Getting Back On Track

Ever struggle with getting off track with your diet and exercise?

This episode is for you! 

I lay out some practical ways to get back on track during the busy season or the times your motivation is no longer there. 

I also try to help you avoid some mistakes along the way. 

Transcript

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Welcome to the finished shape podcast. This is Blake. I'm your host, and it is good to be back, man. Had a great podcast last week with my wife it was really fun to kind of share our experience to go check that podcast out. We did a review on our 90 days of doing the meats and sweets diet and the good, the bad, the ugly, all that fun stuff. But yeah. This week, we are going to take a little bit of a switch as good back to just me being solo. And I'm going to do a little bit of mindset coaching. And the purpose of this is just to kind of help people think through getting back on track. And it was really applicable to me because anytime I come back from vacation or traveling somewhere, I wind up just really. Having a hard time getting back into my routine. Now that was true. Historically, I feel like the last couple years I've really found some, some great routines that are just habits. And so I get back into those things much quicker now, but for years, this has just been something that could ruin my gains, my gains, bro. But before that, I just want to answer some questions that people have been asking. You know, as far as the audience I'm trying to reach and people that I'm trying to help through the podcast, and really why I started this podcast was I found that a bunch of my clients who had a lot of success were ones that were. Upfront really well coached and educated in why we're doing what we're doing and having the purpose of that. And, so I found that to be true, that the people who, who I spent more time with getting to talk with and coach, and think about the why behind what we're doing and nutrition and sleep and lifestyle. The more success they had outside the gym, the more success they had with me inside the gym or remotely, if they were across countries. So as my business grew the way I tried to scale myself to continue to give that service to people was, by recording. And so podcasts really started out for me as a way to, be able to give more information to my clients, and more of my time. To both be given back to myself so that I didn't have to spend as much time with everyone all the time, but also give a premium product, to the clients. On top of that, I'm, I'm also just, excited about reaching new people who maybe don't work with me, and are just trying to learn fitness and hope. This is a blessing to them and really just helps them out in their own health journey. So that's the purpose behind this, but I have found that, you know, to stay on track with our topic today, getting back on track after holidays or getting back on track. A vacation or a sickness or an injury can be one of the hardest things for anyone. Who's made a, a commitment to trying to be healthy. And sometimes it's not even an injury. Sometimes it's just a mindset. You're just going through a very stressful period of time. You're a little bit more depressed. You have some, some things going on in your life that are just making it more difficult to go home. So the question is, how do we get back on track? Everyone I think can relate to that, right? Everyone can relate to being down or having these hard times, uh, that that really make it difficult. But a lot of us don't have the necessary habits or kind of built in mechanisms to kind of get us back right on track. And that's that's normal. That is essentially why I have a job. It's why so many people, they, that lose a lot of weight gainer back, right? It's it has a lot to do with habit formation. So here's a couple quick tips that I have just found over the last couple of years to really be helpful. I I've, I've broken them down into four RS because I'm a new. So I have three words that all start with an R because I'm still nerdy in that way. I hope it helps you. First one is relaxed. The second one is realistic. The third one is reduced. And the last one, the fourth one is regroup. So let me break them all down now. So relax, realistic, reduce and regroup. Relax, recognize that this won't last forever, right? Holidays, sports, seasons, work, travel, stress, depression. None of those things do last forever. Um, they may feel like it. They may feel like they're dominating. They may feel like there's no end in sight. But I remember. I remember one of the CrossFitters, uh, in the games, uh, Josh bridges. That's what it was. He was a Navy seal and he said, one of the things that helped him get through seal training was he just remembered that they can't keep me here forever. Right. Like, and that the sucky parts of seal training can't last forever. And he would just say that to himself, they can't beat the clock like the is going to win out. So all I have to do is just from. And this won't last forever. And that sounds so simple, but there's something really good about relaxing and the reality that this is not going to last forever. And, I find that if you can live in that reality, most people tend to mitigate their health damage, uh, that can be caused in those seasons. So rather than hitting the effort. You know, I'll start over. Um, when this thing's over or try to think of yourself as a ship, right. That's at war and it's took it on a lot of damage near the ship's gotten hit with bullets. It's gotten hit with, missiles and it's, it's, it's sinking, but it's still floating. It's not going straight down and you can try to mitigate some of those damages to get to shore, so that you can kind of. So it's not ideal, but if you have that patch up, you know what you can attitude and keep pushing the ship towards the shore. You'll have a mentality that helps mitigate that damage and is actually going to help you get back to where you were faster than you may even realize. So, so relax, relax, realize this is not going to last forever, and it's not necessarily the new new. Uh, it may be the new normal for a season, but there are ways to kind of mitigate that without hitting the effort button. Okay. Number two, be realistic. The second thing I see all the time is people just get very unrealistic. They're like, you know, they, they, they get this cortisol like kind of charge. They get all these endorphins going and they go for a run and then they come back and like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna wake up and do fasted cardio every day. I'm going to go work out five days this week and it's like, dude, you haven't even worked out in three weeks. You're going to go straight into five days. So, so a lot of that unrealistic expectation of what you can do, you swing to the other side of the pendulum. I think I'm speaking to myself, I've done this. I've I'm speaking of a lot of clients that I have that have done this. Right. It's very normal. But what is, is better is. Is that being limited as a part of being human and understanding that is a good thing. It really provides us the opportunity to just be more humble and realize that this is a season where I can't maybe go as hard as I want to. And it may be that goal of looking shredded by summer is not the time this year, because I'm. My life is providing me with a lot of other things that are really important, whether it be your kids or your job, or your spouse, or somebody who you're taking care of who sick, right. It can be any of those things that are really good things honor. Those things, make sure that they receive the attention that they need. But that doesn't mean give up on yourself also and don't do anything. It just means maybe you gotta be realistic, change those things. And think about what does it look like to be as healthy as possible in this season? And that really becomes the leads into the third part, which is probably gonna lead you to the, the reduce, right? The third are, you're going to have to reduce things. You're going to have to manage your workouts differently. Um, you know, you don't need to be at the gym for. Right. You don't have to be at the gym necessarily at all. You could do a 15 minute body weight workout, at your house or in your backyard or at the hotel. When you're traveling, this keeps you moving. This keeps you feeling accomplished. That gives you your body to stay in a rhythm of movement. Right? Those things are all huge. It allows you to, to come back. To the harder training easier too. So let's say you're out for six months and you see you're traveling for work and your kids got sports and you just, you have to put your membership on pause, you know, at your global gym, but you're doing 15 minutes of moving every day. It might be. I'm going to try to get 50 pushups in and five minutes of running and five minutes of. Man. That's great. You know, how good of a workout that would be, and that would keep you in pretty decent shape. Are you going to go crush it at the CrossFit competition? No. Are you going to be able to, be stage ready for a bodybuilding competition? No. Are you going to be the most outstanding body at the beach this year? No. But are you going to feel healthy? Yeah. Are you going to be able to come back when that six month season ends and feel like you got something to start over? Absolutely. Are you going to feel a lot easier coming back then? Had you done nothing? Absolutely. So this is where thinking about seasons and being realistic in your comeback is important. Right? And getting back on track should never be, I'll do that next season. It shouldn't start today, but it should be relaxed, realistic, and usually reducing something to something that's very manageable. So I heard John Berardi. Who runs precision nutrition or D he started it. Uh, I actually think he's not there anymore. He somewhat connected, but he, he, he does his own business on the side now. Uh, or full-time now I should say he said something really profound, which was, you know, if, if the client, if you ask a client to do something and you tell them, do you believe you can do this? Where do you think you can do this one out of 10? If they say anything less than nine it's too. And I thought, golly, that's, that seems crazy. Like, you know, w you want to get clients to do some pretty challenging, but I found that to be so true that if anyone answers eight or lower on something, they're really saying I'm probably not going to do it. And that's a really good indication for you, like, okay, is this type of workout that I've kind of thought about for myself or this type of movement that I'm trying to be realistic and reduce towards? Could I do this nine out of 10 times? Like will I do this nine out of 10 times? That should be a really great barometer for you to think about, okay. Is this something that I'm going to do or not do and keep your expectations clear? Because the something, the more consistent you can be the better overall things over intensity over, what style it is. It doesn't matter if it's something that is consistent, it's going to be the best thing, especially in the season. Of trying to get back on track that we're talking about. Okay. So let's talk about the last one. Regroup, regroup, get a long-term plan that maps out when that season will end and how you plan to get back on track for your fitness goals. So this is when you've kind of like sat down and now you're evaluating, you've kind of relaxed. You, you get, you're getting a realistic plan together that you've kind of reduced down to something that is a 900. In that you'll probably be able to do it 90% of the time. And then you're, you're now you're going to regroup and actually sit down and communicate to yourself, your coach, whoever you're working with, or however your fitness goes, and you're going to then write out and just kind of double check, where is this going to fit? How am I going to implement this? That's where you kind of really actually put it in. But honestly you could go on a walk to. And probably get most of this done. You could go for a 15, 20 minute walk and just say, what can I do? What are things that I will enjoy doing for the amount of time you have the amount of energy you have, right. That's another huge one. We, we go about this as if it's only time. When a lot of times you just don't have the energy to work out the way you want to work. So respect that and know that you're working out, you only have 60 units of energy for versus you used to have 80 to 90. And what do those workouts look like that serve the rest of your life that you're trying to make your fitness fit into. Right. And this really is maybe a mindset shift of I'm living for fitness or I'm living through fitness, right? If I'm living for fitness it's I got to have the numbers. I got to post on Instagram. I got to show off. Be the best of this competition. If I'm living through fitness, then my fitness is assisting me. It is, it is Mike catalysts or it's a, it is a helper in assisting the rest of my life. So that means that like, when I go home to play with my kids, I can't say no, because my back hurts because I had to go so hard on back squats today that I can't, be the dad. I said I was going to try to be so that that's, uh, that's the lesson. I digress. Regrouping is really just taking that whole process. We just talked about going a walk, sit down and do whatever you gotta do and thinking about how am I actually going to implement this now? Like write it out, put it on the calendar, because if it's not written down, it's not planned, it's not going to happen. And th that is a, another key thing to this is that you get great ideas. They're typically unrealistic and they never get sat down and put on the calendar and implemented. And so therefore they don't get. So create that plan right out and then commit to it, say, I'm going to do this, even if I don't feel like doing this because I'm in a season right now where this is going to be challenging, but it is doable. So here's a couple of quick questions I would think about as I go through this process. What is the, what is the biggest thing you're struggling with during this busy season? Is it, is it nutrition, right? Is it the exercise and movement part? Is it. Is it managing your stress at night? You know, because you're, you're eating your stress away or you're staying up and your social media stressing yourself, you know, life away or Netflixing your life, you know, stress away. Those aren't healthy stress ways. Right. So what is it? What's the biggest thing you struggle with? The number two, how can you set proper expectations for yourself in those seasons to mitigate your health? Right because this season might not be about gains. The season might be about guarding the gains that you've made. There's nothing more frustrating for the client. Then when they have worked really hard, made some strong gains and then go through a season where they mitigate all those things and damage them because they went off the rails and they didn't have a plan to get back on track or mitigate that damage. Going off the rails it's going to happen. How do you get back on track is the key. And it's not just a feeling. It is sitting down and doing some of these principles I'm talking about. So how can you set up proper expectations for yourself in the season, right. And that that's part of the reducing, aspect and what are some ways I can help you if I'm your coach? Or if someone who's listening to this and wants the DME for some advice, what are some ways I could help you regroup or focus again in this season? Right? Is there, is there something I could do? So that'd be great question if you want to throw that out there. So I'll tell 'em quick story about myself and just some things. So I hurt my back probably four months ago. No self-diagnosed, but I did go to a chiropractor and a doctor and they both, believed without getting a, MRI that I had a bulging disc. And it was extremely painful. I mean, I've, I've had back issues, but this one lasted about two and a half to three months. And I have never had one last that long. So this was, it was fairly. Painful and drawn out. So the crazy thing is that now that I'm back and heal from it, right. I feel quite a bit out of shape compared to where I was. I feel a lot weaker, especially in my legs. And I was, and I, I got so sore this last past week, I'm training a little bit harder. It felt like I was a new person at the gym for the first. It was like my first week back in the gym. And I hadn't worked out in a year. You know, like that, that awful feeling of, oh my gosh, this is what I, this is what new clients feel like. This is, this is terrible. I can't, I can't believe someone pays me to do that to them. That's, that's hopefully not how my clients feel. I try to, I try to RX them where they are at. But what I would recognize in that process is that I did all the workouts. My coach gave me. During that process. And they were great for me. They were great for what I needed. They avoided the back problem. They did not make it worse and they helped me come back. I can't imagine how much more out of shape I would have been, how much more muscle I would have lost how much, uh, more out of shape and unmotivated I would have been. Um, I can't imagine what my, my mental sanity would have been. Just not moving. Like I, I got to move. Doing a lot more upper body allowing my CNS, my central nervous system to kind of relax, doing a lot less legs. Um, you know, certain types of stretches, but I continued to move. I worked out four days a week. I continued to get 10,000 steps a day. I continued to dial in my diet and I lost a little bit of muscle about two and a half pounds of muscle in that process. Think about what it could have been had I not done those other things. Right. And how much easier it will be to bounce back now that I have continued to move and funny enough, you know, actually, I made some gains in my upper body during that process because I got more time to focus on that and I had more energy to focus on. Quality asleep and prepping my food better. So there are always opportunities in seasons of, intensity and stress and, and having to slow down and what you need to have a mindset of in that process. You know, just from my own personal is really just trying to think about. What is it that I can do? What w what is it that I have control of that I can own in this process versus, focusing on what I can't do, right? I've never seen anybody become a winner who focuses on their limitations. So Marcus filly on functional bodybuilding in this past week, talked a little bit about how low is T levels are his testosterone levels. And he told a story about Matt Frazier, who won the CrossFit games the last four years. Um, not last year, but the previous. Uh, how he went to the Nike center of athletes and he like finished last in almost all of the assessment tests they had there. And they sh they showed that his, his recovery on his whoop was really, really low and he should shouldn't train cause he didn't get enough sleep. And, and Matt talked a little bit about how mess with his head. Like he just let that mess with his head a little bit. Like maybe I shouldn't train maybe. Maybe, maybe there is something wrong with me and how he had to mentally get past all of that. Not that it was right or wrong, but he just not focus on it, focus on when he had control over and pushed through to kind of get over some of that stuff and become the greatest. And he went on obviously to be one of the greatest CrossFitters of all time, and fit as people in the world. So what's the lesson from all. Is it just pushed through all that. Know what I'm, what I'm saying is that the mindset there, um, and Marcus was talking about his own T levels in that podcast being so low, the mindset is not to focus on what you don't have. It's not to focus on your limitations. It's not the focus on the, the injury that you have to keep avoiding and babying. It's focus on what you actually do. Have this going really. It's amazing. There's actually like research out there that people with like a broken hand, if they train their other hand the entire time, you would think it would become an imbalance, but it actually helps the other hand gain strength too. There's something about the unity of the body working as a whole, even when it doesn't feel like the other side or the other body part is working. Um, and this is why movement continuing to move as. Um, there's some really fascinating things out there on that I won't get into for sake of getting too off topic today, but here's the key principles keep moving. Right. Get a plan make it realistic, reduce the stress or reduce the expectations of doing too much down to something that's realistic. Yeah. You know? Regroup, man. Just, just get it going, get, put it on the calendar, get after it. And don't let you know this season of whatever it may be. Injury, stress off, being, you know, uh, off traveling, get in the way of your training. So. Thanks for listening. I hope this was helpful for you. And, um, we'll have more mindset, things like this coming your way. I have a couple more, thoughts in the coming weeks. Next podcast is going to have another special guest on it. So looking forward to, to having. A different person this time, but, it's still going to be a great, time of thinking about someone who's bounced back from an injury to kind of go off of this and hearing a little bit about their story and their experience of, of working with me as their coach. So, look forward to, hearing you guys answer some of those questions I left you and any way I can help and stay safe