Habits - The magical way to be aWesomE!

What gets you out of bed in the morning?

The alarm? The dog? Kids? $1000 ( I think that was an 80’s supermodel actually)…do you snooze till the last minute before getting up and racing through the motions to get to work on time, or the family up and ready. Then what do you do on the weekend? Stuff the alarm? You were thinking it would be good to get a morning walk in the sunshine before breakfast, butttttttt its so cosy…….zzzzzz you sleep in…ahhhhhh

What do you do at night after dinner? Is that when the munchies set in? That mindless time when you weren’t going to eat the biscuits or chocolate tonight….buuuutttt….argh…I need it…or your brain conveniently fuzzes over any logic about weight-loss and suddenly the block of chocolate or biscuits or, insert “food” here, are all gone. Damn! you think, I’ll resist tomorrow night.

All these are habits. 

The thing that makes us get out of bed, brush our teeth, or not, exercise , or not, binge on facebook, or not (is there anyone out there that can actually resist that magnetic pull to check your posts likes?, sigh)

Habits rule our lives. 

We talk a certain way, we say please, thankyou…or we don’t!, we always put salt on our food at night without thinking, we put shoes on right foot first, we get home and put the tv, or heater on, or something else all without thinking. We may kiss our spouse/ kids/ dogs when we leave for work, or we may always forget.

All habits.

The habits make us what and who we are.

So who are you? 

I think one of the only things I heard Dr Phil say that I actually benefited from, was when he counselled a couple that every interaction, no matter what, either benefits your relationship, or it doesn’t. I liked that.

If you think about it, every single thing we say or do has an impact. Positive or negative. It impacts us, impacts people at work, home, strangers, pets, plants…..everything… either positively or its negatively……its never neutral….is it? I found a lot of value in that way of thinking…. Although I don’t remember it as often as I should to help guide me to more positive interactions…its not a habit yet (doh!)…but when I DO, I feel empowered and ready to improve my life.

You may think its selfish to focus on yourself like this…I hope not, but improving your life is the most important thing you can do and focusing on you and your habits are the magical key to enable your dreams to come true.

 Imagine yourself at your very best, your most happiest…...

……what would that look like? How would you feel? How would you act? How would everyone else around you act and feel? Its the ripple effect…everyone, everything is a part of this cycle. You're happy, everyone is happy

I’ve gone a little philosophical…okay…quite philosophical…..this was meant to be just about making good habits and getting healthier and fitter….but really, those things are just one inevitable part of the rewards/ benefits of having a series of good, productive habits.

Lets try something

It won’t take long I promise

Okay so you know what a happy, productive YOU looks like (doesn’t matter if its vague, don’t judge)….. Note that down.`What things do you need to do to achieve it or at lest some of it. List those down as well. Like a 20 km run, finish a course, increase typing speed, learn to cook great Indian dishes, etc. 

Now write two lists. One is the habits that you feel are of benefit to you and the goals, and the other, a list of habits that do not benefit you or the goals.

Some of you are happily trotting off with pencil and paper/ iPad/ mud and stick in hand doing this, and I know others are thinking “urgh…I know it already, no point writing it down”

YES there IS

Just do it (thankyou Nike)…. The most common thing I hear from people who fail to make a change is, “I know what to do, I’ll just do that”…. I’ve never met anyone yet, myself included, that that has worked for.

So humour me….please….I’ll even humour you and write mine down…. (Yes..I was thinking nahhh, I know already, why bother…this is for others)….hmm…hello pot…the kettle is boiling….

If you find it a little tricky to think of positive and negative habits you do, or if you really want to go deep with work on yourself, ask a work mate, family member, friend or coach, what they would put in those columns for you. You get fantastic insights this way.

Right.

Now pick one of those negative ones. Don’t try more than one. Some people can multi-change, but really, its harder than you think. 

So for this example, I’ve picked my snacking one…now thats pretty hard for me, trust me! I know if I didn’t snack after dinner I would definitely be a few kilos lighter in fat, absolutely no doubt…..and the body weight thing and health is a concern for me. This is something I know I do that is not the best for me and yet haven't I managed to change it…ever…I know what to do…….and I’ve adjusted for a few weeks/ days/ months at a time…and yet I still head back there.

So I’ve picked that. Now I start thinking of some ways to change it to the ultimate….NO EATING AFTER DINNER (please note, this is not just a vanity goal, this is also a very healthy habit to acquire that has a ream of health benefits from mitochondria health, insulin sensitivity, good nights sleep, more serotonin production…I could go on)

Here I  have:

• Snacking non stop after dinner with pretzels, crackers, choc drink etc
•  
• NO eating after dinner

Next the goal now is to fill in the blanks. Give an easy path to the end goal. Make those links the babiest of steps. IMPORTANT, don’t question it, just make them the smallest of steps, each logically progressing slightly from the other. Mine now looks like:

• Snacking non stop after dinner with pretzels, crackers, choc drink etc
• Snacking non stop with just the choc drink (why? Its low calorie and in my case it helps me feel full and I find the crackers really call to me, so they are the hardest thing to stop)
• Non Stop with the choc drink but with a cup of hot water and lemon juice before hand (herbal tea just doesn’t motivate me…feels to hard to make at that time of night. The lemon helps my insulin sensitivity and it makes me pause for a moment before diving into the choc drink)
• Same as above, but I make another hot water lemon drink to have while I’m having my choc drink
• Now I will either stop the choc drink half an hour before bed OR I will finish with the hot water and lemon
• Now I will limit my choc drinks to one less than  I was having
• I will continue in this fashion till the below happens

NO eating after dinner

I know me…..the above should work. They are logical easy steps that I apply for one week each at least and only move ahead to the next when I feel confident.

There will be evenings when I feel completely lost and inadequate to not eat but with my list above, already written out, I will make my unreasonable mind look at it and go up the list till I reach the one that I can actually do at that time.

So even a ‘bad night’ is still a win. I won’t plague myself the next day and the next night I should be able to hop straight back to the level I was at previously. If not, I go to the level I can manage that night and probably sit there for a week before progressing again.

A year from now……eating after dinner when I don’t need it, out the window, gone! I’ll be a able to have the occasional dessert night without then sliding back into my old habit of NEEDING to eat and eat after dinner. I will be the one IN CONTROL of that.

Seriously….think about it….

How empowering!

Have you made your list?

Look at it

How can you fail?

You can’t. 

Yes discipline IS involved, however, you have taken into account your ups and downs, your mood swings, good days and bad. Put that list out there, put it on the fridge. See it everyday. When you are motivated and positive you will NOT need to have it there…fantastic! Awesome!

BUT

You KNOW you will need it at some stage. Thats the way it works. Until something is second nature, and this takes about a month, (a month per step is ideal, but I know you want results faster than that) you will almost definitely fail.

This is why most diets don’t work

Why most plans don’t work

We all have the best of intentions, but we must plan the through the failing times, else thats what we will do. Better still, we do it with baby steps so its actually PAINLESS and pretty STRESSFREE :-)

I have set so many goals in the past, and failed most of them, for this very reason of not planning properly. I’m sure I’m not alone.

So give it a go and let me know what happens, what you achieved, even if its small. Like doing the dishes before bed, or making the bed on rising. Whatever….its all a win

You KNOW you will be happier

Because

…..You will become the person you want to be, the person you know you CAN be.

Go out and conquer!

A shameless plug for my services now

The above is how I prefer to coach. I can help you set the most productive ones for your health and fitness goals. I can help you stick to them and be accountable. Imagine yourself one year from now if you started those changes today

Seriously

IMAGINE

How awesome would you be!

My answer is, VERY

Fascia - Your invaluable body stocking

Who’s heard of fascia? Its either a totally foreign word to you, or one you hear mentioned by trainers all the time or you massage therapist.

So what is it?

Do you really need to care?

Lets first get to know fascia a little bit more…….

Simply put, the fascia is similar to a body stocking that wraps around the body, like a single piece of material, that holds the bones, tissue, muscles….everything together and in the shape we all know and love. Not only does it wrap around the body but it also extends into the body. So imagine a honeycomb weblike structure extending from the skin through the muscles and tissues, and some even conjecture, the bones, not unlike the way the juices of an orange are held together with that web like structure of the fibrous pulp.

Fasica. Note the stringy webbing

See how stringy it looks in the picture. This stringy web protects, cushions and surrounds organs and vertebrae and permeates tissue, allowing the muscle fibres and tissues to gently slide against each other and contract and flex as we move through the day. Now if we don’t move a spot this web will deposit more of these collagen fibres through it and a build up occurs. If you move (stretch, massage, exercise) and drink plenty of water, this will break down the collagen and move it through the body for use, absorption or expulsion. If you don’t, more of this will accumulate.

Think back to an injury that you or someone else had and it pained you or them to move it properly afterwards. I’ve seen many people (and myself) not want to move properly or at all and as a result the area stays still. So a build up of this collagen occurs again and again and isn’t flushed out of the system in the usual manner. This build up gets sticky and gums whatever its attached to together. You know when someone might touch an area to rub and it hurts….thats the build up. Healthy fascia, healthy tissue won’t hurt. The more you avoid that hurt, the more the build up and more pain and so on. A nasty cycle.

So healthy fascia is juicy and hydrated, like a wet sponge, but as collagen accumulates, if our dietary intake and exercise is poor it becomes brittle. You can imagine how pliable a wet sponge is as opposed to a dried out sponge. Bending a wet sponge and it just straightens back. Bending a dried out sponge and it breaks. Water is so important to the efficiency of this system

Going back to the body stocking visual. Fascia is one piece. When you have one piece and you tighten an area, another area further along is inevitably changed. Part gets tight and it pulls and tugs other areas, that will correspondingly impact further areas. Not inconceivable to imagine tight shoulders for example, impacting further down to promote back pain, hamstring tension and so on….and of course head in the other direction to perhaps an achy head.

If you are stiff, tight, in pain, you can be proactive and do something about this right now. If you are not any of those things, then lucky you, but you will definitely benefit from a daily protocol to keep yourself healthy and keep pain away.

So what do you do?

Stretch, kneed , or roll yourself out everyday and include good hydration, 8 glasses of water a day really is the minimum. Gradually the pain will abate and over weeks of regular attention will go away. 

Everyday fascia health protocol.

1. Consume a couple of large glasses of water, preferably with minerals in it, like a good quality rock or sea salt, lemon is also a great additive.
2. Do some form of fascial movement, like:

• Foam roll your body
• Jump on a mini trampoline
• Shaking movements
• Kettlebell swings
• Tai chi