It’s no secret that consistency over time is what it takes to achieve something worthwhile. So, when it comes to your health, consistency is literally key, but consistency at what? Your nutrition & workouts, that’s what. Both are pillars that require constant regular maintenance, otherwise any act of good that’s been done in the past will surely be undone, and results go in the opposite direction if ignored for too long.
Let’s start with your workouts, no matter what your goal is the idea here is the same, you want to physically do something that will influence the body to change & improve. Just like walking up an escalator moving in the wrong direction, each step taken will get you to the top if done so consistently (and with enough speed of course), if not then you will end up back where you started. Here the goal is to progressively overload your body so that it will adapt to the stimulus (workout) each time, making you better and better for each time you progress your workouts. After a few months, you will have changed completely from the person you were at the start. However, if you are not consistent and only workout occasionally, by the time you get to the next workout you will be back where you started, on the first step.
This is a process that happens over time, you need to be consistent with the effort you put in and the frequency of sessions, as well as patient in letting the body undergo the resultant transformations. The human body is a transformation machine, whether it be from running marathons to lifting super heavy weight or even a combination of both, with the correct stimulus in the form of a workout and done so progressively over time, the body will continue to adapt and get better, brick by brick until the house is built. It just needs the time and consistent dedication.
As we’ve blogged before, “you can’t out train a bad diet”. So, let’s discuss nutrition. Just like the fuel in your car, the things you put in your body for nutrition to fuel you is crucial to not only your performance, but overall health. Now this will vary depending on what your goals are, if for example your goal was to lose weight, then essentially our nutrition goal is two-part:
- Eat in a calorie deficit, whereby you eat less calories than you need to maintain your current size, so that your body uses the excess calories it has stored on it (body fat) for energy and you in turn lose/use the fat.
Ingest food & liquids that have adequate macro & micro-nutrients to adequately provide the body with the correct fuel it needs for growth & repair i.e. vitamins that enable us to utilise calories from food, protein that repairs sore muscles.
In other words, you wouldn’t fill your car tank with fuel until it was full then continue to do so until it overflowed, nor would you fill it with lemonade and expect it to work properly.
The most important notion with both A) & B) is that you execute them consistently over a period of time. Just because you have one setback where you either eat in excess of your daily limit or eat poor nutrient dense food doesn’t mean that you throw the rest of the day or even week away by continuing to binge in negative eating behaviours that aren’t conducive to achieving your goal. A good way to make sure you achieve this consistency is by tracking your daily & weekly calorie intake (energy numbers on back of food) totals and making sure that you are definitely in a calorie deficit. Remembering that here the focus isn’t to have one good day and magically overnight you’ll wake up with those 6pack ab’s, but rather to each and every day earn that goal by eating within your limit and losing a small amount of body fat each week. Ultimately after 5, 10, 20wks even a year, you have lost the total sum of all those small fat losses and are now completely different than when you started. A year may seem long when looking at the future, but when looking at the past a year flashes by rather quickly!