I’m talking to you, if you are currently sitting on the couch late at night, you’re eating shyte, your clothes are tight, you’re feeling uncomfortable in your clothes, you’ve done diets before and you don’t know what to do.
You’re stuck. You don’t know where to start, you’re feeling overwhelmed.
Life is busy, you might be going through a setback, and you just don’t know where to start. But what you do know is that you want to lose weight and you want to feel good in your clothes, and I don’t even want to say the December word, but you want to feel good for that period of the year, and you’re concerned now that you’ve left it too late. So I’m talking to you, if this is you.
The absolute first place to start is the exercise. Everything good comes from exercise. Everything. Better food choices, you’re more likely to be sleepy at nighttime, which is really good. You’re more likely to get to bed earlier, you’re more likely to wake up earlier. Not to mention the fact that, okay, the proper exercise if you’re a woman over 40 is low impact interval training, strength training, core work. We know that. That’s really good from a physical perspective because it builds lean muscle, it boosts your metabolism.
But if you’re overweight now or you’re feeling uncomfortable in your clothes, it’s not that you’re going to, in my opinion, start the workouts for those reasons, even though that’s absolutely brilliant. It’s that if you start with the workouts, everything else will naturally improve. It’s Joan versus Lisa. Lisa is like, “No, no, no, no. I’m just going to really focus on restricting my food, and calorie counting, and I’m going to just focus on not eating bad food. I’m only going to eat good food.”
So she wakes up and she tries to eat healthy all day long, but she hasn’t changed her mindset at all. She hasn’t gotten any feel good release of endorphins out. She hasn’t changed her state from exercise. So she’s relying on willpower alone, and motivation alone, and focusing on the food so much. And you know what happens when you solely focus on the food. All you can think about is more food. And soon you start to go it, “Feck it.” And you either go way too restrict-ey, which means then you start to overeat, or you just pack the whole thing in.
Whereas if you start with the exercise and say to yourself, “Do you know what? The way I’m eating now, ”I’m not going to really analyse it too much. I’m just going to add in the workouts to my life.” Every single thing will change in your life for the better. Now, I know that’s a massive statement, but if you are doing the right type of exercise, not too hard, not too easy, and you’re feeling really good after your 30 minute workout, and you’re like, “I’m on fire, I can face any setback or challenge that comes my way,” you’re not going to go straight to the couch and eat a packet of crisps. You’re much less likely after your lunch to go and have biscuits with your cup of tea. You’re not going to want to, most of the time, ruin the buzz, ruin the feel good feeling of how amazing it feels to be healthy.
So that’s where I would start, and that’s where I tell everybody that ever asks me to start.
You start with the exercise and you let the exercise do its lovely work. And then when you’re in that lovely, consistent place of working out three times per week, just for 30 minutes, and you’re doing a couple of walks, 30 minute walks, and that’s a 10 out of 10 ticked on your movement, you can say to yourself, “Okay, what do I actually need to tackle”?
Am I eating too much at dinner? Am I eating after dinner? Am I leaving long gaps in the day, and then eating like a mofo at nighttime?” And you can say to yourself, “Yeah actually, I’m eating too much after dinner. So I wonder what would happen if I exercised and just for the time being cut out eating after dinner.” You know what? I’m telling you, you get brilliant results and you get them in a really non stressy, restrictive, diet-ey way.
You’d be living your life, having the craic with your family, going out for meals at the weekend, having drinks or whatever it is that you like to do. But you’d be working out consistently getting a couple of walks in, building lean muscle mass, getting your metabolism high, burning fat at rest, feeling amazing from your exercise, feeling like a successful person because you are, you’re being successful with exercise, and not eating after dinner.
And then, after a couple of weeks when the exercise is still making you feel amazing, you go, ” Do you know what? I am loving this. I’m loving not eating after dinner. Is there anything else that I can do? I’ll do one more thing.” And then you can say, “You know what? I actually leave long gaps between meals. So I know what I’m going to do. I’m going to not eat after dinner for most days of the week, during the week. The weekdays. Work out consistently, and I’m going to focus on having a really good breakfast, lunch, and dinner.” And guys, before you know it, you’re in brilliant shape, and you’ve done it the kind way to yourself, and you’ve done it through fitness. And that’s actually my mission statement. It’s to empower you to transform your life through fitness.
I hope you found this blog post helpful. If you did, I would love you to share it with a friend If you would like to try some of my free workouts, download my free fat burning workout series, and I’m telling you, you may just really enjoy them, or else you can subscribe to my free newsletter that goes straight into your inbox. All you have to do is click this link and don’t forget to say hi. Have a really great day.
Go out and smash the day. All my love.
Jessica Cooke
