Green Amber Red Method | E31

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Hello, team, and welcome back to Train Like a Girl. This is Abby, and today's episode is a tool that I use with my clients. So you may be here because you've been sent a link via Instagram that you might have been asking for this, or you might have just stumbled across this episode. But either way, I think it's going to be incredibly helpful for you because one of the biggest things I hear from women who are trying to get healthy or to lose fat or to just maintain their results, quite frankly, is they are struggling to stay consistent because of busyness, because life is busy. And it makes a lot of sense because life really is busy. We've got work, we've got kids, social events, holidays, birthdays, dinners out, family commitments. There's always something happening. And that's great. We want to be living a life that isn't just about health and fitness. But after a decade of coaching women, I've noticed something. Most people don't actually struggle because they don't know what to do. They've actually got all of the information at their fingertips. We all do, don't we? We all know pretty much that we should prioritize protein and fibre. We know that strength training is important. We know that we need consistency and we know that we need to be in a calorie deficit if we want to lose weight. We know the information, but the struggle, the biggest struggle, and the thing that I work consistently, repeatedly on with all of my one-to-one ladies is being consistent with stuff when life happens. The struggle is what happens when life isn't perfectly set up for those things. Which is why so many people that come to me, they say, Oh, I've I I don't want to start just yet because life is really busy, or I've got this busy stint coming up, or the kids are gonna be off school or whatever. Or they, you know, they they almost only want to start coaching when life is perfect. But the reality is, coaching in and of itself is of its greatest benefit when life is busy. Because if we can't learn how to navigate busy times in life, then we're never gonna keep the results long term anyway. What's the point in getting a coach when life is perfect, when life is never perfect consistently, you know? But when I'm working with clients, there is one tool that I have created that seems to be working wonders. It's a new framework that I've come up with, and it's called the green, amber, and red method. Um, it's very new, but I've been testing it on a few of my one-to-one clients, and particularly with clients who are going through a busy period. Um, obviously, it's the summer in the UK right now where most of my clients are. There's a lot of weddings, there's a lot of um trips abroad, there's a lot of weekends away, all of that, that kind of thing. But this would work also around Christmas or work deadlines or travelling with work or um uh half terms when the kids are off, whatever. But the point is this system is doing wonders for allowing people to stay on their plan. Because what is so common is this idea of like, oh, what's the point? I'm never gonna be able to stick to my plan. Um, and this system helps my clients, and hopefully you helps you see things so much more realistically. The problem that we have is that we I think it's human nature because honestly, at this point, I don't think I've ever had a client that doesn't do this. We catastrophize the busy periods of life. I want you to think about something. If I asked you how has your consistency been lately, a lot of you would say, oh, not great, life's just been too busy. But what I've realized is if we actually zoom out and look at your calendar, what we usually find is there might have been a couple of difficult days, like a birthday meal or a weekend away or a stressful day at work, but those few events have started to represent the entire month in your mind. And that is the problem. That's where we get stuck. So this is where the method comes in. This is what we're gonna do. You're gonna take your calendar for the month ahead. This is what I do with my clients. I get a full picture of what their busy period looks like, whether that's a week, two weeks, a month, whatever. This can be on your phone calendar, it can be a physical diary, whatever works for you. And what we do is we colour every single day. We colour it green or amber or red. And the important thing is here that these don't represent good or bad days, they're just different types of days. So I'm gonna break down what each day, what each colour kind of represents. So green days are your routine days, your normal life, days where your habits can fit as normal. Maybe you're working from home, maybe you've got a normal work day, maybe you've got a quiet weekend. These are days where you can prioritize and practice the behaviours that like move you towards your goals. So, you know, there are days where it's easy to hit your protein, it's easy to track your calories if you're currently tracking, it's easy to fit your training in, your steps in, it's easy to get like a good sleep routine, whatever your personal habits are. Remember, green doesn't mean perfect, it just means that this day allows for a really normal routine for you. Like it's it's available to you to have your normal, your normal habits, right? That would be a green day. An amber day is probably, I would say, where most people stumble or they struggle, because this is where real life happens. Amber days are days where our routine needs a little bit of adapting. So this is where we don't live in a perfect funnel. So maybe this looks like you've got a dinner out, or you've got a work lunch, or a barbecue, or the kids are off school and you've got a busy day with them, you've got whatever, a a big work deadline. Um, something that creates a bit of what's the word? Resistance to your normal routine. So you have in an amber day, you've still got a large amount or some influence over the day, but it might not look exactly normal. And this is where we need to practice a bit of flexibility. Because the biggest mistake people make is, oh well, I'm eating out tonight, so the whole day is ruined. No, instead, it's an amber day. So maybe it's that you prioritize protein at your breakfast, you still get your steps in, but maybe you enjoy the meal out and don't turn it into a whole weekend of self-sabotage and overeating. So it's about accepting that, okay, this isn't fully normal day. Um, this isn't fully in my routine, but I'm gonna do with I'm gonna do what I the best I can with the circumstances that I've been given, and I'm gonna adapt around that, right? Rather than it feeling like that one meal is means the whole week is ruined, or whatever, you know, the event is. Now, a red day, these are the ones people think are much more common than they actually are. So this is where the these are days that people are, you know. I think most of us fall into the trap of thinking that if we've got a couple of amber days, the whole month is red. But actually, if we look at a red day, these are the ones that are not very common. Maybe it's and it's not even like a birthday dinner or a Saturday or a meal out. They those things fall into like amber camp. But a true red day is something is is like where your normal routine genuinely is impossible to be the priority. So it could be like Christmas Day or a wedding or like a once-in-a-lifetime celebration, a holiday day where you're fully embracing the experience of the holiday. And actually, most people only have a small handful of these across an entire year. And that's the point, right? One red day doesn't make or break your results. Just like one day green day doesn't make or break your results. Because the crucial thing here is we are pro we are a product of what we do most of the time, not what we do some of the time or occasionally. So let's look at an example here. Let's say you look at your calendar and you think, oh my god, this month is impossible. I've got so many socials, I've got a social every single weekend. When we strip it back and we colour it in, actually, most days are going to be green because most of the time, guys, we are in control of what we do. We are usually in control of how many steps we can take. We are usually in control of our sleep. Like, obviously, there are outliers here, like if you've got a newborn baby and that kind of thing, but we're usually in control. Um, so if we colour in our month, or even our week, let's say we've got a busy week, you could even break this down into meal occasions if you're looking at this from a purely from a nutrition standpoint, but let's just look at it like days. When you colour in your month, it might look more something more like 24 green days, five amber days, and one red day, which is probably unlikely to even have a red day in there. But let's just, for argument's sake, say that that's what it is. Suddenly we see that oh, it's not I'm too busy to start my fat loss or I'm too busy to be healthy or prioritize my goals. It's I have 24 opportunities to practice, solid habits, and just a handful of days where I need to adapt and need maybe a bit more of a flexible approach. And that is why I love this method because it really takes us away from that all or nothing thinking. It makes us zoom out and appreciate that most of us have green months, most of most of our days are really fully in our control, and we we then from that place can make choices aligned with our goals. This isn't me saying you need to be obsessed, um, and you know, talking about like the nuances of what a green day could look like is obviously a topic for another podcast and or maybe coaching, but the truth is that most of us see more green days than amber days. So we need this method is great because it takes us away from that black and white thinking, and you can stop expecting yourself to be in a normal routine every single day, because that's obviously not realistic. The goal isn't to completely eliminate amber and red days, but the the goal is to stop letting them derail you because actually we are a product of what we do most of the time, and for the most of us, we're gonna have mostly green days. So if you feel like your life has been really busy lately, I want you to try this. Take your calendar, color code the next week or month, and look at the reality of your schedule, not you know, don't let don't stress over the story that your brain is telling you. Like remember that consistency is doing the same thing every day. Consistent isn't sorry, doing the same thing every single day. It's knowing how to respond to the day that you're in, which is why I've written up this framework. I've also written it up as a you know, as a hard copy. Um, so if you want that as your as a free resource, please uh just find that in the show notes. I'll link it. And if you want extra help or support navigating your amber days or even kind of trying to map out your months and weeks like this, this is the kind of stuff that I do on a deep level with all of my clients. So if you're interested in that, I'll also pop a link to apply for coaching in the show notes as well. I hope this was helpful, guys, and I will speak to you very soon.