2022 is well underway as we venture into mid-January. Fitness and health goals are some of the hottest topics at the forefront of our minds. As individuals who live as leaders, parents, and teammates, it should be no surprise that our overall health propels our performance to get the most out of our days.
We make actions and decisions responsible for optimum physical, psychological, and emotional balance. For example, what we eat and drink, how we take care of our bodies, and what situations we expose ourselves to during social settings all affect our health. New Year’s goals are often predicated on losing weight, fitting into a pair of jeans, or visiting a sacred place such as soieering the beach of the Algarve in Portugal. By inspecting further past the first layers of the desire to look good and shed a few pounds, the main tactics of these goals often equate to eating the right foods and taking care of our bodies and minds.
We utilize a tactic with our personal training clients who have goals in line with refining their physical and mental health by asking them, “What do you think might hold you back from achieving this goal?” It’s important to identify obstacles, distractions, or possible sabotage mechanisms. These factors could hinder a person’s path to success.
Let’s look at a common goal of losing ten pounds of unwanted weight. A possible cause for the storage of ten extra pounds of body fat could be caused by enjoying too many spoonfuls of ice cream throughout the week, throwing back a twelve-pack of IPA’s in a week, or grazing on some cookies after dinner. Next thing we know, we’ve consumed half a liter’s worth of ice cream, one-hundred and forty-four ounces of alcohol, and twenty cookies at the week’s end. These are primary ingredients for high blood glucose concentrations, an overabundance of insulin, storing extra calories as fat, and getting sick.
We also ask our clients, “What can you do to address these issues?” The knee-jerk response is, “Just stop doing those things.” If only life were that easy. We all know that’s not the case. Whenever we hear the word “just” included in changing a habit that has been a part of our lives for years, we should assume modifying such a habit will take some rigorous effort.
If we accidentally pass an exit on the highway while going eighty miles per hour, we can’t just slam on the brakes, make a U-turn, and drive the opposite direction on a car-filled freeway to get to that exit. Instead, we need to slow down, recalculate our route by identifying an exit to get off, and find another on-ramp to the freeway heading to our destination. We’ll probably drive twenty miles per hour slower, so we don’t miss the exit again. Therefore, if we told a client to “just stop” eating ice cream and expect them to lose ten pounds, we might get a result of a car slamming on the breaks while traveling past the speed limit on a crowded highway. While halting suboptimal health activities is positive, going at it cold turkey takes an ungodly amount of willpower. Slowing down, recalibrating, and thinking of rationale tactics are far more attainable responses than “just don’t do that.”
A few modifications to eating habits clients have expressed include the act of slightly tweaking patterns that already exist. Here are two examples:
- Cookie free nights (CFN’s): If you happen to be a late-night food grazer like yours truly, it’s satisfying to travel past the pantry, grab a cookie, and crunch down on the soft yet crunchy texture of a snickerdoodle from Napa’s Model Bakery. However, if our goal is to shed a few pounds of fat, perhaps we can instill one, two, or even four cookie-free nights into our weekly healthy critical success factors. By focusing on our goal of losing a few pounds for our health, we can use the tactic of achieving a few nights free of sweets each week. This way, we aren’t just throwing cookies in dessert purgatory, never to see them again. That would make for bland life. However, if we meet our quota of a few nights free of sweets each week, we can acknowledge that we’ve accomplished a critically important tactic to our efforts of losing weight.
- Match nights out on the town with one day at the gym: Getting together with the girls and perusing through the illustrious wine bars of Napa and snacking on our world-renowned appetizers featured at our elite restaurants is fun. However, taking this away from someone is similar to isolating a person on the distant islands of Tristan de Cuhna. Perhaps we can match the occurrences in which we have an indulgent and fun night with the same number of visits to the gym, taking Yoga classes, or getting a home workout in on the Peloton. Make efforts to achieve a one-to-one ratio of nights out to days dedicated to your fitness.
The crunchy, salty, and sweet taste of the treats we consume can bring about some of the most nostalgic moments of our lives. Food and drink bring about emotions of comfort, joy, and salvation from challenging times. We can’t just extract those from our lives on short notice. However, we can learn to practice moderation, accountability, and control. By applying slight tweaks to our occurrences in which we indulge in the food treasures our world presents us, we can still maintain what we enjoy but in a way that supports the healthful longevity of our physical, psychological, and emotional health.
Sean McCawley, the founder and owner of Napa Tenacious Fitness in Napa, CA, welcomes questions and comments. Reach him at 707-287-2727, napatenacious@gmail.com or visit the website napatenaciousfitness.com.
