Mindset Meets Muscle
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Mindset Meets Muscle
#38 Here is How You Can Continue To See Progress During The Summer Holidays
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We talk all things progress and summer, and how to make sure you are moving forward with your goals still in a realistic and sustainable way.
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Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of Mindset Meets Muscle. We hope you are doing fabulously. And today's episode is one that I feel like we've needed to talk for a while about because summer holidays are either just around the corner or they are already here, depending on when you are listening. And if you are a parent, you will know exactly what we are talking about. Your routine will be out the window, your school runs will be out the window, your meal times will be out the window, your fitness might be out the window, and someone is asking for snacks every 14 bloody seconds.
SPEAKER_00I don't even have kids, but I know a lot of clients that are in this current scenario and like panicking about, oh my god, how am I gonna fill like eight weeks of school holidays with activities? And it just becomes very, very stressful. Life becomes more chaotic in the holidays. And I think, especially as women, we have a tendency to just put ourselves at the bottom of our care list and go into that mindset of like, oh, well, fuck it, I'm just gonna start everything again in September.
SPEAKER_01I've noticed a lot of clientele talking about how they won't be able to do what they currently did. And that's absolutely understandable. And 1000%, yeah, if your kids are suddenly off school and you've got them and your childcare is non-existent and you are their childcare only, you are gonna have a very different routine to what you just had maybe a few weeks prior when they were at school. But it doesn't mean to decide that July and August, when summer holidays are there, that it's suddenly a write-off. You can absolutely do something. And I know that sounds quite brutal, but qu but it's honest, right? There are some things that we can still manage to do. It doesn't mean that like we just throw away everything for six or eight weeks.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I think it's okay for your journey to look different at different times of year. And it's okay that you're not a hundred percent perfect with what you're doing every single day of the year because that is just not conducive with what life is gonna throw at us. Life is not linear, like our time is not gonna be equal all year round. So it's actually just unrealistic to expect yourself to be able to give the same as you normally give in a summer where you have so many holidays or you're looking after your kids full-time and you just don't have as much time for yourself. But it doesn't mean that you need to just like put everything on the back burner. And I think that really is where people stop seeing progress or where they shoot themselves in the foot because of that mindset of I can't, like, whatever, I'll just start again in September. When actually, as Emily said, you can do something, there's always something you can do. It just might not be to the same standard that you were doing it before, but that's okay. But just don't like, just don't give up on everything because that is where you will run into the trap of putting on weight, like not seeing any progress, going backwards, and you've worked so hard to end up back where you were at the beginning of the year. Like, you don't deserve that, you deserve better.
SPEAKER_01I think it comes down to like all or nothing thinking, doesn't it? Like we are either all in or we're not in at all. And ultimately, if you look at it in it's a perspective change. If you look at it in a different light and say, what actually can I realistically do? Because it might be that you realistically can do something for 10 minutes, but I'm telling you now, as humans, we strive with habits. When we start breaking habits, like you don't give yourself 10 minutes to do exercise, when it comes back to September and you're back in the gym, it's going to be so much more challenging to rebuild that habit. Habits take a long while to sort of solidify. Once you've stopped doing the thing, it's very hard to get back doing the thing. So instead, you think, right, what can I do to for the best I can do today, right? What is it that I can actually physically manage within my day? We don't need to go, how can I do everything perfectly that I was doing when the kids were off school or when the kids were at school? That's completely different questions here. You have to manage what you can do with the time frame that you are given.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think that's so important. And also sort of like if we look at when like when you talk about habits and how habits are so like they're they're really hard to form, they're easy to break, and they're hard to then reform. I think when when we go on holiday, this is where people really struggle as well. And I'm sure, like, how many times have you had a client that's come back from holiday and says to you, I'm really struggling to get back into my routine? Wild, wild. If I had a if I had a pound for every time I heard that, I wouldn't used to be a coach. I'd retire.
SPEAKER_01Don't you think though, this is why I'm a big believer in and I know some people will coach some coaches will disagree with me and I don't really care. I actually think that most people should exercise whilst they're on holiday.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, this is exactly my point. Like, keep doing those things that make you feel good that you do in your week that get you to your result. Like, do them on holiday, exercise on holiday. You don't have to, it might, if you don't want to train, fine, but go out for a walk. Keep yourself moving, stay active and continue to do the things that make you feel good. Just because you're on holiday, it's really that mindset that's gonna send you backwards. Like, I always tell all of my clients, like, then we don't need to track calories on holiday. That's not necessary. But I still want you to eat your protein. I still want you to be mindful of what you're consuming. You can control your portions. You can do, like, we need to stay semi-switched on when we go away or when we're out of our routine. Otherwise, we will revert backwards. And I think that's what's really important to remember. Like, we don't need to do everything, but we need to, we need to keep the we need to keep the car running slightly. And maybe that looks like maintenance. And that is still like really positive. If you get through through summer and you haven't gained, you've maintained, you're still progressing in the gym, like that's a really positive place to be.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I think we spoke about this last episode, but maintenance is actually sexy. Like maintaining during the summer holidays is a fucking win. Maintaining when you're on holiday is a win. The amount of people that go on holiday and they go out of their routine and they gain fat mass is ridiculous. Like it's a high percentage. And there's nothing wrong with gaining, right? Because at the end of the day, if you do gain anything, you can lose it. But again, it comes back to that habit reforming and that habit building. But if we can say a maintenance during those eight weeks that you are uh with children and you are actually progressing, right? Because you are once again solidifying those habits when they are, when life isn't as as I'm not saying easy, but as easier with the kids being at school.
SPEAKER_00Hey, I think also what is really important to remember is we always want our expectation and our effort to be aligned. If we go on holiday, if we go away and we're expecting to lose weight, but we are drinking every day, we're eating more than normal, like obviously that's just not gonna happen. And I think sometimes if we expect to see a certain result, but our behavior doesn't match up, we can then feel even worse and it can sort of send us down the wrong track. And I this is what I'm reminding my clients a lot of at the moment is I've had some girls come to me and be like, oh, I'm just I'm I I want to lose weight, but I've been on this holiday and this holiday and this holiday, and I'm I'm just maintaining and I feel like I'm I'm failing. But actually, no, that is not a fail, that's a massive win. Because if, say, for example, you had a packed summer two, three years ago, you probably would have come out of that summer and been five, six kg heavier. But now you have ingrained these habits, you're utilizing these habits that we've built on holiday. Yeah, you might be eating a little bit more close to maintenance. It's honestly almost impossible not to when you're on holiday, especially when you're drinking. But you've come out and you're the same way. And that is a massive win. And I think sometimes going on holiday and saying, look, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna still try and fail to lose weight because then it's just gonna send you into that all or nothing mindset and think, well, fuck it, I may as well just eat and drink everything in sight. But actually, I'm gonna, I'm gonna see this as a period of trying to maintain, still be sort of a little bit, a little bit mindful about what I'm consuming, get my exercise in because it makes me feel good. And if I come back and I haven't gained weight, like that's a win. And I think just taking the pressure off yourself really makes a difference in the behaviors that you'll then engage in when you're on holiday.
SPEAKER_01I think it also works on the other end as well. Like if you look at someone that goes into that space of I'm going on holiday, so I'm gonna eat everything inside, you will go on holiday and eat everything inside. So you have to go in, like Tash mentioned, like with that awareness. Like you are building a lifestyle. That lifestyle doesn't just stop when you're on holiday, right? That lifestyle is implemented throughout your whole journey of life. Now, you might be a little bit regimented or a little bit more structured during the times you're in the UK and during the times where your kids are at school, but that doesn't mean that you don't pick maybe the fruit and the yogurt and the omelets over the croissants and the pancakes and the Nutella. Now, I'm not saying you can't have the Nutella pancakes, but if you're having them every single day and you're having them in mass quantity, and you're like, oh, it's really hard now once I've got back in the UK to not, you know, to have those things, that's because you just don't want to embed those habits throughout your whole lifestyle. And it is kind of looking at it in that light. It's like you can't not have a takeaway, right? You can have a fucking takeaway. But if you're having takeaways constantly every single week and multiple times per week, you are embedding or embodying that habit of someone who has takeaways all the time. So it's very hard then to suddenly stop having those takeaways. Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that does make sense. And I think it's it's people do really easily fall into that mindset. And I think it's the issue with potentially trying to be too restrictive day to day, and then you then come into these holidays or you come into the weekend, and because you have tried because you've been too restrictive and it's not been sustainable during your week, you're gasping for that takeaway. You're gasping to go on holiday and basically eat everything inside and have Nutella pancakes every single day. Because if that is the case, I would encourage you to look at how you're living your your overall lifestyle, and probably you're living it with a bit too much restriction, or it's just something that is not quite yet sustainable for you. And that's the area that I would look to shift first.
SPEAKER_01One thing people forget is habits are obviously built around routine. So, for example, we get up in the morning, we get a cup of coffee, or we, you know, get dressed, or we go and brush our teeth, or whatever it is that you're how your routine looks like. And your kids being at school, your routine is you get up, you send them to school, and then you'll have a few hours around your, you know, whatever you need to do, your errands around the house, or you go to work, or whatever it is that you do after you've dropped your kids off. And all of those things are habits that support your routine. So then when suddenly summer arrives and that environment changes, your habits naturally feel a lot harder. And this does not mean that you've become lazy. It's just that life has slightly shifted. And so you're gonna have to be flexible with it. It's like that whole we bend, we don't break. We're gonna have to sort of shift our habits to accept that it is gonna look differently. We're not fighting against our habits. We are might, we might have to push a little bit harder just to maintain some sort of consistency with them.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I do think that it comes to situations like this when it's clear that the environment is probably not conducive to fat loss. Or as you say, you do have to work that a little bit harder. And people will instantly just blame themselves and think, like, I can't do it, like I'm such a failure, like what's wrong with me? When actually, no, you are just in a situation which life has sort of like flipped upside down, and you've got like four kids asking you for a different thing at a different time, and you're trying to keep them constantly stimulated, and you're always just thinking about them and what they need to do. It's natural for you to to sort of like to put yourself last, essentially. But it doesn't mean that you're failing. And I think it comes back to that point of okay, we maybe can't be 100% on. This is why I love looking at your your goals or your process as a bit of a dial. Dial can be turned all the way up at some times. It might be turned down to like 2% at other times. But as long as you're still somewhere on that dial, like that's okay. And maybe in the summer it's it's gonna be sort of shifting each and every day. You might have one day where maybe your kids are asleepover and you go, okay, well, this is a day that I can really get on with my with my shit. I can go to the gym, I can train, I can do all those things. And I think it's just about really being fluid that not every day is gonna be perfect, not every day is gonna look like that. But if you do also have a day where you have a chance to really get on top of your shit and really move yourself towards those goals, grab that by what's that phrase? Grab it by the balls. Balls. I think it's by the balls. The horns, grab it by the horns. Definitely by the balls. Balls.
SPEAKER_01So if we look at just like, okay, that's like kind of the fat loss side of things, and that's like the food, and noticing like it's okay if we're riding at maintenance. But like I said before, in terms of exercise, movement doesn't mean that we do have to obviously hit the gym hard every single day, right? That's not what we're saying. It could be the fact that you run after your kids up and down a hill, okay? You could be at a bloody swimming pool. You could be, I don't know, carrying endless amounts of shopping bags. It is still movement, right? But then we could look at, right, okay, I can't get to the gym, but I've got a lot of my clients, nearly all of them are mums, right? And there are areas where we're like, I'm going on a holiday. Right, okay, we're gonna pack some resistance bands because there is no access to a gym. Great. So they're gonna do like 15 minutes, 15 minutes out of their day. The kids could be watching Coco Lemon and you're doing some bandwork, right? Wicked. You could be multitasking and you could be singing them a bloody song, but you're doing something, and then again, it keeps that habit in. So we can have movement in terms of just movement and you're hiking, you can move when you're outdoors with the kitties, or you can actually be, you know, sort of programming that workout in, even if it is with bands or is with body weight.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and do you know what is interesting is I think some people actually are more active over the summer because they are doing all these things, they're doing more activities, you're probably naturally your step count's gonna be a bit higher because the weather's nicer, we have more daylight. So take advantage of just engaging in more general movement. And to be honest, that's probably one of the easiest things that you can do. So, really, do take advantage of that if you're really struggling to stay consistent with your calories. Like we know a deficit obviously is energy in versus energy out. Um, we can really focus more maybe on that the energy out piece and increase that expenditure and see still really positive results if maybe it's a time where you can't you're struggling to focus as much on being super restrictive with with the food. So I think it's really important to remember that actually just general movement is really a bit of a superpower during during summer. What would you say to someone who is going on holiday and is worried about losing all of their progress? Like if you could give them like a let's say five golden rules of what they should do, what would they be?
SPEAKER_01I personally would say that they're not going to be obviously losing their progress in a space of a week. We have to be realistic, the fact that it didn't take you a week to gain where you currently are at. So it's not going to take you a week to lose it. But we'll also look at things like what we can be focusing on. So we can be focusing on an element of protein, right? You can be getting enough protein within your day. And obviously, restaurants are generally tailored to more carbohydrates. But if we look at going away, I don't know, to a beach holiday, for example, you're going to have access to things like fish and grilled meats and stick with things like this. You know, you know, we don't have to say yes to the breadbasket or to the extra slide of fries. You can opt for the big load of sea baths grilled with a big salad to share. You know, you can have options that also still align with protein and whole food elements as well. Then we just look at general movement. So you're looking at going outside on a regular, you can still get your steps in. If you're on a beach and you've got the kids, you can run up and down that beach as many times as you like. And I guarantee you, they will not get bored. Your steps could be reached in a whole new level, right? And then if we look at things like alcohol consumption, obviously, alcohol is going to be generally apparent in most people's holidays. But have an awareness that maybe that is going to affect things like your sleep quality. It's going to affect your mood and your energy throughout the day. It might affect, you know, your calories, well, it will affect your calories. So just be a little bit aware with what you're going to, maybe put a little bit more of a limit on it. So maybe you have like a three-drink roll or you have a limit throughout the day, for example. If we're looking at, again, rest and recovery, we're looking at sleep in general, you don't need to be going out till 1 a.m. in the morning. Not that you would be doing with your kids, but also making sure that you are getting enough time for you. And then lastly, prioritizing yourself and your cup. So refilling it, remembering that you are also someone who's trying to give energy to other people with your children. If you're not filling up your cup, you're going to be pouring from that empty cup. You do need time to give yourself back that love that you give your kitties.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I love that. And do you know what? It's it's it's just simple as well. And I think this is the thing. A lot of people overthink it when they're on holiday, but actually, it comes back to the basics. Always the basics. Uh literally, it is always the basics, and it's just about doing what you can, and something is better than nothing. But I think on the flip side of that, what I think is really important for people to remember, especially our clients, because we're very much focused on an overall lifestyle. Like, we're not in it for quick fixes. Like these girls work fucking hard all year round and they look phenomenal. And I think a holiday, like you what you work so hard so you can feel confident to enjoy your summer, enjoy your holiday, wear the shorts, wear the bikini. And I think sometimes we lose sight of that because we're so focused on, oh, I need to like maintain this. But actually, what is the point in doing all this hard work if you cannot enjoy the physique or the confidence that you have built and just sort of take a bit of time off? And we're so disciplined, we work so hard, so we can be a little bit more free when we're away. And I think it's important to remember that as well. But as with everything, we need to find that balance. But ultimately, holiday is not your norm. Like one week away, as Emily said, it's not going to undo a year of working super hard. So don't overthink it. Don't go in with a super restrictive mindset. Go in with an abundance mindset. There's so much food for you to enjoy. There's so much for you to be doing. And I think it's really important to just remember like at the end of the day, like you're on holiday to have fun. Like life's too short not to have fun.
SPEAKER_01I just think I want to remind people that like ultimately you don't have to be all in or all out, right? You can have something that, yeah, you can loosen the reins, but you can also have something that aligns with the lifestyle that you want to live. And I always feel like being the version of the person that you want to be is sexy. It makes you feel empowered. Like when you keep promises to yourself, it makes you feel empowered. Now, that's not to say you need to train like a fucking machine through the summer. You don't. You actually don't. And taking some time off could be really good for your body and your rest and your nervous system, and that's great. But also doesn't mean that you have to be completely the other way and not move and not enjoy movement in general because movement isn't a chore. It's fucking privilege. And the moment you start viewing it like that, the moment your life changes forever.
SPEAKER_00I think that's so true. I mean, you and I, like, we go on holiday. If someone told me that I couldn't train on holiday, I'd be like, why am I going? Like, I don't want to go. I I couldn't do it for my mental health.
SPEAKER_01I literally could. But the thing is, I don't feel good when I don't move. No. My body feels stagnant. I don't feel like I've utilized energy. I feel restless. I need to get that energy out. But the same thing goes with food. If I sat there and ate a load of sort of heavy, refined carbohydrates and no protein and no vegetables, I would feel worse off than when I got on holiday or when I arrived on holiday. I want to leave my holiday and actually feel like I've had I feel rested, but I feel amazing. Yeah. I don't want to feel like shit. It's probably why I don't go on girls' holidays because I can't hack that.
SPEAKER_00I do that, but do you know what? I think our holiday that we went to France last year was really nice because that was sort of a perfect balance of we had fun, but also we moved, we trained, we we ate relatively well most of the time. And I think it's yeah, I mean, I I think a holiday where you feel a bit balanced and you do the things that make you feel good, but you also indulge a little bit, like that's the key. Because then you come back feeling like you filled up your your fun cup and also you fill up your recovery cup because that's really what holidays should be about as well. It's sort of resting and recharging and coming back feeling refreshed. And I think that's also important for people to remember. But at the end of the day, like ultimately the most important thing is that you enjoy yourself. But as you say, like you also wanna, you want to always show up as the version that makes you feel your best because that you deserve that. And like you deserve to hold yourself to a high standard, not just like 10 months out of the year, but every single month out of the year. And it's okay if that looks different each month.
SPEAKER_01If you can navigate one of the busiest and most unpredictable times of the year whilst keeping your healthy habits ticking over, then I am pleased to say you have learned a skill that will serve you for life.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely, because it's really fitness is not about what you can do for eight weeks. It's actually about how can you adapt and what can you still do when life is busy, when routines change, when holidays happen. Like, honestly, just when life happens, because that's life. And that really is where our long-term success and like our full, full major life transformation happens.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and just don't let ever one day that's enjoyable convince you that you have failed. Obviously, we keep coming back to those small habits, those basics, over and over again because they'll carry you through every season of life.
SPEAKER_00And with that, guys, we are gonna wrap it up here. Thank you so much for listening. Hopefully, this has given you a little bit of a boost you need going into the summer season. Uh, and we will be back next week with another episode. Thanks, guys. Have a good day.