I was treating, injury therapy not cakes and biscuits, one of my clients this morning who is a well known personal trainer who works between here and London.
During the session, we had a good chat about fitness and nutrition as we always do. Putting the world to rights about the weird and wonderful things we’ve seen trainers and nutrition companies trying over the years.
He has a similar outlook to me, essentially, get the basics right first then worry about the other stuff when results slow down.
Most people only really need to get the basics right consistently to achieve the goals they have for themselves. As I mentioned yesterday, consistency is the key.
While in London, he is incredibly busy and noticed the affect living in London on his stress levels. He had noticed a change in his own body and the intensity he could work at.
We spoke about nutrition courses we’ve been on where the presenters spoke about the effects stress, sleep deprivation, long working hours, idiot bosses etc have on the body.
We chose to pay more attention to the areas of carb cycling, macro levels etc. The things that at the time we found more important.
We hadn’t really experienced the former so didn’t really pay them much attention. As we’ve matured in the industry (I’m in my 22nd year) and in life we’ve gained more experience in the former.
It’s our life experiences that improve us as coaches, trainers, therapists and humans in general. I never appreciated how draining having kids 24/7 could be.
I believed I was good with sleep deprivation if I was still fresh for work on a Monday morning following a party weekend. 20 months of our boy wiggling in bed and I now know the difference.
When clients used to tell me that they hadn’t drank their quota of fluids for the day because they didn’t have time, I thought they were lying to me and just weren’t committed.
I now know it has nothing to do with time, it is to do with heading to get a drink and then being distracted by a scream or hearing ‘Watch me jump’ when you just glimpsed her climb on to the breakfast bar.
I used to find it easy to fit in 4+ litres of water per day. Now I’m happy if I get to the end of a cup of tea and it’s still tepid.
It’s took some time but Fran and I are starting to get there. We’ve focused on getting two decent meals per day and not stressing about the other one.
We have a couple of other strategies in place that mean we are starting to feel a little more like Darren and Fran again.
I speak to so many people that have read through the same article and picked out the bits they wanted to use for their own diet or fitness plan. That can work when you’re coming from a position of knowledge and experience but it’s a sure fire way to yo yo for normal people.
If you want some help with knowing what works and how to make it work specifically for you.
We start our next 4 week block on Monday – www.achievebootcamp.co.uk
Darren ‘experienced’ Checkley
