#74 - Managing Un-expected events...

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Transcript

Welcome And Today’s Focus

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Hey guys, you're listening to the Gen Pop Podcast with me, your host, Larry Doyle. Each week, I'm gonna bring in friends, guests, and experts to help enhance your health, fitness, and wellness journeys. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the conversations.

SPEAKER_03 0:29

You are welcome back to another episode of the Genpop Podcast, where this week, co-host Daniel and I, we're gonna have a spontaneous chat about spontaneity. Daniel, let's go.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

Yeah, I guess that's what keeps things interesting because we can't all live like robots that we're living in Groundhog Day, we're repeating the same thing every single day. And we live in the real world, things are gonna change last minute consistently. So we have to learn how to actually be able to deal with these things when they do come up. Um, so I think the most common example we'll always see with people is boy last minute over the weekend, the girls, the guys got on to me about going out, and I didn't really know what to do. So I think that's where we're gonna kind of base a lot of our discussions around is kind of like what to do if you're ever in these situations where plans change last minute, how would you deal with trying to navigate the food, the alcohol, the change in plans, etc.

If–Then Strategies For Food Choices

SPEAKER_03 1:22

Because again, we can be in this fantasy land where you think everything is gonna be absolutely perfect, and this mightn't even be like a spontaneous event that involves calories, but it might be like something else that just throws you off track. Uh, you get an unforeseen circumstance pop up, uh, you have to do a last-minute trip somewhere, whatever it might be. It's like just managing curveballs, because believe it or not, they're gonna happen and they're gonna happen more frequently, regardless of what kind of phase you're in. Your life doesn't give a shit about your deficit. And we got to be able to learn how to manage and navigate that in terms of keeping us on track. Because if you stop and start every time it's not perfect, you are never going to get a result. And that's the reality of it. Because again, we're in the real world, we're not hermits, we are over 25 years old, and we have actual responsibilities to deal with that are going to need to be dealt with. That are a greater priority at times than our fat loss goals, and that's where you just need to drop tools. But it's not a case of stop, start, I'm gonna reset every single time I get clear and into the green. It's a here's how I'm actually gonna navigate and manage that. So let's say we've got a perfect week planned out, I've got all my food prep done, everything is A1. Now I've got to drop tools and go somewhere on a Wednesday, and that means I don't have my food planned, I don't have my food prepped, I don't have it with me, I can't train for the next two days, mightn't get too many steps in. How are we gonna manage that for a client?

Perspective: Weekly Averages Over Perfection

SPEAKER_00 2:40

Well, I always say to clients, one of the first things you need to do is be aware that these things are gonna come up because when you realize that you can just create a rough plan. And I always say to clients, come up with like an if-then situation. So, like if my plans change or if we go to a restaurant, or if you know my kids want to go to McDonald's, then I will do X, Y, and Z. And that's gonna reduce a lot of the stress, then it's gonna reduce a lot of the anxiety you might feel because a lot of the time when you go to a restaurant, it's the exact same as when you're eating at home. You probably will have like five things that you will pick from. So it's like you're not really in unfamiliar territory to a degree because you're probably still going to either get the burger, probably going to get the pizza, or you're gonna get the chicken curry or whatever. It's not that you're gonna go into a restaurant and all of a sudden they have fucking kangaroo or something in the menu. It's like, how the Christ do I track this? So if you have just a certain a few different kind of decision-making processes already in your back pocket, when these things pop up, all you need to do is just say, okay, I'm gonna slot this in place now, and that's gonna bridge the gap between today until I can get back to my normal routine tomorrow.

Travel Tactics And Hotel Game Plans

All Or Something For Training

SPEAKER_03 3:45

And that's huge, but when you even look at it in another way, it's like to reduce the stress even more for people of the unknown. Let's say it's a day, that's one of seven. Let's say that happens twice a month. That's now two of thirty or thirty-one. Let's look at that, it happens a couple of times a year. That's now 15 times in 365 days. Does it really matter a fuck? Not really. And this is like when you can actually go to flow and realize these things, it makes it far less overwhelming. That even if your calories go over a bit or a lot in the grand scheme, but over the weekly average, does it really matter? Not really. But again, it's looking at okay, I'm going to be eating some food because I need to eat food because we're not going to starve off that. And have we got some control over it? Great, make a better choice. If you have zero control over it, go with portion control. And you can still keep it in your favor and in check. And now all of a sudden, you have this sense of calm. There's not this sense of panic because again, okay, it's a little bit over my calories or a lot over my calories through the day. Big deal. I'm not really going to push it out that much for the week. I'm not going to restart again Monday. And now you can just cruise on with it. And again, even if you've had another event that week that was on planned, because again, this can happen, it's the real world. You just cruise and you do the same approach with it. And there is no kind of on or off plan. You're just on life all the time without getting too philosophical about it. But that's the reality. And you gotta roll with the punches. Um, because if you're in the real world and you think that it's gonna be perfect all the time, you're actually in a fantasy land. Because again, like if you look back at the last week, like, has everything gone perfectly to plan? No, and that's gonna be kind of a rinse-repeat that you might have smaller incidents or some bigger incidents again, hopefully, touch about nothing too bad, but still they do happen and we've got to roll with it as well. Uh, and obviously, there look there's other times where there's something incredibly substantial, uh, life change moment or whatever. I'm not telling you to go pick a better protein choice when you're in hospital with your leg hanging off. That's a different story. It's like just deal with that as it's happening and you've got to roll with the punches as well, too. But for those what are mostly minor inconveniences to intermediate inconveniences, they're not as bad and they are far more manageable than you'll actually think, and give yourself credit for. So then, even if it's a case of, okay, we can't do as much output and activity, again, look at your week and the weekly average. You probably make it up a little bit later on. Of course you can. That's cool, we can manage that. But again, if you look at the weekly averages that your steps are normally 10,000 a day and all of a sudden you do 1,000, it won't actually drop your weekly average all that much. So again, it's like all hasn't gone to hell and everything is fine. You might be feeling as well after some choices of some different foods that maybe don't sit as well or maybe that you're not as familiar with, and that's okay again, because you're kind of back to normal and uh into your normal rhythm and routine with the foods that you're normally accustomed to when you're back in your normal environment. So again, let's roll them with the punches. Um, so let's say we see this a lot with clients that they might need to travel where they're gonna be out of their own environment. They go to the UK, they go to the States on very short-term notice, whatever as well. Too it's the same principle. We can look at that and have some hotel workouts ready for them, that they have this kind of if-then scenario set up. Again, they'll have these understandings that, okay, I'm gonna have to eat breakfast, so that's fine. I can get maybe a higher protein choice there, mightn't have as much control throughout the day, and I'll have whatever with that, and then I'll try to get more protein at the evening time. And it's not even about having high protein all the time for the gains, but it's just that they'll actually feel better when they stick to a little bit of a rhythm and routine that they're very familiar with. That let's say the normal approach is 90% there, that we're just going to get scale it back to like 70% there as opposed to 0% there. And now all of a sudden they just feel way better. It's less hassle to actually get back into rhythm and routine then, as well, too. Because again, kind of the further you stray from that, if you go off for a longer time period, it is much harder to get back into it. So we like just to keep topping it up all the time. Kind of looking at like uh cutting the grass in your garden analogy to kind of as I'm looking out the window here. But it's like the longer you leave it, the more work it takes to get back into it. If you can just keep topping it up at times, it's much less hassle and it's much easier to roll with it all, right? Um, what's the general advice you roll in terms of exercise and activity then, Daniel, for people when they mightn't have the same access to the gym or they might be able to get out and actually move as much. What do you do with those people?

SPEAKER_00 7:59

Well, that's actually something I was going to talk about as well, because I was talking to one of my own clients about this the other day, because they uh say work from home so many days a week and they work in an office so many days a week as well, so that they come back and forth all the time, so their time commitments are going to be different. And I said that I prefer to have like an all-or-something type mentality rather than all or nothing. So, like you could have like say X amount of non-negotiable sessions per week that like once you meet that threshold, everything's good. But I gave myself as an example that I have an app on my laptop that every hour it gives me like a screen server that just comes up for a minute just to remind you, just take a break, go for a little walk around the house, get a glass of water, whatever. And a lot of the time for that minute, I will just literally go down the ground and just do push-ups or I will do stretches or something because sometimes I might not be able to make it to the gym. Because I like to kind of have my train days like Monday, Wednesday, Friday. If I don't make it to the gym Monday, I'm just gonna say, right, that's gonna be literally my activity for the day. And that's enough to bridge the gap from you know Monday until Wednesday, because it's not it's gonna still fit in my routine. So like I always say to clients, like, even if you just done 10 minutes, a lot of the time that's enough just to kind of make you feel like, right, I've done something, and that's gonna allow you then to kind of have the knock-on effect of like, right, now I feel more inclined to actually make better decisions with my food choices, and now I feel a lot more relaxed. That I didn't just like to let the entire day go to waste. Because again, if we want to look at it from a long-term perspective, like missing a single workout and just doing an alternative that might be shorter, might just be body weight as opposed to doing something in a full commercial gym, it's still gonna be a lot better than sitting at home feeling sorry for yourself and dwelling on all the negatives when you could have just done a 10 to 15 minute workout. And is it going to be as good as if you were in the gym? No, but it's gonna be a hell of a better than just sitting there and just basically moping around the place. So I always just say, like, just try and do something rather than not doing anything.

Anchor Habits And Morning Control

Building Autonomy And Plan B Workouts

SPEAKER_03 9:56

And that's like habit maintenance, if you want to put it that way. It's just like paying your dues on the work that you've put in previously and just keeping on top of that habit. And again, it makes it much easier to get back into your normal workouts because you're getting a little bit of blood flow, you're getting some endorphins, you're enjoying the experience of it maybe after the fact as opposed to during the fact, and that's fair enough for some people. But now getting back into your gym, you know, it's fine because you've actually kept on top of that rhythm and routine. But again, it's like that key anchor habit, and I talk about this with clients all the time. They're away, they're caught on the hop, maybe they're in a hotel, they've got conferences, workshops, seminars all day long. The time that they have most control over is the very start of the day. When they get up, they might be able to get up just a little bit earlier, get out for a walk, go to the gym in the area, get on a treadmill, go for a run, whatever it is, do your push-ups before you get in the shower. Now, because they've served that anchor habit to themselves, the rest of their habits just get risen up that little bit more. You'll make a little bit more of a mindful choice uh around your food, around your activity, around the rest of the day because you've done the thing. You've started really, really well with a strong start to it. And then also know that if it all goes to shit throughout the rest of the day, well, at least they got the thing done earlier on that made me feel better and have that box ticked off. And again, that's a big win that's clocked up and it's in your corner. So again, it's like knowing that it mightn't be all in your control, but you will absolutely still have a lot of it there for you in your control. It mightn't be the exact program or the exact split or the exact nutritional intake that you want to have, but it's still better than the all or nothing approach. That all or something, I think, is really, really key to keep in your back pocket as that. But if it's something that happens frequently, it's worth visiting that if-then strategy and having a plan B that is actually one that you dip in and out of. And I've got a lot of clients who have their gym program and then they've got their other program, which is like on the road, it's the minimalist equipment. You don't know exactly what's going to be in some hotels that you might be getting put up in, but we can look them up in advance and check them out and say, okay, well, you've got a Smith machine and some dumbbells and a Swiss ball. Whatever it might be, cool. We can make a workout around that. That's your bright glass case in case of emergency, deal with that session, get on with it. And again, when we teach clients to create more autonomy in their approach, they'll say back to us, well, I was at that hotel, we had a workout previously, but I just adapted that and cracked on with it and got it done. Now they've got more uh control over their own decision making because they actually took the step to say, you know what, I'm taking control here. I don't need to have Larry and Daniel in my corner to give me the information or to respond to the message when I don't know exactly what to do. I'm gonna do the all or something. And now again, they're engaged, they feel well, it's increased their autonomy, they get on with their life and everything is much better. But that's like the maintenance of those habits because now it stops to all start again on Monday bullshit that people will do, and now all of a sudden results just happen a lot easier. And again, it's thinking like it doesn't have to be progressive that you can maintain your results as opposed to just improving them all the time. And when we remove that all or nothing and go to that all or something approach, I think it's invaluable and we just see more long-term results unlocked. So I think like, listen, we've covered a lot in this. There's a lot of very useful stuff already, and it is giving people that reassurance that, hey, it's all going to be okay. It's very short-term, it's not that frequent. And if it is that frequent, have a strategy there, have a plan B that you can go to that you know those situations happen often. Here's what I can do to work around that, here's what I can do to keep myself moving and feeling well. It's not all about just burning calories, it's not all about just rock solid 100% adherence. Sometimes aiming for that 70-80% is absolutely perfect. And that is the real 100% when it is out of your control. So again, look at the controllables that are in your grasp and take hold of them. Uh, Daniel, a leave-in point for people to uh wrap up on this one.

Manage Expectations And Close

SPEAKER_00 13:37

Yeah, I think just to kind of expand on everything we've kind of said and just to kind of round everything up. I think managing expectations is another key thing as well because you have to look at your current situation. Like if you're working a job that does require a lot of travel, or if you have uh fucking something over there, because like 15 kids, but you're expecting to go out of the gym five days a week and stuff, it's like right, maybe we need to manage our expectations a bit better that maybe you might only get to the gym one day a week, but let's look at what we actually can control. Because if you're setting your expectations so high that you cannot stick to the same routine even for a single week, how do you expect to do it for four, five, six months? So I think managing expectations is one of the first major steps you need to kind of put in place as well.

SPEAKER_01 14:23

It's not your fault, it's the program's fault, basically, is the the big thing with that.

SPEAKER_03 14:27

That it's like again, meet yourself exactly where you are. If you know that these things pop up, it's like put in the relevant steps needed to work around that, and then it's gonna be infinitely easier to navigate it. Loads on this one. Uh, hopefully you've got some takeaways. Again, feel free to reach out to us if you want to just expand, if you want to throw a comment back, if you want to tell us that we're absolutely awesome and we've made your day do that as well. Too. But until the next one, Danielle.