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Manage stress with exercise

How exercise helps you manage stress

How many times have you put off exercising until things have “calmed down”? Until you were a little less busy and overwhelmed with life?

I’ve even said it myself (and I should know better): “I’m too stressed out to train today.” 

I’ve been a personal trainer to very busy people for nearly 20 years. It’s my experience that, for many, the first thing off the to-do list when life gets nuts is exercise. It can feel like just another thing to find time for in an already crazy schedule.

But when the same super busy people put exercise on the calendar and follow through consistently, they report much lower levels of chronic stress and burnout over time.

Most people *shock horror* end up enjoying exercise and look forward to their sessions at New Image.

Exercise releases nature’s feel-good drug

I don’t claim that exercise is medicine or, or that training with a personal trainer is a cure-all that magically heals clinical anxiety and depression without treatment. That’s a common stance in fitness these days and I believe it’s irresponsible. 

But here’s what we can say for sure: Exercise of just about any form can act as a stress reliever. Your body has a very specific mechanism that makes this happen. 

You’ve probably heard of the “runner’s high”, but the good news is you don’t need to run to get it. (Unless running is your thing, in which case go for it!)

Any aerobic activity that gets your heart pumping will increase the production of endorphins, your brain’s neurotransmitters that make you feel good and give you that buzzing sensation of wellbeing.

But doesn’t exercise stress your body?

When you exercise, especially at high intensity, you do indeed cause stress to your body. The stress hormone cortisol is elevated as the body goes into fight or flight mode using the sympathetic nervous system. 

The more we expose our bodies to this healthy stress, the better we can cope with stressful moments when they occur and the healthier our perception of stress is. For example, when you exercise regularly, your body will not be as quickly thrust into manic stress overdrive by the annoying realities of daily life, like misplacing your keys or running late for work. 

Remember: it’s only stressful if you perceive it to be stressful. Your body can’t tell the difference between perception and reality, and the more we get used to experiencing stress, the less freaked out we are by it when it crops up in life.

Get out of your head, and into your body

When we typically think of stress, it’s the mental stressors that grind our gears: meeting deadlines, managing kids, financial commitments, juggling hectic schedules. By imitating this stress response through exercise, you can train your body and mind to more effectively process stress. 

Not only does exercise teach our bodies how to better handle stress, it can be a meditation of sorts for many people. When you focus on what your body can do, particularly if the exercise is challenging for your fitness level, you naturally worry less about tasks and deadlines and focus instead on getting through the workout. 

When you’re forced to focus on the task in front of you for the duration of your session, you’ll find that the boost in mood and focus extends beyond your exercise time and stays with you throughout the day. 

Carving out time for yourself boosts wellbeing 

The simple action of carving out time for yourself and committing to something that’s JUST for you creates a real sense of wellbeing and self-esteem. Do it regularly, and you’ll also feel more in control of your days and in charge of the direction of your life. 

I particularly notice this with my Mum clients, who are notorious for putting the needs of everyone else ahead of their own. Even though you’re exhausted, even though it’s hard to squeeze into your day, just taking even 20 to 30 minutes to exercise can make all the difference to your perception of stress. You deserve it! 

The key is to find exercise that you enjoy, make appointments with yourself to fit it in and do it regularly. Our clients find their regular personal training sessions at New Image really help them keep that commitment to themselves. It’s a formal appointment, and they know that in their half hour they’ll get the most effective session in a short amount of time.

Sleep and recovery

In general, regular exercise improves sleep as your body is more physically exhausted. By improving sleep onset, you’re less likely to lie awake at night with the day buzzing in your brain. A good night’s sleep also makes us more clear-headed and emotionally regulated the following day.

Before you jump feet first into an exercise routine, it’s important to check that you’re getting enough sleep and recovery. If your body hasn’t recovered from a high-stress environment and you pile on more, the added stress can be detrimental. This can lead to burnout and exhaustion (not what we’re after). Aim to get seven to nine hours of sleep per evening and ensure there are rest periods between stressful activities.

Exercise combined with adequate recovery is a great way to increase our tolerance to stress therefore improving stress management.

If chronic stress is a problem in your life, we reckon we can help. Click here to book your free session and design a personal training schedule that works for you.

 

 

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Change your habits for effortless weight loss

If you listen to most fitness gurus or health practitioners, they’ll tell you that weight loss is “simple”.

Weight management is a basic equation – energy output must exceed energy consumed as food to achieve weight loss.

This is an incontrovertible fact that sounds so simple.

Yes, there are other factors that influence obesity such as genetics, pre-existing conditions and socio-economic factors.

But ultimately, your ability to be at a healthy weight comes down to energy balance.

So why do so many of us struggle with managing our weight if it’s as simple as calories in, calories out?

Well who knew it, but human behaviour is COMPLEX. Our behaviours are influenced by the views we formed in childhood, our unique perspective, self-esteem, motivation and readiness to change.

People who seem to have their weight under control with relative ease have spent years, consciously or unconsciously, building the habits and behaviours that support a healthy lifestyle.

In other words, their daily habits set them up to behave in such a way that their energy output is greater or equal to their energy input.

Often we’re tempted to start big when it comes to making behavioural changes. Motivation is often high at the beginning of a health resolution, and that can sustain us for a short amount of time when it comes to big changes like cutting out carbs or committing to daily HIIT workouts.

What happens when the motivational drive fizzles out after a few days, weeks or months?
What if old habits creep in without you even noticing?
What if the big change you made is not sustainable long term?
What if you are just swapping out previous unhealthy habits with newer unhealthy habits?

Establishing healthy daily habits is the key to effortlessly managing your weight

“The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.”
― Samuel Johnson

Habits are impulsive. They don’t require intention and are initiated subconsciously, often triggered by external cues or stimuli. For example, coming home after a long day and reaching for a packet of chips because that’s what you always do, having a cookie or three with your afternoon cuppa or, munching snacks while watching television.

Less healthy habits are going to take some effort to disassemble. But when we break the habit cycle and replace with a new, more favourable behaviour in response to an external cue, soon the new habit will become effortless.

So, using our above example, a healthier response to arriving home after a long day might be immediately changing into comfy clothes and going for a five minute stroll with the dog.

Over time, this habit shift could make all the difference between gaining weight and slowly but sustainably shedding excess fat.

How can I erase a habit?

Technically you cannot completely delete a habit. Habits can stay dormant for a very long time but are never completely erased. However, the good news is that the brain can be rewired to respond to the stimuli or cues differently with practise and these key strategies:

1. Be self-aware and mindful

The first step to override a habit is becoming aware of your habits in a non-judgemental manner. Practise daily mindfulness to identify your own habits and the context cues that will trigger a habitual behaviour. The easiest way to do this is to keep a little diary of what you do each day and look for patterns.

Context cues are situational. They can be a specific location or time, presence of particular people, internal sensory sensations (tired, hungry, sleepy, irritable), external sensory sensations (feeling hot or cold) or internal cognitions (mood, low self-efficacy/self-esteem).

Here are some examples of some habitual behaviours:

  • Orrder Uber Eats after a long stressful day
  • Have a piece of chocolate after dinner
  • Skip my daily walk if it’s later than 6:22pm

In these examples, the cues such as “long stressful day” and “time” lead to the behaviour of ‘‘skip walk”, “eat a piece of chocolate” or “order Uber Eats”.

In his book Atomic Habits, James Clear suggests writing down the cues and current habits to become aware of them. Remember – don’t be judgmental! Ascertain one habit at a time that you would like to change to achieve your weight loss goal.

Building a new habit is a process. It requires repetition, consistent exposure or removal of context cues and automaticity.

2. Find your motivation

A habit is repeated if there is a conscious motive to perform a behaviour or when a desired outcome is expected. Discover what motivates you. Important questions to ask yourself are:

  • How important is it to achieve your weight loss goal?
  • What influence will it have on you and your loved ones?
  • How does performing or not performing this behaviour impact your future weight loss goal?
  • What personal values are affected by the current behaviour?

3. Intention not emotion

Once you’ve determined the triggers and the behaviour they elicit, you can begin the work towards changing the habits or eliminating the triggers that cause impulse-driven responses. You’ll need self-control, rational decision making and action planning to build or change a new habit. Rather than an all-or-nothing approach, making a small change at a time is most important for behaviour change longevity.

In his book The Power of Habit, Duhigg writes that a habit has three parts: the cue, the reward and the routine.

Next time you feel the urge to demolish a large pizza or skip the afternoon walk ask yourself:

  • What are you feeling?
  • Who are you with?
  • Where are you?
  • What time is it?
  • What did you just do?

Answers to these questions are the cues to your habit.

The rewards satisfy urges. Identify the kind of reward that you seek; is it nutritional, psycho-social, emotional or an impulse gratification?

Repetitive nature of the cue-reward for the habit loop forms the routine.

4. Break the unhealthy habit loop

Old habits compete for time, attention and location where new habits need to occur. Once you have identified the cue and the associated reward, insert a new routine. Here are some tips to break the loop and insert a new routine:

  • Change or remove current cues. This may require changes in time, location or schedule of events including a change in social interaction patterns.
  • Recognise the urges or cravings and pre-empt cognition, emotions and activities that can lead to emotional cues. For example, if you have a big workday, plan ahead for anything that may cause you to deviate from the action plan.
  • Develop self-regulatory vigilance. Track your behaviour and have an implementation intention strategy in place. Print your implementation strategy and put it somewhere you can see it. For example: When (insert cue) I will (insert desired behaviour).
  • Substitute current reward with a healthy alternative or insert a new behaviour that will lead to new healthy rewards.
  • Reducing the amount and frequency of the reward is also an effective way to gradually break habit loops.
    Get an accountability partner to watch your behaviour and inform you in case you deviate.

5. Build a new healthy habit loop

Constant cueing is required for behaviours to occur without the exhaustion of constant decision making. Use the environment to nudge you in the right direction by making the cue a big part of your environment. An example is to replace cookies on the counter with fresh fruit.

  • Build current habits on existing habits. Identify current habits that you already do and construct new behaviour on top of it. Here are some examples: After I change out of my work clothes, I will pick up the dog lead. I will do a wall squat hold while I brush my teeth.
  • Make the new habit attractive and easy to do like pairing an action that you need to do with an action you already enjoy doing.
  • Keep track of your habit streak. It is rewarding and provides achievement gratification. Progress is motivating. If you have no way of noticing that you are moving forward it is easy to lose motivation. Tracking change can be as easy as a printed tick box chart.

Keystone habits have a ripple effect. Even a single small habit change may influence self-regulation of other unhealthy habits such as sedentary, nutritional and cognitive/emotional behaviour. Shape your healthy behaviour around your interests. Choose a keystone habit that is best for you and not because it is popular on social media.

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Becoming more mindful

How to get out of autopilot and tune into your body and mind

Ever stood in a room trying to remember why you were there in the first place?

Opened your phone to look up something and few hours later you are deep into reading 129th comment made by a complete stranger on a random social media post? 

We’re all guilty of mindlessly running on autopilot, and it really is the thief of our time and energy.

Let’s delve a bit deeper to understand this automated behaviour.

Any action we perform is influenced by the sensory input from our surroundings or internal cues; what we see, smell, hear, feel and remember. This sensory information is analysed, assimilated and processed by our central nervous system as it sifts through numerous possible pathways it can then execute an appropriate response.

Do you recall the details from your last trip to the shops? What song was playing? What color shirt were you wearing?

Now think back to your first kiss, winning an award or a painful experience from childhood.

How come we miss so much information in our day-to-day activities but remember others quite vividly?

When you don’t know what to look for, you don’t see it!

Our central nervous system is equipped to select the best response that uses the least number of resources and energy required to perform the actions. As we continue to practise and learn various skills over time, the response pathways become automated and the outcomes more or less predictable aka sensory blindness.

Attention is a limited resource. It’s diverted to the task deemed most important and it’s easy to miss out on other details. Only when external cues and triggers that we’re primed to look for change and draw our attention do we become vigilant of the surroundings and take action. For example, braking when the red traffic light comes on.

Minding your mind

Sensory blindness and selective focus extend to our habitual behaviour as well. We typically don’t allocate much meaning to our day-to-day experiences, so we don’t record as much data and our brains have less information to tie into the process of forming memories.

Self-awareness is simply being aware: of your feelings, emotions, reactions, thoughts, behaviours, triggers, habits, likes, dislikes, weaknesses, strengths and how you live life in a moment.

Mindfulness is being self-aware of the thoughts that are often burdened with judgments, opinions and preferences, recognising them to be exactly as they are, observing them with kindness and non-judgement.

So do I have to just be happy all the time? 

A big mistake is to think mindfulness requires you to clear and cleanse the mind of all thoughts and exist in unceasing state of positive mindset. Rather it simply means to turn one’s attention intentionally towards what is happening in the moment and embrace it with curiosity and openness.

A lot of time is spent accumulating good or bad thoughts, developing attitudes and making decisions as a result of the mind’s projections, memories and judgments drawn from past experiences. But how often do you stop to examine what is truly happening within your mind, body and surroundings. 

During a lived experience, the mind often begins to journey into the past or future, thinking about ways to pass on this experience to others or judging and evaluating how good or bad the experience was against the expectations. We are quickly removed from allowing ourselves a mindful experience. Physically we are going through the motions, but our mind is elsewhere and the more we do this, the more challenging it is to apprehend the actuality of the present moment.

How to apply mindfulness to daily life

Everyday activities provide plenty of opportunities to practise mindfulness. Grounding attention in the moment not only enriches your ongoing experiences but also allows you to be present in the now rather than going back into past or into the future. Mindfulness can help you feel kinder, calmer and more connected.

Start with consciously listening more

How often do you truly tune in and listen to others, and yourself? How about we practise mindfulness in listening this week. 

Self-awareness is a foundation of mindful listening. Listening to yourself is the first step in being a good listener. Feel your sense of presence and extend it to the other person with the intention to listen openly with interest and empathy. 

Recognise your own opinions, biases, feelings, and judgment and bring your attention back to genuinely listen. Reflect back, ask questions, affirm, acknowledge and only then introduce your own ideas and feelings.

Good listening will sweeten the experience of your interactions with others and is an excellent exercise to get you in the habit of being mindfully in the moment., 

Mindful meditation

Meditation is a way of practising mindfulness and regular meditation practice is one of the best ways to help us develop mindfulness in our daily life. A daily meditation practice offers enormous benefits for living a connected life.

So where to start? 

Small steps: Begin with a short 5-minute meditation session. At the beginning it may feel like sitting and doing nothing, with your mind wandering all over the place. That’s fine. All you need is to set aside some time and space.

Awareness: Feel your breath, and notice the rise and fall of your belly. Notice your posture but don’t stiffen the spine, let it be in its natural curvature. Notice what your arms and legs are doing, and position them where it feels natural. Soften your gaze and let whatever appears before your eyes to be there. Notice how your body feels right now. Notice your thoughts and emotions.

Intention: What motivates you to meditate (less stress, sleep better or cultivate self-love)? It will help you stay committed and the benefits will reveal themselves. The goal is to pay attention to the now, on purpose and non-judgmentally.

Kindness: Don’t judge yourself for whatever thoughts crop up. Make a mental note of your judgments and let them pass. Recognise when the mind has wandered off and gently nudge it back.

Be in the moment, and be present to cultivate life’s small delights!

 

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Improve your sleep

Get more sleep, change your life (really)

If there’s one investment in your health that gives you the biggest bang for buck, it’s improving your sleep.

It’s always our approach with clients to snatch the low-hanging fruit first.

Get the simple, high impact basics right first, before you start fussing over macro breakdowns and what muscle groups to train on what days.

Changing your sleep if you’re not getting enough one of the most effective shifts you can make.

Get your sleep right, and you improve everything. Just changing this one pillar of your health has a huge flow-on effect for just about everything, from stress management, to productivity and even body composition.

Sleep is recovery.

Recovery is essential to muddle through the mental and physical exhaustion that we accrue during our extended workday. Sleep plays a vital role in our development and recovery.

So how much is enough sleep, and how do you get more of it?

The National sleep foundation recommends 7-9 hours sleep for adults up to 65 years old and 7-8 hours if you’re over 65.

Your overall night of sleep is made up of several sleep cycles consisting of four sleep stages. You may go through four to six sleep cycles on a typical night, with each cycle lasting about 90 minutes. Sleep cycles can vary each night for everyone.

Each stage is important for better physical health, physiological and cognitive function. By sorting and filtering memories, the sleep stages prepare the brain for learning new information the next day and cope with different experiences in the future.

Here’s a summary of what happens in each stage of sleep (and they’re ALL important)

Stage 1
This is the ‘dozing off’ stage, as the changes in your brain prepare you to fall asleep. You only spend 1-5 minutes in this stage.

Stage 2
Muscles relax and your body temperature drops, while brain activity, heart rate and breathing slow down in this stage. As the night unfolds, each sleep cycle has a longer stage 2. Almost half of the total sleep time is spent in stage 2.

Stage 3
Your body relaxes even more and you’re in deep sleep. During this phase, restoration and recovery occurs. Deep sleep is associated with creativity, insightful thinking and memory consolidation. Typically, deep sleep lasts for 20-40 minutes in a cycle and gets shorter in each cycle during the night.

REM sleep
Brain activity picks up almost as if you are awake. REM sleep is crucial for important cognitive functions such as memory building, creativity and learning. Vivid dreams are common during this phase. REM sleep makes up 25% of your total sleep time.

Good sleep helps you recover and re-energise

During the deep sleep phase is integral to repair, human growth hormone is released, and this is essential to adaptation and recovery at a cellular level. A good night’s sleep can also reduce your perception of exertion and fatigue the following day, so that you feel more energetic and productive.

Sleep makes you smarter and happier

A good, deep sleep also helps you consolidate any new skills and knowledge you acquire during the day. This helps your learning process and assists your brain to develop new pathways.

Quality sleep can help improve mental awareness and alertness, cognitive function, and mood. Every parent knows that a poor night’s sleep makes for a cranky kid the next day. Adults are no different! Good sleep is the ultimate mood booster and helps you cope emotionally with the ups and downs of daily life.

Sleep helps you train harder

An important benefit of the interactions between the physiological mechanisms that only happen while you sleep is enhanced training performance that helps you achieve goals like lift more, run faster and build endurance.

Sleep is protective against disease

Quality shut eye also promotes cardiovascular health via the breathing and heart rate changes observed as you progress through the stages of sleep. Additionally, the specialised immune markers called cytokines released while you sleep play an important role in fighting off infections and keeping you healthy.

On the flipside, lack of sleep and tossing and turning increases the risk of type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, depression and other medical concerns. Poor sleep also has negative repercussions on cognition such as an impaired ability to focus and make safe decisions in your own best interest the following day.

Having a hard time falling asleep?

The body regulates sleep by two vital systems:the sleep-wake drive and circadian alerting system.

The sleep-wake drive is the balance between awake time and sleep time. In simple terms, the longer you’re awake, the more you feel the need to sleep.

Circadian rhythm is your body’s biological clock and is regulated by exposure to sunlight.

These complex processes are intricately managed by several parts of your brain including the hypothalamus, thalamus, pineal gland, amygdala, brain stem and cerebral cortex.

Your sleep can be influenced by a wide range of external factors such as light, noise, and temperature.

Try these sleep hygiene tips to help you sleep better

Make sleep your priority

Aim for a set bedtime and ensure you’re ready for bed around that time every night, including weekends. This means no more bedtime procrastination. Avoid time-sucking culprits like Netflix binges or instagram scrolling!

Build a routine and keep it consistent

Budget 20-30 minutes to wind-down. For example, you might brush your teeth, put on your PJs, pick up a book, listen to pre-bedtime music, and do some light stretching or meditation – anything that helps you calm down.

Put away the electronic devices at least 30 minutes before bedtime to cut out blue light exposure. Blue light alters your circadian rhythm and suppresses melatonin, a hormone that signals the brain to sleep.

Create a sleep environment

The ideal room temperature for sleep is cool yet comfortable. Dim the lights and close the curtains to block out street light. Make your bed a sanctuary by choosing a supportive and comfortable mattress and pillows, and indulge in quality bedding you love.

Get sunlight exposure

Spend some time outdoors. Sunlight exposure during the day, particularly before 10am, helps regulate your body’s circadian rhythm that helps with sleep. Be sun-safe and pick a time when UV rays aren’t at their peak by avoiding exposure in the middle of the day.

Physical activity and nutrition

Regular exercise ensures good sleep. Reduce alcohol consumption and avoid large meals closer to bedtime. We also recommend you limit your coffees to before midday because an afternoon caffeine hit can also keep you up at night.

Aim for small changes as you incorporate these daily routines and habits to help you optimise your sleep quality.

Sleep Well!

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Steps to your ideal body

4 Steps To Your Ideal Body: Start Here

There are generally two schools of thought in the fitness world.

One goes something like this: “Go hard, no pain, no gain”. Ouch.

The alternative sounds like this: “It took you a lifetime to get where you are, so don’t expect to change in a couple of weeks.” That’s hardly inspiring either.

After over a decade of guiding normal, busy people to great results, my belief is that real change exists somewhere in between. Changing your behaviour in a big way takes time, but we are all capable of making incremental and lasting change. And this does take some level of effort. 

The biggest barrier to change? People always want to go all in, or not at all.

There’s a prevailing mindset that unless you make a huge upheaval and start on a really strict diet or hardcore fitness routine, you won’t get results. The general response after a few of these efforts is to not do anything at all, and continue on a path of decline. 

That’s just not how habit change works.

Here’s the boring, unsexy truth.

To create lasting health and change, you have to implement changes that you’re willing to do just about every day, for the rest of your life. Otherwise they just won’t stick.

I like to recommend small shifts in behaviour. Changes that are a small step up from where you are now, but just one step at a time.

The shifts I recommend are all geared towards managing the most important pillars of your health that make a real difference to how you feel and look. Changes that create not just a longer life, but make the days in that life more enjoyable and fulfilling. 

As your coaches, our ultimate wish for you is that you: 

  • Stress less
  • Eat better 
  • Move more
  • Sleep better
  • Enjoy life more

Any change is going to create some level of discomfort as you break a current habit and replace it with a better one. Our bodies and brains are always going to resist this because we have a natural bias towards staying the same. 

That’s why we invite you to start with small, incremental levels of discomfort and allow yourself to adjust to that as your new normal. Soon, what was once hard becomes just what you do. Then you also feel proud of yourself knowing that you CAN make changes, and you become inspired and motivated to expose yourself to further small levels of purposeful discomfort. 

As you move through the different changes, you practise each behaviour by repeating it daily. As you stack other healthy behaviours on top of each other, soon you develop your very own system that takes the stress and decision making out of looking after yourself. 

Take a look at the behaviour changes listed in the Levels below and ask yourself: Where can I start that is a small step up from what I’m doing now? 

Level 1 Changes

  • Eat slowly and mindfully – this will help you discover what hungry and full actually feel like in your body. Eat less with no feeling of deprivation. Slow down, breathe between bites. Put your cutlery down. 
  • Set a bedtime and wake time.
  • Add vegetables to one extra meal a day. For example, if veggies currently don’t feature in any of your meals on a regular basis, start adding them to your dinner. Our guide is half of your plate, but I’ll settle for any if you’re currently eating none. If you normally eat veggies at dinner, start eating some at lunch too. If you’re already doing both, add some berries or wilted spinach or tomato to breakfast. 
  • Add 10 minutes of walking to your day

Level 2 Changes

  • Develop a simple nighttime routine. You already have a set bedtime, so you might decide an hour before that you switch off all screens, have a bath, and read a book before lights out. I know this feels like we’re treating you like a child, but these routines work on kids for a reason! 
  • Establish boundaries eg no email or social media scrolling checking after 8pm.
  • Trouble-shoot stressors. Identify one or two habits that add stress and work towards reducing or eliminating them.
    • Some common culprits:
        • Too much booze
        • Too much social media
        • Constant email checking
        • Too much caffeine
  • Automate one daily health decision. This reduces your cognitive load by taking a decision off your plate, and freeing up that precious brain power for other things!  For example:
    • Have the same breakfast every day
    • Exercise at the same time daily
  • Add a protein source to each meal: palm-size portion
  • Aim for 30 minutes of movement most days of the week. Walking is the best exercise that most of us can do. 

Level 3 Changes

  • Add some stress-relieving practices to your routine. These shouldn’t feel onerous, so pick things you like. You might have to step out of your comfort zone and do some unfamiliar new things. Set aside just 10 minutes a day for a stress-relieving practice that works for you. What you enjoy isn’t what I enjoy! Some ideas:
    • Reading fiction
    • Warm bath with candles 
    • Nature walks
    • Positive affirmations 
    • Journalling 
    • Stretching
    • Colouring
    • Listening to music
  • Pick once practice to try. Commit to spending 10 minutes on this activity for a week and notice how you feel. Writing down your mood and energy levels in the morning and evening is a great way to track this. 
  • Lock in 10,000 steps every day. 
  • Add some resistance training to your weekly regime. This can be as simple as completing a routine of body weight squats, pushups and some core exercises. This can also be a great time to seek the advice of a personal trainer to design sessions that will get you the most bang for your time buck in the gym. 

Level 4 Changes

  • Use our plate model for every meal. Try to stick to three solid meals a day and one healthy afternoon snack when you need one
  • On top of your 10,000 steps daily, aim for 3 resistance training or gym based sessions a week
  • Schedule all your health behaviours on a Sunday for the week ahead. Plan some basic go-to meals ahead of time, put your gym sessions and walks in the diary. You should already have your bedtime and waking times locked in, but make sure around these times you’re allowing for the morning and evening routines which set you up for productive and relaxed days. 

What stage are you at? And what changes can you implement right now to create change?

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Returning to exercise

Our Top Tips for Returning to Exercise

Whether you stayed active during the restriction period or not, returning to exercise will feel foreign.

When our clients came back to New Image, there was a general feeling of excited trepidation. 

Will I have lost fitness? Is it going to hurt?!

If you’re getting back into it, or you’re inspired post-isolation to get started on a health and fitness routine, my first piece of advice is the same: EASE IN. This is not a time to just randomly get stuck in, balls to the walls.

We want you in this for the long haul, so I want to help you make exercise safe, effective and even enjoyable. 

Here are our top tips to get you back to movement successfully. 

Schedule it

Most things in our busy lives have appointment dates and start times. The kids’ school bell, your dentist appointment, knock off time at work and even the TV program you watch with the family every evening. 

When an activity’s scheduled, we prioritise it. 

So why, in your busy day, would you expect time for exercise to just appear. Or even worse, wait to feel like it?! 

You MUST book it in for it to happen. This is especially important when you’ve been out of the habit of regular exercise, and other activities have crowded out the time you once carved out for it. 

Schedule your exercise regime! You don’t need to block out hours of your day. In fact you may only schedule 30 – 45 minutes to get a walk in, perform some body weight exercises at home or attend one of our 30 minute customised training sessions at New Image. 

Just schedule it in and keep the booking with yourself.

Start easy

Keep it simple and easy to start with. Set yourself up to win and feel accomplished with small, achievable goals. 

The feeling you get when you tick items off your list is very empowering. In fact it’s proven that there’s a dopamine – or feel good – release when we complete action items we set for ourselves. This inspires you to take further positive action and creates a snowball effect of goodness.

On the flip side, if you make that list too hard to achieve or the exercise sessions are too intense, you may feel a sense of failure when you don’t stick to the plan. 

Start off with a simple routine like this:

  • Brisk walking or low intensity cardio sessions to build an aerobic base (cardiovascular fitness). 
  • 2x short and sharp strength training sessions per week. These could be a series of bodyweight exercises like squats, push ups, lunges and front planks. Primal movements will help your body make friends with resistance training. Then you can start adding external resistance such as weights, bands or a suspension trainer. 

Rest and recover

It’s always important to listen to your body. But this is especially vital when you’re getting back into it, or getting started. 

I don’t want you to go hard, hurt yourself or burn out, and then give up all together. Your goal should be longevity. 

Build easier, unloading days into your week. In these sessions, you might just go for a walk and do some light stretching or pilates movements. 

At New Image, we actively build recovery into your program to protect your body as you build it. 

Keep going

The great thing about keeping it simple to start is that you can build your exercise regime progressively as you go. 

As is always the case with exercise, consistency trumps intensity every time. It’s what you do day in, day out over time that makes the real difference. 

With a solid foundation of aerobic exercise and body weight exercises, you can now start to intensify your workouts or add more volume (time under load). 

You can do this simply by adding time to your walks and runs, increasing the speed of your efforts or adding some weight to the existing body weight exercises by holding some dumbbells.

Whether or not you increase the load or volume, just KEEP GOING. Before you know it, you’ll be sticking to your schedule, checking off sessions and developing a sustainable and healthy exercise habit. 

Want some extra guidance getting back into it? Or ready to get started on your active lifestyle? We’d love to help you. Click here to book a free session with one of our trainers. 

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Blueprint for fat loss
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How to get an effective workout in 30 minutes

I get asked this question by potential clients almost daily.

Our 1-on-1 PT sessions are usually 30 minutes long, and our team training sessions are 45 minutes. Apparently this just isn’t long enough to get results!

Many of you have this idea that we have to train for an hour in the gym 5 times a week to see results.

Our clients’ outcomes fly in the face of this common misconception. We see people completely transform their health, fitness and physiques with just two to three 30 minute personal training sessions a week.

If you’re convinced you don’t have time to train, the question I ask you is: why do you think your sessions need to be longer? And is your belief that training requires such a huge time commitment keeping you stuck and preventing you from getting started at all?

Most people are easily distracted in the gym, neglect to plan their sessions and are unfocused. Many perform less than optimal exercises or have a scattered approach which makes their workouts inefficient.

So how do we get a highly effective and efficient session completed in just 30 minutes?

The best way to get great results for the least time investment is by working with a highly skilled trainer. A good trainer will design sessions highly customised to your goals, so that every exercise selected in every workout is specific to getting you results.

But there are definite strategies we use to optimise your time in the studio, and you can use these yourself to get the most bang for buck out of your time in the gym.

Always have a plan

All our clients’ sessions are carefully planned ahead of time, and all yours should be too!

Go to any gym and you’ll see people wandering around aimlessly, tinkering around from one machine to the next. My guess is you don’t have time for this.

Just as we advise you plan your food, you need to plan your gym sessions too. It doesn’t have to be elaborate. You can have your sessions designed for you by a trainer, or simply jot down your plan beforehand. This might be around a few big strength exercises, or you might plan to roll through some cardio.

Either way, know what you’re going to do BEFORE you start training to avoid time wasting at the gym.

Use big compound movements

Compound exercises recruit multiple joints and muscle groups at once. Think squats, deadlifts, overhead presses and barbell rows. These exercises force the whole body to work as a system, so you build more muscle mass and burn more calories. 

 

Designing your resistance training sessions around compound exercises will help you achieve more in less time.

Stick to a couple of big exercises for each muscle group instead of lots of exercises that target that muscle group and really push yourself with the intensity when completing that exercise. This is more effective and efficient than banging out lots of exercises that attack the same muscle group but without the intensity.

And there’s no need for compound movements to get boring as there are so many variations to these exercises!

Use supersets to reduce rest time between sets

A superset is a mini circuit of a few different exercises performed consecutively and then repeated. This is instead of completing several sets of one exercise, with rest in between, before moving onto the next set.

Performing supersets allows your muscles time to recover from a certain exercise while completing an exercise that focuses on another body part before you repeat that movement. This allows you to hit more body parts in a shorter amount of time. It also keeps your heart rate up and increases the intensity of the session. This is something we’re going for if we want to keep your sessions shorter.

Do full body workouts

If you split your body up into parts you will be in the gym more days a week just to make sure you knock them all off. You can get great results with three full body workouts a week. By hitting all the body parts in one session you cut back your overall gym time commitment.

No distractions

One of the reasons our clients can fit so much into a 30 minute sessions is that there are no distractions by design. We keep our clients on task by minimising the amount of chat between sets, and of course there is no stopping to look at phones!

In your own sessions, be disciplined about staying away from distractions. Put your phone away, keep the chat to a minimum and try not to get distracted by the TV.

Reduce cardio time in the gym

This one is all about optimising the time you spend OUTSIDE the gym (the other 23 hours of the day). Cardiovascular exercise is an extremely important aspect of your training, but it might not give you the best bang for buck when time in the gym is tight.

Instead of devoting your time in the gym to banging out long cardio sessions, focus on upping your step count outside of the gym. Find every opportunity to move your body throughout the day. Walk as much as you can, take the stairs, run around with the kids – it all counts! Use a tracker like a FitBit, Garmin or Apple Watch and aim for at least 10,000 steps a day.

When you do cardio, stick to HIIT

If you want to do cardio in the gym, make it effective and efficient by using a High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) protocol. This involves training at a high intensity (80-90% of max effort) for a shorter period of time (10-30 seconds) and resting for longer periods of time to recover appropriately (50 seconds – 2 minutes).

This will help to improve speed, power, strength and fitness. And these sessions are rarely longer than 20-30 minutes long. Bonus!

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Meal planning to save time, money and energy

It’s saved me time, money, and from poor food choices when I’m ravenous.

On the flipside, NOT planning because “I don’t have the time” inevitably leads to wasting money on takeaway and putting food in my body that I know isn’t good for me.

When you’re busy, you shouldn’t be worrying about food choices. I can’t think of a bigger waste of your energy, willpower and precious decision making than mulling over what to eat 5 times a day.

As part of honouring your health and your time in 2020, one of the best habits you can implement is planning your food. 

Clients really freak out when I start talking about meal planning. They envisage their fridge piled high with containers of dry chicken and soggy broccoli. Gross. I don’t want to live like that either.

Meal planning is simply knowing what you’re going to eat ahead of time and having your choice ready to go. That’s it! Wouldn’t that be liberating?

But I want to be spontaneous! 

And how’s that working for you?

You should know by now that after work on Friday you like to have pizza and three glasses of wine. Maybe if you planned for it, you could enjoy it guilt free and perhaps even stop at the second glass.

If you know you’re going out for dinner, it takes two seconds to have a think about what you might like to have, and write it down.

The only way healthy lifestyle changes are going to work – and by “work” I mean you can do them forever – is if they’re enjoyable and don’t get in the way of living your life. 

I want you to eat out, go on holiday and try everything. But I want you to do it in an intentional way, with a view to including healthy choices most of the time.

If being spontaneous and up for anything robs you from feeling amazing in your own skin, how fun is it really?

When you make decisions for yourself ahead of time, you’re using your higher, rational brain that knows what’s best for you.

Make choices in the moment when you’re STARVING, rushed and stressed? That decision making beast is not looking out for your best interests.

If you have health and fat loss goals, a little less spontaneity may be the one thing that gets you there.

So we all agree now that planning your meals is a good idea. Right? Right.

Here are some simple steps to start meal planning. 

 

Define what meal prep means to you

 

You don’t have to splurge on 20 glass containers and spend hours on Sunday making all your food for the week. That sounds completely overwhelming, and you’ve got better things to do.

The best place to start is to simply write down ahead of time what you will eat. Start with the next 24 hours, thinking about what’s on the next day. It should take no longer than five minutes.

Then you can graduate to loosely planning out the week ahead.

This is as simple as:

  • For breakfast this week, I’ll have yoghurt, oats and fruit.
  • For lunch, I’ll make wraps with BBQ chicken and salad. Apart from Tuesday and Thursday, when I have client meetings so will eat out.
  • Dinners will be one of these three options (a, b, c). These are the veggies that I will include this week.
  • Snacks will be a protein bar/a muesli bar and a coffee.

Then you head off to the supermarket, with a firm view to what you’re actually, realistically going to eat, and buy what you need. And delight in how easy it is to shop when you have a plan!

Use the plate model

The simplest way to plan any meal is using the plate model that we teach our clients. It’s your guiding light for planning your meal, and also works when you consider your day and a week as a whole.

For each meal, you want to fill half your plate with veggies and a bit of fruit, then add a palm size serving of protein, a fist size portion of carbs and a little bit of fat.

Think first: what veggies would I like to eat this week, and how can I make them easy to grab? You could pre chop some salad veggies, trim some beans, and chop broccoli into florets.

Then think about protein sources. Maybe you’d like a bit of BBQ in there one night. A roast chicken is so versatile and can be a lifesaver. And cans of good quality tuna (we like the Sirena variety with chilli) are delicious tossed through a salad.

The point is to pick foods you enjoy eating, that are good for you and aligned with your goals, and then make them easy to go to with a little bit of organisation.

Make it yummy

Know yourself. If you’ve packed a lame sandwich for lunch, you’re just not going to feel like eating it when 1pm rolls around and you’re hanging for something hot and delicious.

Put in your plan foods you know you enjoy eating. Don’t get hung up on making it as lean and low calorie as possible.

The best lunch time meal prep in the world is leftovers from dinner! This is one of my best tips for being excited about what YOU’VE prepared for lunch. Just make extra dinner, and when you serve up, pop tomorrow’s lunch in a container ready to reheat. Easy!

Learn a couple of tricks to make your food taste good. If it’s not yummy and a little bit exciting, your meal prep will end up in the bin.

Avoid too much variety

Have a range of go-to meals that you know you love and are easy to prepare. Having something different every single day for every meal is overwhelming and is only for people with private chefs.

Have the same breakfast most days and rotating between a few healthy lunches that you enjoy will make life so much simpler.

Once you know your go-tos, you can keep staple ingredients on hand so you can always throw a meal together quickly. We always keep on hand a bag of salad mix, cherry tomatoes, tuna, microwave rice and bbq chicken for easy peasy meals.

It’s not boring if you like what you’re eating and getting results. Plus, you can stop thinking about food all the time and redirect all that energy to something else worthwhile!

Get help if you need it

If preparing healthy meals feels too hard, the alternative doesn’t have to be fast food. There are services that make preparing your own meals easy, or that do all the work for you.

We’ve tried a range of services from time-to-time when life gets busy, and they’ve been a lifesaver. You can go for full meal prep services like Food Goals (a local Hills business), My Muscle Chef or Thr1ve. Or if you enjoy cooking but want to skip the planning and groceries bit, you can try a meal kit service like Hello Fresh or Marley Spoon.

The bottom line is that no one is too busy to plan their meals. With just a little forward thinking and getting into the groove with organising your food, you’ll save yourself a ton of time, money and energy.

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Make time for yourself in 2020

Last weekend, I had a rare moment with my wife Liz when we could actually talk without a (lovely) little person asking for something or whining “I’m booooooored”. (We’re at that point of the school holidays where that little sentence has taken on a fresh level of whine).

We spoke about what’s hard at the moment. I’m working long hours, Liz is holding the fort at home and squeezing in work.

We both know how much better we feel and perform when sleep and training happens, but neither is getting a big enough priority at the moment. We have purpose, but the days often feel like a struggle.

And when we get to the end of the day, there’s that niggling question: “What about me?”

We decided that this year, in 2020, we will prioritise creating EASE in our lives wherever possible.

We will prioritise our health and happiness, in small daily ways. For me, this starts with getting to bed on time so I can get enough sleep. Scheduling daily movement. Carving out five minutes in a day that’s just for me and my thoughts.

Every single client at New Image is a busy person. To varying degrees, we all feel rushed. And for many of us, it’s a chronic state. We are so attached to “busy-ness” that we neglect our own needs.

And I’d say mums suffer the most from this.

Whether you’re a working or stay-at-home-mum, I find that most mums are amazing at meeting everyone else’s needs and terrible at carving out time for themselves. Even when they’re exhausted, the default mode is to be a tireless caregiver.

Feeling strapped and stretched is a horrible feeling. I want more for you! Over the next few weeks, I’d love you to follow along with me as we explore how you can create more time for yourself, put yourself first (at least for a part of the day) and get bang for buck out of the time you do spend on yourself.

Here are my top 4 tips for creating more time for yourself in 2020.

Set boundaries around work to make more you time

Flexible working arrangements are a wonderful thing. In theory, we can spend more time with our kids, work from home or our favourite cafe, and duck out to appointments during the day, knowing we can catch up later.

The problem is, most of us now have very blurred boundaries when it comes to work and personal life. We’re always on.

Checking and REPLYING to emails at midnight or on Saturdays is no big deal. And if we don’t get an immediate acknowledgment to an email we’re almost pissed off.

No down time is good for no one, and we’re all guilty of lax boundaries around our work schedules. An indefinite work day encroaches on your personal time, leaving you in a constant state of low. And when your time to complete tasks has no limits, this also tanks your productivity.

Have a start and finish time for your work, including when you do work outside of your normal work hours. For example, no emails checking after 8pm. Or no laptops on the couch.

Of course, if you narrow the window you have to complete your work, you’ll have to be more productive. This means planning out your work day, tackling one thing at a time and being very realistic about what’s achievable for you.

Schedule time for daily activity

Carving out time for yourself in any way is going to improve your health. But of course, we’re personal trainers and we want to get you MOVING!

The easiest way to fit exercise in is by making it a daily practice. Even if it’s 20 minutes a day, I want you to commit to moving your body daily. We’ve talked about why this is important in a previous post (read here).

I’ve seen that when people do this one thing, it has a huge flow-on effect to other areas of their time. When you honour your body with exercise, you grow in self-respect, you fuel your body better and you also get better at teaching others your own boundaries.

Exercising daily is a wonderful self-love practice that gets you out of your head and the stresses of daily life and reconnects you with your body.

Make your time in the gym count

When we design our personal training sessions, we are ruthlessly focused on making sure you get bang for buck of your time investment. Having a personal trainer who really knows how to get results is the best way to do this.

A good trainer knows how to program your sessions effectively to help you reach your goals, when to push you and when to pull back. Most importantly, we take every measure to ensure you don’t injure yourself – the ultimate time water.

Our clients train for 30 minute sessions. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but trust me. They get the job done. For people who are really strapped for time, training in a small team or 1-on-1 with a great trainer is by far the most efficient way to exercise.

Have a set bedtime and routine 

We’re biased towards the benefits of exercise, but I will stay say that sleeping is the best bang-for-buck thing you can do for your health.

The easiest way to start having better sleep and more of it is to have a set bedtime and a little routine around bed.

This doesn’t have to be elaborate. I’m not asking you to burn incense and meditate for half an hour. Your routine might be as simple as this:

  • Phone off at 8:30pm
  • Shower at 9:00pm
  • In bed and reading at 9:30pm
  • Lights off at 10

Prioritising your routine may feel awkward at first, or like you have to rush to get everything done in time, but the payoff for your health is huge.

I challenge you to try at least two of these action steps this week.

And notice your thoughts around allowing yourself more time: are you resisting it? Do you feel like you should be doing something else? Observe yourself being uncomfortable with carving out time for yourself, and do it anyway!

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Daily movement

Why daily movement should be your goal

If I asked you to exercise every day of your life, would that strike you as extreme?

Most people would say YES. Only proper fitness obsessives would torture themselves daily with exercise. Surely that can’t even be good for you?!

If I could change just one message from the fitness world that’s lodged itself into our psyche, I would completely reframe the notion of exercise.

We know we “should” exercise more, and most versions of this idea include a lot of straining and no paining, no gaining. I would be the first to tell you that most people shouldn’t be doing intense exercise every day. Especially not when you’re getting started.

When I talk about daily exercise, I mean something different. I mean getting up and moving your body in natural, gentle ways. Like it was meant to do! Most people can tolerate this concept better when I call it “daily movement”.

I believe EVERYONE can commit to moving their body daily. And I’m also certain that we all benefit from finding ways to INCREASE our daily movement.

Ditching the perfectionist mindset

Somewhere along the way, we got the idea that if we can’t get in a 45 minute workout, then anything at all is a waste of time. You know we love a good structured sweat session at New Image, this can be an intimidating starting point. (If this sounds like you, read our post on the pitfalls of all or nothing thinking here).

With exercise, perfectionism is well and truly the enemy of good enough.

What if I told you just to get up and walk for 10 minutes today. Does that sound achievable? Could you possibly squash that defeatist voice in your head?: “10 minutes? What’s the point! No one can get results in 10 minutes a day!”

I promise you, something is ALWAYS better than nothing. Why not challenge yourself to do a little bit, actually get it done, and then feel great about yourself?

Daily movement is habit forming

If you promise yourself that every day you will move your body purposefully – even if only for 10 minutes at first – you become an exerciser. (You can read more about habit formation in this book one of our favourites!) Every time you keep that commitment to yourself, to your body, to your health, you are reinforcing exercise as a daily habit that you just do.

And guess what? This habit is naturally rewarding, because moving your body gently feels good!

You become a person who can keep promises not just to everyone around you, but to yourself. When you honour your word by following through daily and honour your body by caring for it, you actively grow in self esteem. And with every day that you build upon your habit, this surge in self belief compounds.

For most people, the biggest barrier to moving is the thought of it. The hardest part is to put your comfy clothes and runners on. If you can commit to doing this bit daily, the 10 minutes (that’s my initial ask!) is easy.

Moving your body is just good for you

It’s not just the huffy puffy sweaty stuff that’s good for us. Numerous studies show that regular exercise (we’re talking walking) is one of the BEST single things you can do for your health. It even has a preventative effect for a range of lifestyle related conditions.

Want to feel better and mentally clearer? Get moving. Want better sleep? A morning walk in the sunshine makes you feel tired at nighttime when you’re supposed to. Digestion feeling sluggish? Daily movement will help get things regular too.

For people suffering depression and anxiety, things get a little more complicated. But we know that exercise is highly effective as part of a treatment plan. Small bursts of movement (again, we’re talking a 10 minute walk) is a less daunting place to start and can have a big impact.

We weren’t designed to sit still for hours looking at a screen. We’re built to be out in the sun during the day, moving in different directions and and resting at night in a dark and cool environment. This is not the reality for many of us who work sedentary jobs and have long commutes. So we need to build an element of these factors into our lives somewhat artificially.

For now, I challenge you to make daily movement your goal.

You can make a MASSIVE difference LONG TERM, that’s right, LONG TERM if you focus on small bouts movement throughout our days.

I know and YOU know that we have windows of time, sometimes five minutes, 10 minutes and possibly 30 minutes when we’re in between tasks at work, waiting for our kids to finish school or training, during ad breaks on TV or we simply have downtime to get some movement in. You just need to prioritise and have an idea of what to do.

We want to support you

We’re so passionate about the benefits of daily movement that we’ve designed a 21 Day Challenge to get you to do just that! I get that committing to exercising every day for the rest of you life is a leap right now, but could you make a promise to yourself, for yourself, to move for 21 days straight?

We start our 21 Day Challenge on Monday September 16 and everyone is welcome! We’ll guide you through it with daily programs you can complete at home. We designed our programs to inspire you with doable sessions to build mobility, fitness, strength and all round wellbeing. But more importantly, you’ll finish each and every day feeling productive and like you’ve really achieved something!

All you have to do is make the commitment. It’s all about building momentum, and Spring is the best time to get out and enjoy the sunshine and get those natural feel-good rewards for your efforts.

You can register for the Challenge from Thursday September 5. Contact me on sean@newimagept.com.au if you’d like to learn more.

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