No finish line for fitness

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 10/09/2022 (1133 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

I’ve been in a funk!

After reaching a weight-loss goal in early August, I felt directionless.

Some weight naturally came back as I got a bit complacent, but worst of all I noticed my productivity and performance suffering in other areas when my fitness isn’t dialled in.

So I’m turning over a new leaf this month, taking part in our member initiative, Next Level Challenge, beginning next week.

But here’s what I’ve learned over the years since losing 60 pounds: There’s no going back.

You can’t change habits for a few months, lose weight and then go back to doing what you were doing previously.

I used to have terrible habits on weekends, until I was in my mid-20s. Too many late nights and too much bad food and alcohol.

Now I’m a month away from turning 38 and I feel way better than I ever did then because my habits don’t derail every weekend. One of the reasons I don’t binge eat and drink myself into oblivion anymore is because of you reading this.

You’re either a positive influence or a negative one; bringing people up or dragging people down.

We quite literally imprint our behaviours and attitudes onto our kids and family and set them up to follow in our footsteps, for better or worse.

If you live an unhealthy lifestyle full of junk food and inactivity, so will those around you.

If you complain and gripe about your lot in life, so will those around you.

If you always cave into short-term pleasure at the expense of long-term satisfaction, so will those around you.

In nearly seven years as a parent, I now take my daily actions more seriously than ever. I don’t always get it right — far from it.

But when I say I get up early, stick to my diet, don’t drink to excess anymore, rarely miss a workout, take a cold shower every morning (even in the winter), it’s all because of my kids, our coaching members and you who take time out of your day to read what I’ve written.

I want to be a positive influence. You can do the same for everyone in your world.

By doing the hard things and building discipline, you not only create sky-high levels of self-confidence, but you become the person everyone around you admires and strives to emulate.

When you do the opposite, like I have of late, you wake up sluggish and get less done. Your low self-esteem shows, and others treat you the way you feel about yourself. Your work suffers because you’re in a mental fog to start each week.

And that, my friend, is no way to live. Believe me, I speak from experience.

The ‘ice cream’ caveat

Discipline and healthy habits are important, but don’t let my opening message deter you from trying. Remember, you don’t have to become a perfect physical specimen to succeed at fat loss.

If your diet bans fun foods all the time, find a better diet. Learning how to incorporate foods you enjoy is the secret to sustainability.

For years, I had a horrible relationship with food. Even after I lost 60-plus pounds, my idea of “balance” meant restricting myself all week only to plan these elaborate cheat days. I’d look up “healthy” recipes for carrot cake and eat the whole thing in one sitting.

Then I would punish myself with exercise and deprive myself even more. It was a vicious cycle, an eating disorder no better than when I was binge-eating late at night after working at Grapes in my early 20s.

Frankly, I was never able to achieve my best physical, mental and emotional state until I learned a healthy balance. I learned how to eat foods I enjoyed, daily, while I dropped weight or gained muscle (depending on the goal at the time).

I stopped punishing myself with exercise and it was a lot easier to stick to my nutrition guidelines when I didn’t feel like everything fun was off limits.

So that’s what I ultimately want for everyone reading this. Yes, it is true you can’t do what you’ve always done or you’ll get what you’ve always gotten. If you’re not happy with your health, changes do need to be made. But fitness doesn’t have to mean meals of dry chicken and broccoli every day. That perception prevents so many from getting started. Because once you realize how much better you feel from eating right and exercising (most of the time) you won’t ever go back. You aren’t meant to feel sore, low energy and grumpy, no matter your age.

But before fixing your habits, let’s start within.

How to rewire childhood programming

Our beliefs are shaped in childhood and we carry them forward into adulthood as “anchors” (or flotation devices if your parents instilled the right programming!).

Your subconscious conditioning determines your thinking. Your thinking determines your decisions. Your decisions determine your actions, which eventually determine your outcomes.

There are four key elements of reprogramming your beliefs. Take, for example, a bad belief that you’re destined to be overweight because your parents were overweight and their parents were too.

AWARENESS: Consider the habits each of your parents had around healthy eating, weight gain, genetics and similar issues. Their habits determined the outcome more than genetics. Write down how you may be identical or opposite to either of them.

UNDERSTANDING: Write down the effect this modelling had on your health (namely via your habits) in adulthood.

DISASSOCIATION: Can you see this way of being is only what you learned and isn’t destiny? It’s just a “file” of information that was stored in your mind a long, long time ago and may not hold any truth or value for you anymore. Can you see how you have a choice in the present moment to be different? To start identifying differently?

DECLARATION: Place your hand over your heart and say, “What I learned around eating and exercise was their way. I choose my way.” Touch your head and say “I have control of my destiny, I determine how fit or unfit I am.”

This fourth element of change is reconditioning — declaring and committing to a different way. It’s about rewiring your subconscious to no longer operate on old programming. You’re getting an upgrade, my friend.

Until you get your mind right, you’ll self-sabotage without knowing it, won’t stick to a diet for long, and will continually get stuck in cycles where you don’t make permanent changes. It’s crucial you do the inner work while adopting the outer habits needed to facilitate the outcome.

Hopefully this column helps you get started. If you need a hand, reach out. My inbox is always open for anyone who reads this far!

Mitch Calvert is a Winnipeg-based fitness coach who has helped more than 1,478 people transform their bodies and lives over the past decade. Visit mitchcalvert.com to grab a free copy of his metabolism jumpstart or drop him a message to get direct coaching. Right now he and his team want to help people drop the summer pounds before the snow flies with their “Back to School” challenge.