I do an excessive amount of people watching in the gym…I’m sure most people there think I’m a bit weird as I’m always scanning the room observing what everyone is doing, and I’ve come to the realization that although on the surface it seems that everyone is there simply to ‘workout’ and ‘get in shape’ there is much more going on under the surface.

Is your workout invigorating or a punishment?

I came to this realization when I started paying attention to the facial expressions of each person while they’re at the gym.

Some look calm, some look happy, others look determined, some look desperate, and some look like they’re flat out in pain, and other look hopeless.

All of these expressions are completely separate from the story their physical body is telling.

In some cases a person who seems to be in good ‘shape’ looks desperate and stressed. In other cases an individual who obviously has a ways to go in order to get into what would be considered good ‘shape’ has a calm and confident look on their face.

In some cases it appears that people are there not for the invigorating and gratifying experience that working out can deliver but rather as a self mortification ritual…in other words, to punish themselves.

It has become apparent to me that when someone is attempting to get in shape part of the journey is diet, and other is exercise. Diet is much harder to stick to and commonly has feelings of failure and guilt associated when things don’t go as planned. It would seem that at least some people use the gym to punish themselves with exercise for their failings in dieting.

This can create a vicious cycle that leads to a miserable experience in both aspects of dieting and exercise and could sour a person to the entire journey for good.

If you currently workout or are thinking about working out, think about why you do it, and never use exercise as a form of punishment. If a workout doesn’t feel good, or invigorating or gratifying then you’re not in the correct mindset to be there. Take some time off, re-evaluate what you’re doing the approach your next workout with a fresh mindset.

Your workout should always be a positive experience for both mind and body.

John

Some people in your life might try to sabotage your weight loss success.

If you’ve decided to lose weight and announced this decision to various friends and family you’ve likely been faced with mixed reactions.

This is because the idea of weight loss hits at a very deep emotional level for just about everyone. This is because it’s a conscious decision to change your body.

Which could also be taken as a open admission that you’re not currently happy/satisfied with your body…otherwise why the hell would you be trying to lose weight.

I think it’s perfectly fine and normal for people to want to strive to change the look/shape of their body. After all, it’s your body, so it’s your right to choose what you’d like to do with it.

When you tell someone you want to lose weight and you get a less than favorable reaction, it’s more than likely that they’ve got a body weight and self perception issue that is causing the negative reaction. It’s not that they’re really don’t want you to lose weight, it’s that if you’re successful it will somehow make them feel worse about themselves.

This is something you need to be aware of if/when you ever set out to lose weight and are looking for some social support.

Choose the people you tell wisely.

I like to call it ‘recruiting your weight loss team’. Some people will be very supportive, while others will be a drag on your progress and make you feel lousy about trying.  If this ever happens just realize that their negativity is not about you, it’s about them.

If you are in the middle of a weight loss program,  I suggest taking an inventory of everyone who is positive and supportive and those that are a drag and negative about it. From there you can either cut back the amount of time you spend with the negative people, cut them out completely, or if they’re really important people ask them to support you no matter how it makes them feel cuz it’s important to you.

Weight loss is tough enough, having anyone around you that is trying to sabotage it will make it almost impossible. It’s your job to be aware of who the likely saboteurs might be and insulate yourself from them.

John

When It Comes To Weight Loss You Don't Want to be an Outlier

I get a lot of questions about weight loss. Most of the questions don’t make much sense because the people who are asking are making a fundamental error in their thinking and that is:

They all think they’re different from everyone else.

They think weight loss in their specific case is much harder and that they are somehow an outlier thinking they are the one person who can’t lose weight with the traditional means of a caloric deficit.

9 times of out ten (and probably even more than that) these people are simply eating too much to lose weight.

By definition you would have to lose some amount of fat and weight if you were eating in a caloric deficit for more than a day or two. If you’re putting less matter in than is going out how could you possibly be at the same weight all the time?

Dieting for weight loss isn’t easy, and many people aren’t ready to take the necessary steps to make it happen. So instead of facing the fact that they’ve got more work to do they romanticize about being the one and only person who can’t lose weight because of some 1 in a million genetic anomaly that they’ve cooked up in their minds about themselves. This is both arrogant and disrespectful to those unfortunate people who DO have a legitimate genetic problem (as rare as it may be).

I’m sure there are the few unfortunate people who really do have some sort of genetic abnormality that makes them prone to weight gain, but for the vast majority of us it’s not a genetic issue. And if you did have such a problem you likely would already be diagnosed and be under medical supervision or on some sort of pharmaceutical therapy.

In other words, if you’re reading this you’re likely similar to everyone else and you just need to eat less. And that’s a good thing, it means the path to weight loss is simple, predictable and 100% achievable.

John

It's all about YOU

“That’s not good for YOU”

“That’s not healthy for YOU”

How often have you heard these two claims from someone who is neither a health professional or even in any sort of physical shape that you would consider desirable?

It’s is quite common for someone who is overweight or out of shape to comment on what is good or not good for YOU in many areas of health and fitness.

Picture this scenario:

You’re out with some friends, you’ve been doing really well on  Eat Stop Eat or some other weight loss program and you decide that tonight you’re going to have a few slices of pizza just because you can and you want to. Then someone else at the table says “eating all that pizza isn’t healthy for YOU”. I’m sure this scenario doesn’t sound out of the ordinary.

Now picture the same scenario and that same person saying “eating all of that pizza wouldn’t be healthy for me”.

Sounds a lot different doesn’t it! A lot less judgmental, and it sounds like that person would actually be taking responsibility for themselves instead of finger pointing and preaching to you.

This is a fundamental problem we face when other people who are casual consumers of health and fitness media start taking it upon themselves to tell you what they think is good for you. This allows them to sit in the background out of the spotlight and make you and your dietary and fitness habits the center of attention and scrutiny. This is both unfair and ignorant.

The next time this happens to you just flip the logic to aim the conversation back at them and say “thank you for sharing your opinion on what is healthy for me, but I’d really like to know what you think is healthy for YOU and what you’re doing about it”

…in most cases this should shut them up.

John

Drugs aren't bad, they're everywhere!

I was having a discussion today about the line between acceptable and unacceptable drugs on sports. I believe all sports should allow drugs and the athletes should disclose the exact drugs and dose they’re using so we could all get a realistic view of what it takes to compete at the highest levels.

This got me thinking about all the different drugs people consume on a daily basis, and then I kinda realized that almost all human consume some sort of drug very regularly.

The broad definition of a drug: A substance consumed that alters normal body function and is non essential for life.

With this definition you can easily come up with a list of drugs people consume daily, the two most obvious are caffeine and alcohol, but that is hardly where the list stops. I’ll throw a few more down to get the list going. I’ll need you to jump in here and add any that I’ve missed. (these can be any drug that is consumed on a fairly regular basis without a prescription)

Caffeine

Alcohol

Nicotine

NSAIDS (non steroidal anti inflammatories)

Excessive Sugar/salt/fat (you could easily make the argument that over consumption of these items is used as self medication)

Theobromine (active ingredient in chocolate similar to caffeine)

Marajuana

And this is just the common stuff that many people might be using. There obviously an enormous list of prescription drugs that a huge proportion of the population is using as well.

Almost everyone you will ever encounter will be a habitual user of at least one or two of the drugs mentioned above and then some. As we get older almost all of us will become prescription drug users as well.

So I’ve started the list, if there is something you can think of that I have missed please add it in the comments section.

John