As a personal trainer it is important for me to be a leader in health and fitness. To be a role model to others looking to change and break bad habits. I have structured my lifestyle so I can maintain and improve my health and fitness constantly and I believe we all have the power to do this. However this is not a post about how healthy I am, but rather that I still make mistakes and still take time out from being healthy more often than I'd like.
This post serves a couple purposes for me. The first is that I understand health, especially the all consuming practice that I like to espouse, can seem like too big of a task. How can I possibly prepare healthy food at every meal, sleep 8 hours, train 5 times a week (don't forget about mobility work), get enough time outdoors, meditate everyday and work on relationships when work is crazy at the moment, the kids need help with school and every weekend is another social event?
I don't want you to think I want everyone on a sterile, emotionless pursuit of health. There is room for letting your hair down and chasing happiness but happiness doesn't come from late night TV and weekend drinking. I do happen to think we're generally looking in the wrong place for happiness (and the research also points to this) but we are also emotional creatures that don't always appreciate logic and reasoning.
The second is because I feel a little guilty. I often post the healthy or outside of the box things I do to better my health but I rarely, if ever, share the things I do that go directly against my own advice. Like I said, we all run on emotions at times.
The last 6 months have been somewhat stressful for me, I'm not one to get stressed out much but it has been a challenging period and I am a bit of a comfort eater. I have always enjoyed my food and I have always been a big sweet tooth so you can see how easy it is for it to turn bad when I need something to pick me up. I have been able over the last 5 years, for the most part, to move my comfort eating toward healthier options (yoghurt instead of ice cream, dark choc/fruit/nuts instead of lollies) but that's not always the case.
I think it's often assumed, especially for someone in the health field, that once you know the right things to do it becomes easy. Maybe somehow we have more willpower or better genetics. I can assure you that for myself at least, I have put in a lot of time and effort to changing my habits and it doesn't just stick. It is a constant work in progress. If I do have more willpower (Kate would likely disagree that I do) it's because I have worked at it.
But even having worked hard on something, stress does funny things to your decision making.
Here is a bit of a highlight reel from the last 6 months that I can remember.
(Please remember the idea of telling you this is so you understand it isn't easy for anyone, we all make mistakes, not to give you licence to go to town on all your favourite guilty pleasures!)
Chocolate milkshake and banana split, A trip to India with enough naan to feed a small family, a 500ml tub of ice cream in 2 days, about 3kgs of grapes in less than a week and most recently over one block of dark chocolate plus a couple mint slices and anzac biscuits on Australia day. Then of course a little too much alcohol on probably 3 out of 4 weekends.
There have been times where I've only trained 2 or 3 times for the week, I usually only get 7 hours sleep and I have never meditated, not on purpose anyway. I make mistakes, I'm not perfect. You don't need to be overwhelmed by how many things you need to get happening, you will drop the ball. On a lot of things. But you will get better if you put in the work over time. I get that we have to have a life but if we want it to be a healthy, happy one, changing many of our current ways is mandatory.
At every point I was aware that I was making a less than healthy choice but I accepted that I would deal with the consequences. Some of which included lethargy/tiredness, runny or blocked nose, increased hayfever symptoms, stiffer joints and muscles, some joint pain, bloating, a bit of an increase in body fat, lower wellbeing and after all that, quite probably made me more stressed out, not less. If I was being rational I wouldn't have made those choices.
I know I'm better than that, but I also know I can't just click my fingers and have the perfect lifestyle. I now have to deal with the consequences of those decisions as my body will have slightly adapted to a poorer diet in terms of energy, mood and cravings.
Again this post is not about you getting a green light to binge because the trainer has. It's about understanding you won't have it all together at once and that's OK. I don't want you to be like me and neither do you. I want you to be better today than you were yesterday. I want that to happen every single day. I know you want that too.
The decisions you make today will influence the way you feel tomorrow. Try to make the best ones. It is a daily challenge that will at times feel impossible but it will get easier over time.
