Sometimes Less is More

Sometimes less is more!

Now don’t get me wrong, I love training. I have spent nearly 30 years in the martial arts, travelling the country to seek out the best coaches to help be get better. It is the same with strength and conditioning, to train and learn from the best I have been worldwide.

I have been fanatical from a young age,

Then 15 years ago, because me and my wife were told we couldn’t have kids, I didn’t accept that and looked at every way to increase our chances. That is when I eventually turned to nutrition and how important it is for our health. Suffice to say, we addressed that and we have our son who is now 10 years old.

Yes nutrition and what you eat is THAT powerful, it can create babies, what are the chances 😉

I am stubborn like that, if someone told me I couldn’t do something I would use that as a driver to find a way how I could.

Whether it is having kids or doing ab wheel roll outs. I refuse to believe it until I have proved it to myself either way.

I have also studied mindset and how this is so important to getting the other things right, how you talk to yourself, how you act all makes a huge impact on your life.

Of course I have had my ups and downs like anyone else, with training, injuries, highs and lows. we all make mistakes, it is what makes us human, it is what we learn from mistakes and failure that makes us grow as individuals.

However, one thing I didn’t realise until 2 years ago is how the brain and the mind work. they are totally different. I trained in a specific way of coaching that turned what i believed on its head.

And this is when sometimes less is more.

If you have a weight loss goal, eating well and training, but your results have stalled. you usually adjust your nutrition or your training. Because people struggle with nutrition because of all the crap food out there appealing to your taste buds, not to mention your waistline, they start training more, hoping that training more will help.

Now for a lot of people that works, because it is done smart, but for others it doesn’t. They can stay the same or gain weight. I learned a while ago that you can either train hard or train smart. when has throwing more stuff at something that isn’t working make it work?

Rest and recovery are at least as important as the training you do, it helps remove over training and burnout, because if you are stressed, adding another stressor will not help you, it simply adds more stress to the stress bucket.

The thing is, there is one thing that trumps diet, training and mindset….

Stress.

Stress wreaks havoc on your chemical makeup… your hormones. it will stop fat loss in its tracks. if you are chronically stressed, no amount of dieting or training will help you.

You have to deal with the stressful situation. If you don’t you will stall, your brain will stop you thinking rationally, in fact it will stop you thinking at all and it will react to what you did the first time that situation occurred. it wired it to your brain so you don’t have to think next time, you just do.

It looks for safety and comfort, things it knows. Your brain has an in built survival mechanism, which has never changed for 1000’s of years.

If it perceives threat/danger/stress, it doesn’t want you to think, it wants reaction, fight or flight.

In the modern world that means reaching for comfort foods or training all the time.

You may have heard the phrase “you cannot out train a bad diet”

But you cannot out diet a bad mindset, but you cannot out mindset a bad brain set.

But what if you can change that?

the best way to stop reaching for the biscuit barrel is to…

STOP

Walk away, in fact go for a walk, change your state, do deep breathing, meditate. THEN come back to where you were in a calmer state. When the same stories come up in your head e.g. I want a biscuit, challenge them, do they serve you? is there a better way to act? a better story that serves you?

There will be, it is then that you make the choice, yes YOUR choice to use a different story that does serve you and gives you what you want.

So, if you ware throwing everything at your training or training every day or more than once a day.

STOP

ask what stressors are in your life?

a busy household? kid? job? money?

look for the triggers and change the story around them

If you are struggling with your nutrition

STOP

ask yourself what triggers are making you eat foods that don’t serve you? that don’t get you to the goals you have set.

then change the story you are playing in your mind.

Remember, you can only change how you react when you are calm, so remove the stress first.

Make sense?

Be True
Be Courageous
Be Happy

Dean

P.S. this was supposed to be a few sentences, not an essay, sometimes there is more to say. Have a great Day warriors 😉