Not the full picture

My weight is down a pound this week, but that’s not the full picture. Last weekend I was on the rise, and continued to go up till I hit 15 stone 3 (213 pounds). I cried, I berated myself, and then I pulled myself together. I’m back counting points, back exercising, and back believing that I can do it. I’m feeling much more positive in general at the moment, and very motivated. Hopefully this week will be a bumper week.

I just read something really powerful about switching your mindset. It was from an interview Craig Ballantyne of Turbulence Training fame was doing with Alwyn Cosgrove. Cosgrove is a big name in the fitness industry, specialising in fat loss and body transformations. He’s trained champions in multiple sports and winners of multiple 12-week body transformation contests. Alwyn owns and operates a training facility in Santa Clarita, California and he’s also written his own fat loss book called “Afterburn”. This is what Cosgrove said about the psychology of sticking with a programme:

Clients have to make the mindshift that it’s not about “will this piece of cake really hurt me that much?” to “is what I’m doing getting me closer to my goals or not?” Just a little shift in thinking can reap huge rewards.

Yeah it’s true – if you dieted and trained all week, a glass of beer and a few chicken wings won’t hurt you that much – but it damn sure isn’t getting you closer to six pack abs.

One thing I really liked was John Berardi’s compliance grid – where we see overall compliance to the plan, as opposed to details. It helps clients see the big picture. A 90% goal is what we shoot for.

So let’s say the plan is 5 meals per day, and 3 workouts with post-workout nutrition per week. So we’re looking at 38 meal opportunities.

If a client misses a meal, or doesn’t eat a meal that’s part of the program, then they lose a “point”. Our goal is a minimum of 34-35.

It lets a client see that if they eat perfectly on Sun-Fri, but miss a couple meals on Sat, and eat a couple of cheat meals that day – in their head they were “on” the whole time.

But when we do the compliance grid we see that Sat alone cost them 5 points. So despite what they think or perceive to be happening – they are NOT compliant – just an important distinction to teach them.

I have definitely been operating on the “how much damage is one little piece of chocolate (or two) really going to do me in the grand scheme of things?” method of self-rationalisation. From now, I am going to plan out all the key elements of nutrition and exercise for the week and start measuring my compliance. Will post on this tomorrow. Thanks, Alwyn.