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Sick avoidance level . . . PARENT

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I have an aversion to getting sick that is pretty simple really and it can be boiled down to three things:

1) I am the mother of two children (4 and 7) and they have literally no care factor of whether I am ill, well or anything in between.
2) I am marathon training, so time that I am sick means I can’t train, which annoys me greatly
3) When I’m not training, I’m no fun for the rest of the family, so really it’s in their best interest that I keep doing that.

Now, I’m normally a bit lazy when it comes to things like supplements. I know I shouldn’t be, but I am.

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However unparallelled fear of the winter lurgy that has single handedly taken down both children and my husband has spurred me into action so I’ve been regularly taken a Woman’s Multi, Vitamin C with Zinc and Vitamin B that HiVita sent me.

One of the things that has been branded into my brain, I mean effectively taught to me by my mother who is a nurse is that not all supplements are created equal. It’s all well and good to have a vitamin, but how well does it absorb? What else is in there? How much sugar?

So one of the cool things about HiVita is that it was all started by a Sydney couple – Gorge and Stanika who are really passionate about what they do. In 1995 they founded LIPA Pharmaceuticals which ultimately became a public company thanks to their dedication to quality. And now they have turned their attention to local brand, Hivita which is one of the few brands that is wholly Australian, owned and made. But the part that you and possibly my mother would be really interested in is that Hivita is all about optimal level of actives, so it’s highly potent and highly effective.

Which coming back to my warding off the Winter lurgy is what I really need. My husband is fond of saying I’m such a finely tuned athlete with a high metabolism that when I get sick, I get epically sick. He’s really good at compliments. But it is true (the epically sick part) I think when you have a family and a business you can hold off getting sick for a really long time, when it hits you – it hits you hard. But so far, I’m all good. I haven’t been sick. I haven’t had to take any time off work or training and I’ve been able to look after the sick kids without being sick myself.

Has the winter lurgy claimed you? Do you also suffer from epic woman flu?

Exclusive Operation Move Reader offer: 30% of all purchases at Hivita before 31/08/2015 plus free shipping for orders over $50. Just enter code OPERATIONMOVE at checkout.

Hivita is available in all good chemists and health food stores and is also available to buy online at http://hivita.com.au/

 

Is this a conversation you have with yourself? Me too.

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I’m going to lay out a conversation that I regularly see EVERYWHERE. And it’s a conversation I used to have with myself and with my friends too.

“I just start this [insert diet here], but then I had some [insert delicious yummy food here]. I wish I had more will power.”

Does that sound familiar? Yeah, me too. I did Jenny Craig. I did calorie counting. But I always put the weight back on. I am that statistic (the majority of us are actually) that would end up heavier than when I started dieting in the first place. And you think it’s just a lack of will power. But really it’s not.

First of all let’s talk about 1,200 calories. It’s a number that everyone knows that you are supposed to have if you are on a diet. And has been written about very eloquently here. And the thing is a whole lot of people can clench their way through 12 weeks of being on a restrictive diet. But then what happens?

One of the things we tend to believe about weight and appearance is that we should just eat less and run more. There is this idea that cardio and dieting is how you can have the body you want and be healthy too. But the fact is that it is really quite challenging. Will running help you burn fat and lose weight? Absolutely. But it will also trigger your appetite which makes it really hard to be dieting. People tend to think of running as the answer because runners are slim. But that’s like playing basketball to get taller. The best runners tend to be very lean. But running won’t necessarily make you lean, any more than basketball will make you tall – that’s more about genetics.

And you can certainly go down the cardio/diet path – but that’s a very restrictive path and you probably won’t be enjoying yourself all that much.

This is where weight training comes in. It does a few things. One is it increases your metabolism. Another is it builds muscle, which will burn more energy even at rest. And so instead of being stuck on a restrictive diet, all of a sudden you can have a far more sustainable, more enjoyable relationship to your food. By contrast, if all you do is cardio-based exercise, your base metabolic rate will continue to drop and to achieve any fat loss you are forced to eat less and less, making it more and more unsustainable.

When talking about weight training it can easy to get caught up in the fears of getting too bulky. And I know exactly how that feels. Being overweight, the last thing you want to do is add more to that. But the fact is contrary to what you might be told there is no lean muscle or bulky muscle. There is just muscle. There is no toning. There is just building muscle. And it doesn’t matter whether you do high repetitions at low weight, or low repetitions at high weight – they will both build muscle. One supports more strength development, the other more endurance. But the physical result is not substantially different.

When people start their fitness journey, they usually not only want to be fit and strong, they want to look fit and strong. And the answer is usually pretty simple. Eat well. Eat a lot. Don’t pretend that all calories are the same. Because they aren’t. If you like the mindfulness of calorie counting – think of proteins, vegetables and fruits as calorie free and use your counting for all the other stuff. Incorporate weight training in a way that you are going to enjoy. And incorporate cardio in the same way. Your best results are going to come from a combination of muscle building and fat burning activities.

But here’s the thing, people can tell you all about what is the most effective thing – running, boxing, crossfit, heavy lifting, walking or whatever else. But it’s only effective if you do it. And to do it, you have to want to do it. So pick something you are going to love. Or if you don’t love anything yet, try something new.

The Great Diet Con

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How many times have you heard someone say that a diet ‘worked’ but then later on they put the weight back on? Seems to me the diet didn’t work so well.

First Lie: Weight Loss is a Diet’s Success, Gaining the Weight is Your Failure

It’s kind of perfect isn’t it? If you lose the weight, the diet is proven effective, but if you put it back on it’s because of your own personal failure. But the reality is, for everyone who goes on a diet about 90% of them will not only put back on any weight they lose, they will put on a bit of extra weight as well. Diets are probably the only product you can sell to a consumer that doesn’t work but will still have them coming back for another round.

Second Lie: Just Count Calories and Exercise

It sounds easy, but really you know it’s not true. Because to believe this you have to believe that all calories are created equal. And they can’t be. Because the fact is that eating a chocolate coated ice cream is not the same as eating a vegetable stir fry. But the calories say they are the same. And it’s just not true.

Third Lie: If you are slim, you are healthy

This isn’t exclusive to the diet industry. There is a pervasive belief that how you look is an indicator for how healthy you are. But the fact is that you can be slim and internally obese and you can be obese and internally fit. There is no real way of knowing how healthy or unhealthy you are based on how you look. But it’s convenient to sell you this idea because then you have to be a certain weight to achieve a certain health factor. But the reality is that generally health benefits are linked to activity level, not weight loss.

Fourth Lie: Fat is bad for you.

If you believe this then it might shock you to know that low-fat dairy is a risk factor for obesity. It destabilises blood sugar, which is a key factor in food cravings. Because low-fat foods tend not to taste as good they often have added sugar and are less satisfying so you eat more.

Fifth Lie: Weight Loss is a Good Goal

It can seem like a good goal when part of what you want is to lose weight, feel a bit more comfortable. But the thing is, when you achieve that goal you don’t have it anymore, so you lose incentive and you lose motivation and you put on weight because food is yummy. And guess what? Come back, here is another diet for you.

Sixth Lie: You can train like an athlete and diet like a celebrity

Unfortunately you can’t. Eating for weight loss and eating for training are two very different things with very different goals. And you probably can’t do both at the same time. If you eat for training you will probably have very gradual weight loss, but that is all. And you would only want it to be very gradual because otherwise you would not be physically capable of getting the most out of your training. And if you severely restrict calories you just aren’t going to have the energy to train.

Seventh Lie: You don’t need to lose weight to start your life.

You don’t need to look a certain way to walk into a gym, or go for a run. You don’t need to look a certain way to get married or wear a bikini or wear a fancy dress.

Eighth Lie: The scales tell you what you need to know.

They don’t. They are probably the most inaccurate measure of where your body is at. They fluctuate based on hydration, what you ate, what you’ve had to drink, muscle composition and any manner of a million other things. So basing a set of goals based on that is a recipe for failure.

Ninth Lie: There is such a thing as ‘toning’

There isn’t. There is no such thing as toning. There is building muscle. Apparently ‘toning’ is the word used when describing women building muscle but there is no difference, it is all just building muscle.

Tenth Lie: Shame will Motivate You

Shame will not motivate you. Self-loathing will not inspire change. There is nothing wrong with you. Your body is capable of so much more than you believe it is.

If you want change, you have to love the body you have right now for everything it has already done for you and everything it is capable of doing in the future. You have to respect it. And appreciate it. And you have to believe in it. Food and exercise are not reward and punishment. There is no punishment. And you are the reward, just like you always have been.

So where does that leave you?

A while back I read a comment (I can’t remember the author unfortunately!) that said in response to restrictive diets that you should live the healthiest life you can enjoy, not the healthiest life you can. And that has stayed with me.

I think over the four years since I had my youngest I’ve made a lot of changes and they stuck because I enjoyed them and because they were small and just built up over time. The other part was that I set goals that weren’t weight-based. They were things like run further or run faster. Things that were easy to measure as a matter of performance, not aesthetics.

There is nothing wrong with weight loss as a goal – plenty of us at any given time might think I’d feel a bit more comfortable if I lost a bit of weight and there is nothing wrong with that. But often it’s actually representative of a different goal it might be that we want more energy because we are feeling sluggish, or we want to be able to have more stamina to keep up with our kids or it might be that we want to run a little faster or have more confidence in ourselves. So my approach is that I focus on those things and everything else follows.

If you want to change, a diet is a setup for failure. Start by choosing the life you want and see where that leads you instead.