Let’s Talk Consistency…And The Relationship With Results

If you asked me to lift weights, and change it up regularly, keep correct form and ensure that all sets are ‘working sets’ (that is sets that are truly challenging and hard yakka!!), along with eating clean, unprocessed foods at regular intervals during the day, including saying “No” to some of the luxuries that everyone else seems to be indulging in, and now and again (oh horror or all horrors!!), feeling a tad hungry while avoiding indulgence in everyone’s favourite meal – The Afternoon Sugar Hit – well, I’d do it. But why?

 

For results. The End. Thanks for reading.

Alternatively, if you told me to do all of that…and there was little to no change, I’d tell you to jam the whole idea somewhere that even the Katherine sun wouldn’t find it. What would be the point if I wasn’t experiencing good health, healthy weight range, strength, toned muscles and an enthusiasm for life that excites me most days.

Yet, I hear from people consistently that do exactly that. Embark on a full-on exercise program coupled with a gruelling daily diet that would make body builders cry. With no result. Zilch. Nothing to show for it. And worse still, they sometimes pay huge amounts of money for it.

How come there are no results? Well here’s my theory.

Consistency. Lack of it.

Excuses. Too many of them.

Willpower. No desire to engage it when it hurts.

Consistency

How long is long enough to see results? I can only go by what I experience for both myself and those that I train. But I would say 6 months. 6 full months to see a decent and ongoing weight loss, and some amount of muscular strength built. Any can do the quick loss over the first few weeks. Hardly any can last the distance. Why? Because the program that they choose to follow is crap. It’s absolute crap. It’s way too hard, or way too restrictive, or way too ….silly. If it wasn’t – you’d still be doing it 6 months later. So why do people do it? Why do they engage in these crap, restrictive and downright silly programs? Because they need to feed that desire to go from feeling out of control to feeling completely and utterly in control! That’s why they won’t even bat an eyelid at paying hundreds of dollars to a fad diet company who will tell them what to eat, when to eat it, and how to exercise. Do they work? Nah. Again, if it did, you would still be doing it 6 months later. The only ones that last the distance are those that are honest programs. And it doesn’t count if you’ve been brainwashed into something like Cohens and you lose a pile of weight, then slowly put it on again, and then dive back into the Cohens cult and lose it again, in some sort of terrible yo yo pattern. If you truly, truly believed the Cohens crap, you’d stick with it forever.

I am no angel, never tried to be a saint, and still find it hard to take when the word ‘inspirational’ is used in the same sentence as my name. I have too many faults to list and being opinionated is clearly one of them. But on the good side, I have consistency. I can and will last the distance and truly believe in the way I live in relation to exercise and food. It’s been one solid year since Sammy upended my diet and ordered me onto a serious healthy kick. And I haven’t looked back. Why? I haven’t had pimples, haven’t missed a day of work for illness, haven’t had any injuries that have stopped my progress, and I feel clean and strong and healthy. I believe in it with all of my heart and that’s why I can stick with it even when times are tough. Doesn’t mean I don’t eat special treats – they are all part of this package and should be encouraged. I certainly encourage them with my clients. But the majority of my days I fit in clean food and hard exercise and I get the results I want. You could too. I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t get the results I was after. Simply wouldn’t do it.

Excuses

What can I say. You’ll find one if you need one. There are books to help if you need something original.

I will clarify something though. There are times in my life where I haven’t even attended a gym. I used to do a 5km loop run about three times a week and that’s it. I had too many other things going on and couldn’t find the energy, motivation or desire to do anymore. But I didn’t walk around saying, “I would go to the gym …but….the dog ate my gym bag”. What I’m trying to say is; if you don’t want to do something – don’t. But don’t pretend to yourself that there is another reason for it. Accept your own path and be happy with your decisions. You’ll be happier in life if you accept yourself as you are – and others will too.

 

When you go to make your next excuse, just don’t do it. Stay silent and accept that you don’t owe anyone an excuse for your actions except yourself.

Willpower

This one gets me a little prickly. See I believe we all have the same willpower. Just some of us choose not to engage it. And those that profess to not have willpower tend to sound like they need some sort of sympathy for their affliction. Conversations with them go something like this;

“I just wish I had your willpower!!! I simply have none!!”

“How come” I ask. “Where has it gone”

Nervous giggle…”I don’t know – I just don’t seem to ever be able to say “no” – you are so incredibly strong!”

“Why thank you. Yes I am. But I wasn’t as strong as I am now when I first started exercising the willpower muscle. I had to start somewhere and it got easier as I went along. Perhaps you ought to give it a go?”

 

“I’ll try….but I’m just not sure I can” continue with nervous giggling.

And I feel fairly certain that they won’t ‘give it a go’ at that specific point in time. But it’s a choice. Just like the excuses. Make your choice and be proud of it. If you choose to eat something that you truly know you shouldn’t, either eat it proudly and accept that fact. Or analyse it a bit further and imagine how you would be feeling if you had exercised your willpower muscle and said “No”.

The power to change is with you. But you need consistency, no excuses and some willpower to get going.

 

So back to my training – cos that’s what this blog is supposed to be mostly about. But I find my mind strays to these other matters and it’s therapeutic to write it down.

Training was really awful last week. Every set, every rep, every session was on struggle-street. Maybe it was the weather. Maybe it was the time of year. Or maybe it was just this phase of my training. But it hurt and I wanted to have a sneaky little cry…maybe I did or maybe it was just the sweat droplets…can’t tell, they all hurt these days when they mix with moisturiser and sunscreen.

So to combat the training blues, I increased the reps, dropped the weight and made the muscles scream with lactic acid build up! I love that feeling!!! And so does my body because I have good muscle pain where it has been lacking a bit lately.

Speaking of results, here’s a pic of my back in January 2012, and now in January 2013. I can see some definite change and I’m really, really happy!