising you have a full ten minutes before you need to roll three children out of bed and into school, feed yourself and everyone else, get all the social media organised and comments liked and replied to before rushing out the door and then returning home to cook a hearty meal, only to come home and find the dog’s eaten all the backyard chickens one week in to their new life with you.
When you finally decided “this is my year” when it comes to losing those pounds and finally taking back control of your own life, did you ACTUALLY identify the real barriers to your success? Did you recognise that “life keeps life-ing” and how you were going to deal with that? No? Well here’s how to fit weight loss in when everything around you is basically on fire.
1. Start with your “why”.
It seems simple, but knowing WHY you want to lose weight is the thing a lot of people never really dig into. Sure, you want to get back into those muscle fit tops, but WHY? Is it to impress your friends? Give off some kind of alpha male vibe? Or is it because you know that it makes you feel a bit better and that makes you more productive? Is it because you know that when you get down to a certain weight, you can move more, you have more energy and everything is easier because of the choices you’re making to be healthier? Be careful. If you can only think of external influences like “I want to be the ripped guy among my friends and be better than them”, then you’re unlikely to be able to use this as motivation when the going gets tough. Real “why” is powerful because it helps you stay focused when stuff is hard. External, shallow “why” means nothing and if that’s your motivation, you’ll give up, because you’ll soon realise nobody else gives a toss and so you’ve lost your reason.
2. Acknowledge your parameters for success.
For me, I’ve got some tough things I want to achieve. But I also want to maintain my relationship, continue my long-suffering house renovation and keep enjoying running with my dog. Those are my parameters for success. I will not achieve my goals at the sacrifice of those things. However. I WILL sacrifice social nights out, interacting with lots and lots of friends (preferring instead to keep a very small circle of friends and family) and holidays that don’t include races. If you’re trying to lose weight, what are you willing and not willing to compromise on? Are you happy to give up your weekly greasy all-you-can-eat pizza night but can’t compromise on your daily chocolate bar? Are you happy to turn down nights out to restaurants with friends but not willing to turn down after-dinner drinks at work? The decisions and choices you make about these types of things WILL affect your outcomes and how quickly you can get there. But at the end of the day, this is about long-term change. Putting a blanket ban on things that realistically, you aren’t willing to give up, will quickly lead to failure.
3. Dive into home-cooking hacks
The internet is filled with billions of “life hacks”. Some of them are about as clever as a chocolate fireguard, but a lot of them can be really helpful when it comes to committing to healthy home-cooking, while maintaining flavour and saving on time and calories. Slow-cookers and air-fryers are two of my faves. The air-fryer is now a kitchen staple meaning healthy chips in minutes, but they also mean that crispy mid-week pans of roasted veggies are only twenty minutes away and THAT I’m excited about. The slow-cooker is a hump day favourite in my house; I work funny hours meaning I’m often not home until close to bed time, so banging all the fridge veggies and some meat, pulses or broth mix into there means tasty meals and a delicious smell to come home to after a long day at work. Absolutely zero effort. Plus, you can batch cook so you’ve got tasty meals with hearty ingredients, all week long.
4. Stop making excuses for coffee on the go.
Coffee is one of the biggest contributors to secret extra calories in my experience. Why? Because nobody except me, goes to the local latte hole and orders a black Americano. Nobody. Everyone orders an extra-whip low-foam super-wet chocolate-covered cream-filled macchiato choccie mocchie doo-da and finishes off with a packet of biscotti for good measure. It’s cheaper and just as quick to make a flask or thermal mug of coffee at home – which is great because you won’t have the time or inclination to fill it with foamy milk and syrup and you’ll probably be buying your favourite brew or bean in anyway, so you’ll probably like it more. Quit the drive-thru habit, always carry a thermos. The pensioners you see parked up drinking their own tea and sandwiches had it right all along and you know it.
5. Have some go-to lunch take away options.
Okay, so you forgot to make lunch last night and overslept this morning. Now you’re stuck for time and struggling with lunch-based anxiety over the right choices. Know your local lunch spots and know how to read the menu properly. Yes, the deep-fried Korean chicken burger with dirty fries is lovely, but is that constructive for your weight loss goal? Could you settle for a we all seasoned chicken flatbread instead? And don’t think you need to stick to soup and salads – in fact some salads are higher in calories than their more tempting looking burger or pizza counterparts!! Get savvy with which foods keep you full, give you the most nutritional bang for your buck (think packing the biggest variety of fruits, nuts, veggies, grains into a meal as you can) and is appealing for you to eat. It’s always going to be harder to keep track of calories on menus from local eateries, but you can still make healthy choices that avoid spiralling into the sugar roller-coaster later in the day. If you do have a larger restaurant chain nearby, they’ll make it even easier by sharing the average calorie content of the average portion on their menus too. Having a lunch-spot you know you can glide into, order swiftly and leave with a delicious lunch on those days where packed lunches just ain’t happening, will settle your anxiety and help keep you on track.
There’s loads more ways you can build weight loss in, but it’s all about getting to understand your own individual barriers, parameters and circumstances. Once you fully understand those WITHOUT the usual defeatist mindset that most people put to them, when you approach them with a mind open to change, you will succeed.
And for more help with planning your goals, check out the GoalSMASHING podcast to take the next steps and don’t forget to take the Super Human scorecard so you can start working on the stuff that’s getting in your way, today. With free personalised tips and advice as soon as you get your results, you can identify exactly which areas of your life need a little improvement and how to start working on them right away!