Goal Setting: Think "trajectory" rather than specifics.

Here's something I've been working on.

It’s not so much a “real graph” in that it’s not based on real data, so much as it is an illustration of a logical point. Now… for people about to come into the New Year with a resolution of achieving some sort of a goal via training and dieting over the course of the year… here’s something to think about.

The key word here is TRAJECTORY.

First up though let’s talk goals. Your goal is multifaceted as follows:

• Weight: It’s not helpful or healthy to be too concerned with a very specific weight on the scales, but perhaps falling somewhere closer to / within a suitable athletic weight range is a part of it.
• Body Fat %: For most people it is not necessary nor helpful to be too concerned with a very specific body fat % reading, however we’re likely to want to see an increase in lean mass as we adapt to training, aka body composition or as I like to refer to it “body condition”.
• Performance: On an individual level depending on how competitive your nature is, you may have a specific performance / ability goal, or it may be enough just to see progress and improvements, and in simple terms be able to “do more” whether that is to run a greater distance, lift a bigger weight, or whatever.
• Body Satisfaction: This is super important. We want to feel good about ourselves, how we’re performing and the changes in condition that we see as a result. What I always feel is the ultimate success is when a client has already gone beyond what they had previously thought was the limit of their potential, and knows exactly what they would need to do to go even further, but thinks something like “who gives a shit though, what I’ve already done is awesome enough and now i just want to enjoy training and fueling and feel good about myself instead of thinking ‘it’s still not enough it’ll never be enough’” you know what I mean?
• Enjoyment: Training and eating is supposed to be enjoyable, right? Never lose sight of that.

So those are some/all of the things we might be interested in achieving via training in the New Year. Fast forward to this time next year, and we want to be looking back and saying “well, that was a successful year of training” where we made performance gains, improvements in condition, enjoyed ourselves and felt good about ourselves too.

For that to occur, what would need to happen between now and then?

It is easy to get sucked in to the idea that it would mean never missing a training session under any circumstances, strict dieting day in, day out, hitting our macro and energy targets consistently with the best choices of healthy foods.

Well… that all sounds great but in reality, it’s just not humanly possible. If you were really to chart a successful person’s attendance at training, adherence to the nutrition plan, motivation and enthusiasm levels and so on… in reality it might look more like the yellow line in my illustration… and in fact even this is probably overly optimistic. Some periods you do a little better, some periods you go off the boil a little, once in a while life’s not perfect and your ability to attend training suffers… but over all you do enough to keep you on that trajectory towards improved condition & all of those other goals.

People have to be realistic and they have to be for real, too. Writing these posts there’s always a danger of people choosing to interpret it like “cool, I can just do a half arsed job, not show up very often, not hit intake targets, and I’ll still make good progress because this guy says it can work like that”. No. You have to come into something with the intention to do the best you can, as consistently as you can… but being a realist you also accept that perfection isn’t possible and perfectionism isn’t helpful. What’s important here is that when you do have a rough period, you don’t convince yourself that it’s the end of the story and that you’ve failed. So long as you are genuinely doing what you can, when you can, you should expect to move closer to your goals even if the process is gradual.

So that’s it in a nutshell really. The goal that we set is to be on that trajectory that keeps us moving closer to and beyond our goal condition as described above. To keep moving in the right direction, via establishing and practicing habits that are sensible, sustainable, healthy and conducive to improvements in performance, condition and mindset.

What you can also see on this chart in the red is my illustration of the trajectory we’re likely to follow via yo-yoing on and off crash diets. As you can see, over the long term we only move further and further away from all aspects of our goal condition. Many people reading this will know this all too well from personal experience already.

If you want to get off that yo-yo dieting cycle and into effective training, appropriate fueling and a sensible and sustainable approach that will keep moving in the right direction towards all of your condition goals, you can register your interest in the next launch of my Online Flexible Fueling Program, via the survey to the right of your screen.

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The Progress Heirachy Pyramid.

Here’s a little animation I made to illustrate the hierarchy of importance of different elements and how when they are all stacked up together they lead to success in your training related goals.

Especially online, most people just like to debate, argue and bicker. When talking about what people need to do if they want to get into shape, lose weight, be healthy, or whatever… people will latch on to some idea that they read about, some thing that they personal found helpful, and make it out to be an all important necessity that everyone else seems to be missing because they’re just not quite smart enough to get it.

In reality these points are fine tuning at best, possibly beneficial if you have all of the more important bases covered already, but for new people looking to get started with a fitness goal or a healthier life style they only serve to over complicate things and take people’s focus away from what’s really important.

What’s really important is just simply establishing the habits of turning up to the gym and putting in your best effort, regularly. People like to throw around words like discipline, commitment, will power and so on, but enthusiasm is really what it takes to get people into training regularly and consistently, and to work to the best of their ability while they’re in there.

What people seem to miss is that you can’t guilt, shame, pressure or coerce someone into feeling enthusiastic. Sure, a lot of people will begrudgingly show up once in a while because people are on their back, making them feel bad about the shape they’re in, telling them they are lazy or whatever else. Consistently though? Is that sort of negative motivation likely to get people showing up regularly and really getting stuck into training? Absolutely not. People need to be enthusiastic. They need to actually want to train, want to see results, and have a good reason to believe that they will be successful.

As we talked about recently on facebook, when you consistently turn up and train enthusiastically to the best of your ability, the sky is the limit. Providing of course that you are actually working to an effective training and fueling strategy. This is the missing piece of the puzzle for most people, and it is the crucial foundation that everything else depends upon.

Many people will get enthusiastic, show up and try their best… but that enthusiasm soon wanes if they do not see progress in terms of their performance or condition. It goes without saying that turning up and putting in the effort is crucial, but how are we applying that effort? With an effective training strategy that we can expect to produce results, or is it just effort for effort’s sake? “burning calories” and so forth?

You require both an effective training strategy, and the appropriate fueling strategy in order to see the benefits of training. On the fueling side we are really just talking about getting enough, but not too much of everything that we require, including total energy aka calorie intake.

Being enthusiastic and actually turning up regularly to train with a good program, while appropriately fueled to perform, recover and adapt… you will see results. These results mean your performance improves, your condition improves, and you’re all the more inspired. Having so much momentum at this point, this is where fine tuning can come into things on an individual level, as you find what works best for you in terms of exercise selection, meal timing and frequency, choices of foods that make it easier to hit more precise macronutrient targets, and so on.

Again, these “fine tuning” items are really down to what makes it easiest and most enjoyable for each individual to stay enthusiastic and consistent. Too often people will take those personal, individual preferences and try to make them out as all anyone else needs to be focused on, when in actual fact they might be the least suitable, least convenient things for someone else that only makes them less enthusiastic and less consistent as they struggle to put it all together.

Bottom line: being enthusiastic about showing up regularly to train to the best of your ability with any decent training program and a suitable fueling strategy to meet your individual requirements will take you a hell of a long way.

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Secret Weapons For Optimal Energy Intake

Not your standard healthy foodspo type pic, is it?

Here’s the thing.

Eating quote/unquote “healthy” foods is awesome. More vegies in particular, more fruit too... all manner of nutrient dense foods. It means you’re sure to be getting an abundance of vitamins and minerals that your body will thrive upon, and you’re probably pretty unlikely to go into excess energy intake.

Getting lots of micronutrients and not being in excess energy intake is exactly what you want. HOWEVER, particularly for active people participating in sports and/or training... an otherwise healthy diet that falls short of an adequate level of energy provision will (at best) fail to ensure great performance and results from training, and (at worst, and quite likely) actually be detrimental to health and wellbeing.

We’re encouraged to see calories / energy intake as something to be minimised. This is highly problematic. Obviously we do not want to be in the habit of exceeding our requirements, but we must at the very least meet an adequate energy provision, and as athletes we should try to push closer to an optimal level of total energy intake to facilitate best performance, recovery and results from training.

Now some people do manage to achieve a suitable energy intake while still “eating clean”. More power to them, but to me this seems like a difficult and unnecessary task.

It is entirely fine to include some foods in your plan solely for energy provision, even if they fall short of the mark on other nutritional resources. You’ll be getting those elsewhere anyway from all the healthy fruit and vegetables and whole grains you’re eating.

For me personally, a couple of thin rice cakes with raspberry jam is the perfect post-training recovery snack. Immediately after training, your energy levels are depleted, but you probably don't really want a substantial meal that requires much to digest. I find a couple of these hits the spot nicely, and I'm ready for my shake a little while later.

Shakes are another, not so secret, secret weapon.

Now, there's nothing magical about a protein shake that will ensure great results merely by adding it to some random eating habits that add up to some random amount of energy and macronutrient provision. However, when you're working to appropriate sports nutrition or Flexible Dieting guidelines, a shake can be an easy way to boost your total energy and your protein intake closer to optimal levels.

Personally my requirements are quite high, so I like to add a banana and a scoop of dessicated coconut to my shake as well as the Whey Protein Concentrate.

This is mostly all about "hitting my macros". There's a new page I've just set up with my recommendations of certain delicious foods you might want to include for their micronutrient content, with properties that are particularly beneficial for good health and for recovery from training.

That's some more great free information you can sign up for that at the top right of the this page, or click here.

The name of the game here is "stack the deck in your favour" with a plan that not only meets all of your requirements, but does so in a way that is enjoyable and not a chore. This means it is conducive to long term adherence and long term results.

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Ditch The Diet And Eat Like An Athlete

ALRIGHT SERIOUS TALK.

If you TRAIN in pursuit of any specific or not-so-specific performance or condition result, start thinking of yourself more like an athlete.
More like an athlete, less like “someone on a diet”.

Women in their late teens or early – mid twenties who are hardworking badasses in the gym, also training for and competing in sport on the weekend, otherwise busy and industrious throughout the day as well… the amount who fit this profile who have come to me over the years, unsatisfied with their condition and how their body is responding to training, and thinking they need to cut carbs, cut total cals, go keto… or any other variation of “going on a diet” in the conventional sense to FORCE the body to tap into those fat stores.

NO. NO. NO. NO!

This goes for anyone at any age, for that matter. If you’re doing all that hard work YOU ARE NOT SOMEONE WHO NEEDS TO GO ON A DIET. You are someone who needs to fuel for performance, recovery, and the creation of a stronger, lean body as an adaptation to training.

Trying to “force” the body to burn fat through massive calorie deficit through restriction and expenditure has the opposite effect. Your body will only prioritise the support of lean mass when conditions are most favourable, AKA you are (at least) adequately fueled. The closer you push to a more maximal, optimal energy provision the higher a percentage of that total will be put into the muscles while the body draws more from fat stores to fuel low intensity / non exercise activity.

The further into deficit you go, the lower that percentage being made available to support lean mass becomes and the body will conserve a higher percentage in fat stores because it thinks it is trying to survive a famine or an ice age or something terrible like that.

You are built for survival and adaptation. Put yourself into arduous circumstances with minimal food & energy intake plus maximum work load and your body will try to find a way to survive BUT IN NO WAY does this equate to “the creation of your goal body condition”.

Not in a million years could it mean that. You are built for survival and adaptation though, so provide as much fuel as you can put to use and then train strategically to do just that. Not to “burn calories” but to utilise energy and resources in creating a strong, lean, healthy and functional body condition just like you want.

Now… even if you’re thinking “ok but that’s for people who are already lean, I have all this weight to lose first so I need to be in deficit and burn more calories”, no. Pay attention.

Even if you are actually overweight. Participating in that amount, that type, and that level of performance in training and sports… whatever amount and level that is, we can run the maths and accurately determine a calorific intake that would fail to see a reduction in body fat due to being in excess of requirements.

It would actually be a massive amount.

We can also run the maths and determine what is an adequate, and what is an optimal amount that could be taken up and put to use for the very best performance and condition, and it will still be quite a massive amount, but significantly below that “too much” amount described above.

Best results… no… ANY lasting result can only occur when you are in the habit of consuming somewhere within that “adequate to optimal” range of total energy intake. The more consistently you are within that range and preferably closer to the higher, optimal end, the more consistent and the more dramatic the improvements in both performance and condition will be.

Now… you could achieve that optimal intake via intuition, but most people are so used to the “eat less” message that they’ll fall short of an adequate amount without first having a period where they identify and practice planning to meet those targets. Some people might manage to fluke it via sheer dumb luck and conclude that it has more to do with a certain selection of foods than with energy and macronutrient provision, but they’d be wrong and their advice will be detrimental to most anyone else.

You need to establish the habit of meeting at least an adequate total energy and macronutrient provision, via whatever selection of foods makes this the easiest and most enjoyable for you. Preferably, at least periodically you need to push closer to the maximum, optimal end of that usable energy range.

Also you need to train, productively and strategically for a strong, healthy body.

I happen to have a very good system for determining these requirements, and a protocol for hitting first adequate and then optimal targets for best results ever and no restrictions on food choices. Also right now I have a brand new strength training program for athletes and sports people looking to complement their sports training.

It is all available online.

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The foods you love or the body you want?

Limit fruit? NEVER.

What do just about all diets have in common?

Almost every variation on "dieting" comes down to giving things up, as if it is a trade off or something. You need to give up certain things that you enjoy, in order to get something else that you want.

In this case you give up foods you enjoy in order to get to the body weight &/or condition that you want.

WHY ON EARTH WOULD WE BELIEVE THAT IT WORKS THAT WAY?

OK. Giving up certain foods might mean you're less likely to go into excess total energy intake on a daily basis. Which is definitely something we want to avoid. However simply "not going into excess" does not necessarily infer that your energy & macronutrient intake is now appropriate and conducive to your goal condition.

My observation of most active people training seriously for great performance and condition is that GOING INTO EXCESS is THE LEAST OF YOUR CONCERNS. Obviously it's not what we want to do every day but it's not the most likely thing to happen anyway especially when you start banning enjoyable and convenient food choices.

Rather, again in my observation, active people are more likely to fall short of an appropriate amount of energy intake which allows their body to see a benefit and produce results from training.

The consequences here are varied. Maybe you simply don't see results due to being under fueled. Maybe you slash even further to try to force those results via greater calorie deficit (bad idea). Most likely at some point your body insists that you make up the difference and inevitably you end up over eating, and being back in excess. PARADOXICALLY by attempting to over restrict to an unsustainable level of calorie restriction you are far more likely to end up going into excess via over eating or binge eating.

So, what is the answer? We want to avoid being in excess, we want to avoid being too far into deficit.

THIS IS VERY SIMPLE.
Rather than leave it to chance, we determine and then plan to meet the appropriate, adequate or optimal level of fueling.

Not in excess, and not insufficient.

NOW. Is entirely ruling out everything or anything that you enjoy required, in order to meet this appropriate level of total intake? NOPE.

In actual fact if you want to nail an optimal level of fueling consistently for best results, how else are you likely to do it other than by including more of the things you enjoy? More healthy choices too, certainly. But ruling out things that are not inherently UNhealthy for no good reason is the opposite of helpful in consistently hitting appropriate or optimal targets.

I would go so far as to say that if you are highly active or training at beyond an beginner's level, rather than needing to abstain from pleasure inducing foods, including one or two of your favourite indulgent choices is probably going to be required.

IT IS ABOUT PROVIDING THE ENERGY AND OTHER RESOURCES THAT YOUR BODY REQUIRES. How does going without certain things ensure that you get everything you need?

IT DOESN'T EVEN MAKE SENSE. It makes the opposite of sense.

Now, some pushers of fad diets will claim that you need to quit certain ingredients, macronutrient sources or subsets (fructose, or gluten for example) because of a specific effect that they have on the human body that will prevent you from succeeding in your goals. Do not be sucked in by this. They are liars who do not understand, or who deliberately misinterpret and misrepresent the science of the matter.

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