Most of you probably think at 12 Rounds were all about hard training and restrictive diets but here’s a few thoughts I’ve been sharing with my clients recently.
Since entering the fitness industry I’ve changed my views so much on what’s important and what gets results. Most of us who want to lose weight want to do so because we want to be happy right? We’ve been told from the experts to train more and eat less. Yet for some us us it doesn’t matter how hard we train or how much we restrict out diets those numbers on the scales don’t move. And instead if moving towards our goal of happiness we end up miserable in the process. Frustrated and sad that we can’t achieve what we set out to. We tell ourselves stories that it must be something about us, we’re lazy, not working hard enough, have no will power or are greedy….
But what if it was these stories that was keeping us fat?
I get you, because I’ve told myself those stories too. Even as a personal trainer I always struggled with my weight. I had a picture in my head of how I thought a trainer should look like. I thought if I looked like a fitness model, if I had a six pack and below 15% body fat then I’d be more confident, I’d have more clients and my business would be more successful, ultimately I’d be happier. That was my story. So I really pushed myself to train hard, I consulted nutritionists and tried different diet plans. I tried to follow the rules. At one point I ate virtually no carbs and almost passed out during one of my high intensity boxing sessions. But the measurements didn’t change, I fact some weeks I’d actually got bigger. Seeing those numbers not change was so demotivating. I felt like a complete failure. Why did it work for everyone else and not me?
I knew there had to be something else as this just wasn’t working for me or so many others.
Now I truly believe that the key lies not in how hard we train or how little we eat but in brain science and how much threat we are under.
Let me explain. The more we push ourselves to do things we don’t want to do the more we push our brain into threat. Our brain thinks we’re in some kind of danger and we revert to our reptile brain that’s only concern is survival. It’s often the stories we tell ourselves that place us under threat.
How much threat we are under has a direct effect on our stress levels.
Our stress levels then have a direct impact on our hormones.
Our hormones have a direct impact on our body’s ability to burn fat.
So how we feel is so much more important than what we eat or how much we train.
Makes a lot of sense right? If we are constantly making our selves miserable with behaviours that don’t serve us, then all we are doing is telling our brain we are under threat.
Think about how you feel every time you step on the scales and those numbers don’t move. Is this how you want to feel? So why put yourself in that position and makes yourself miserable everyday?
Instead of doing something that makes you miserable and focussing on your goal, reverse the cycle and start with how you want to feel. Learn to love the journey, not just the results.
Do something everyday that moves you towards happiness and the results will take care of themselves :)
Something to think about…..
Kat xx