You love training, you have a new found buzz that physical activity gives you.
You are learning much more about how your body works, about how it performs, how hard you can push it, seeing personal bests you never thought you would see again!
Then the time comes when ‘life’ gets in the way a little and you can’t train, or a session is cancelled and you don’t train.
How do you feel?
Is there a sense of loss? That you NEED to train as you have been sedentary ALL day, sat at a desk.
Have you suddenly been swathed in layers of angst and nerves about not training today?
Do you feel like it’s all going to ‘unravel’, as 1 missed sessions leads to 2, which then means 3 and by that time you might as well open a bottle of wine and re-start that subscription to Greggs sausage rolls, fill ya face and overnight ALL the weight you have lost will be back and more…
‘Oh fuck it what’s the point?!’
Ring any bells?
The mad thing is we go from being overweight and feeling guilty about the food we eat, to realising the food we eat and like to eat can become part of a healthy diet regime. We exercise more, learn about energy balance and become leaner and fitter. To then feeling guilty about missing a training session and worrying that this is the first step in a titanic rebound, that is going to see you regress to be larger and more unfit than you were originally.
Nuts!
If anything, learning about energy balance will tell you that sustainable changes in the body happen over time. And that also rings true about exercise and fitness.
You won’t suddenly regress to the ‘old’ you if one session isn’t attended. You won’t suddenly lose all your ‘Gainz’ because you didn’t lift or run today. Your consistency isn’t ruined due to one missed session or even a few!
My rule is this. If I don’t feel like training I don’t. If I feel like it, I do. If I decide not to train and then feel a little bit guilty about it, I definitely DO NOT train. As that is not a good mind set to let settle and can lead to obsession.
And I’m in this game to have and help people generate healthy habits not obsessions.
Obsessions are not healthy, so if you can’t miss a session without feeling guilty, you may well be just transferring your guilt from one area of your life onto another.
Healthy habits are about keeping you healthy. Overdoing or obsessing won’t help keep you healthy.
It is very easy to mix and confuse dedication with obsession and obsession with dedication.
Many of your friends, family and peers may well wonder if you are becoming obsessed, when actually that’s the term lazy people use for the dedicated.
However, keeping an objective and open mind about how often you are exercising and also how you feel when you miss a session, not allowing feelings of guilt, will keep you nicely dedicated to your health rather than obsessing about it.
Oh and #FuckKeto!
