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At Alive Winning, we believe in overall Wellness through the connection of your Mind, Body & Soul.
Lets think about the Body.
We promote feeling your best ensuring that you have a positive personal and body image. As such, the Alive Winning Plan is about an overall approach to Wellness. When we consider the Body., there are two aspects for me… the first is nutrition or simply stated … what you eat and the second is exercise.
A lot of people would argue that 80% of body management is what you eat. So lets start in the kitchen; a key principle when looking at the Body. is to specifically understand an individual’s relationship and approach to food. In improving the overall approach and therefore outcome, two things are key; these are: –
- Understand how to make better decisions naturally and instinctively when it comes to food choices;
- Understand what your goals are and be realistic about how you can achieve them.
It is important to remember that you should always consult your doctor before starting any weight management or exercise programme. So your first step is to go book that appointment now.
There are a lot of different theory’s and views on nutrition and diet. If you read around you can read strong arguments for Intermittent Fasting or other approaches. Looking at Intermittent Fasting, I can see benefits; however in my experience most people simply skip meals, which isn’t part of a structured plan. Similarly, we can read about a Carnivore Diet or Vegan Diet and countless others; each of which has merit in its own right.
So to state my preference and views from the outset, I personally adopt a Mediterranean Style Flexitarian Approach and eat 3 meals a day.
I am not a fan of skipping meals – usually breakfast for most people. I know two meals can be part of a plan but, as I have already said, in most circumstances that I see …. people are simply missing a meal and it isn’t part of a nutrition plan. For that reason I also prefer to suggest either 3 meals a day – what I refer to as a “BLD” (breakfast Lunch Dinner) or 5 meals which I refer to as a “Grazer”.
AliveWinning isn’t a diet plan, but rather a set of tools that help you strive towards good nutrition. As the old saying goes, you are what you eat.
Depending on your habits, you may need to be realistic about what you need to do to get started. It may take time. Studies have shown that it takes 30 days to develop a habit. So for example, if you need to “fix” breakfast; that will take 30 days … so you are at “Day 0 minus 30”.
Therefore, if you aren’t working a specific diet plan, but have the habit of skipping breakfast or only eating one meal a day, the first step is to introduce breakfast or breakfast and lunch. In essence you are at day zero minus 30 if you need to add breakfast or day zero minus 60 if you have to introduce breakfast and lunch. Legend has it that breakfast is short for “break the fast”. Think about how long your body has gone without food. It simply goes into starvation mode and you decrease your odds of losing weight and it is generally considered healthier to either eat 3 meals a day or be a grazer.
When I started, I was eating so poorly and making such bad decisions that I had to fix my eating one meal at a time; so I started with breakfast. I was in the habit of eating pain au chocolat or something similar every day. To top it off I hated fruit and never choose that … or at least not willingly. So I started with that meal. You may recognise that you frequently stop and pick up convenience food during the day. Alternatively, you may be in the habit of eating lunch out every day and the choices don’t appear to be in the Alive Winning Zone. Well this will take both planning and a period of time to change the habit. As I say, I call this “day 0 minus 30 days”. Yes … it took me 30 days with no cheating to change the habit. Now there is some science and research that supports the fact that it takes 30 days of repeated behaviour to change a habit. If you are interested, you might want to check out Stephen Covey’s book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People – he touches on how to create a habit in the book. So if you are struggling; then you may have to work on one habit at a time before you fully start the program, but that’s okay. You are making positive steps in the right direction! Using breakfast as an example, introduce breakfast for 30 consecutive days. At day 21 tell people about your breakfast for 7 consecutive days. This will change your relationship with the meal and it will become a habit. If you need to introduce lunch, then do the same thing with that.
If you are interested in learning more, why not GET YOUR FREE ASSESSMENT? Just complete the questionnaire and we will prepare a customized report for you.
If weight loss is your goal, then in some ways it is a simple process; when you consume fewer calories than you burn, you lose weight. By increasing your activity level and opting for more nutritious and less calorie-dense foods, you can expect to see a steady loss of fat.
So as we increase our activity levels, we start to look at exercise. Okay lets be clear this is a big topic and deserves to be discussed in its own right; so I just want to touch on a few things for now.
Before I had my neuropathy I was fairly fit and into extreme sports. At that point in my life, in a typical week, I went to the gym 3 to 4 mornings a week before work. I was lucky, my company had a free gym in the building where I worked. When I wasn’t in the gym I either went canoeing on the River Thames or Wake Boarding at a local lake where I knew the owner and he would open up for me at 6.30 am. Then at the weekends I would go Mountain Bike riding – mostly hill climbing or trail riding in the UK. The mountain stuff happened on holiday. I have a great story about a ride just outside Genoa in Italy with my son, but we will save that for another day! Frankly, exercise & extreme sports was how I defined myself.
In fact, I was in a gym when a personal trainer I knew pointed out an issue with my left wrist which was one of the starting points of my neuropathy and some months later I was on a 13 mile run training for the London Marathon when I realized I had three different parts of my body that all were “doing something kind of weird”… they were connected in some way but I just didn’t know what the real problem was… that would take another 18 months and 5 or 6 doctors to find out!
It has taken me a long time to figure out how I reconnect with exercise in my life. It has been a journey.
I had a major breakthrough a few years ago when I started working with another Personal Trainer who is also a friend and we came up with the “Beat MMN Programme”. He gave me the confidence to start to look at and think about what I could do rather than getting depressed by how much I had slipped. He also educated me on the importance of a do what you can mentality. That is to say, if you only do 5 minutes or 10 minutes – then that is 100% more than nothing! So if you are struggling, just start to do something.
I’m going to pick up on the exercise theme down the road, so I will leave it there with one final thought from Arnold…
“Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength.” – Arnold Schwarzenegger