“I’ll start eating healthily and exercising again when I get back from holiday… after the baby’s born… when I finish writing my thesis… next year… next week.” Does that kind of “pause-button mentality” sound familiar? If you’ve ever found yourself saying something like that, here’s a harsh piece of reality for you: you could be jeopardising your health and overall fitness. Here are a few reasons why (and what to do about it).
We get this question rather a lot at The DVCC:
“Why don’t your programs come with a rest period?”
After all, your clients should be able to take a little break when:
- Going on holiday
- They’ve got too much going on at work
- They’re pregnant or recovering from child birth
- They’re suffering an injury
- They’re dealing with family troubles
Many clients who start out with us think that if they miss a workout or eat the wrong thing one day, they’ve failed and need to take a time out. It would be better to have a little pause than to “fall off the wagon.” But you know what we call that? The “pause-button mentality”.
Your health is a long-term investment, more of a marathon than a sprint. So, we don’t believe in wagons to fall off of. It’s inevitable that throughout your life, you’ll make some bad nutritional choices, or let a few workouts go – that’s normal. It doesn’t mean you need to stop completely until the “time is right” again. Taking a break from your program is one of the best ways to destroy your health and fitness for good.
Here are a few reasons why — and what we think you should do instead.
Starting fresh is a very comforting thought for many people
That’s why people love writing out New Year’s Resolutions. They allow themselves to indulge as much as they want over the Christmas period, because they’ll start eating healthily “next year”.
At The DVCC, our busiest time of year is January, when people are driven to finally start over and get fit and healthy. But the problem of delaying looking after your health is that you only really get better at improving your pausing skills!
Whether it’s leaving it until tomorrow, next week, or the new year, people get a deep sense of relief from being able to push that imaginary pause button. You get a sense of temporary relief when you’re struggling to keep the pace.
And we understand completely. It can be extremely hard to prioritise healthy eating habits and training when you’re undergoing stress, moving house, raising children, taking a holiday.
That’s why there is an abundance of “10-day” results programs and “60-day money-back” guarantees. They seem like the easy solution and you can fit them into your life. But, if it sounds too good to be true, that’s because it probably is. It's why we don't guarantee weight loss anymore...We guarantee to teach you the habits you NEED for weight loss...It's a subtle difference.
After all, what do “get fit quick” programs teach you? To concentrate on your health for short, intensive periods of time. What they don’t teach you is how to instil sustainable fitness habits that you can stick to for life.
It’s not just about willpower. Actually, it’s more about skills
Most of these get-fit-quick programs are destined to failure because they simply aren’t sustainable. They place your mind and body under a lot of stress and follow rigid and radical restrictions and guidelines that will see all the weight piling back on as soon as you finish.
You don’t find out how to apply what you’ve learned to your life in the long term.
They don’t allow you to develop the skills you need eat healthily or improve your fitness for life. Short term progress is often followed by long term frustration.
So, what will change next time around?
Here’s a great example of the pause mentality in action. We had a prospective client come in the other day completely convinced that the no-carb diet was the best way to go. He said that he had never found any fitness solution as effective.
That led us to the ask the question: “But, if it’s so effective, why aren’t you fit now?”
To which the client responded “I had to give it a pause. I changed jobs and then there was Christmas, and then…” It got quiet until he said:
“But, as soon as everything gets back to normal, I’m going to start it up again and get fit”!
This is the problem with fitness programs like this, they teach only one thing: How to get fit under extreme circumstances on a challenging program when all your lifestyle conditions are perfect. But, life isn’t like that.
Life isn’t perfect. And all the times complications arise, what happens? He hits the pause button on his health and fitness. He waits for a time when the tail winds are blowing in his favour.
What’s Going to Be Different Next Time?
This is why, when clients come to us wanting to take a break, we say:
“So, what do you think is going to be different when you come back to the program?”
99% of the time, the answer is nothing, because, like it or not, life just happens. And it will keep happening in January, when the baby is born, when your job changes, or when you get back from holiday.
And then what?
We’ve all had times when we wanted to press the pause button. Even us. So, it might help you to know that even “fitness fanatics” like ourselves have had times when we wanted to take a break.
When life seems overwhelming, you’re moving house, a baby is coming, you’re slammed at work – it’s logical for us to want to cut something out.
But, when you go through periods like that, you have to realise that something is better than nothing. Making a small effort to focus on your health is better than no effort at all, because at the end of the day – life keeps on happening.
You’ll soon realise that if you keep pressing pause, it will eventually turn into STOP mode, for good. There will simply never be a perfect time to press the PLAY button again.
There is no pause button in life
The key thing to remember here is that there really is no pause button in life. You can’t stop the world from turning and things happening to you. They won’t suddenly get easier because the calendar flips over and a new year arrives.
Sorry to say this, but you can’t escape your life! The bills, your job, your family, your friends. So, you shouldn’t try to escape your health and fitness either as your health is the most important thing you have in life!
Can you imagine hitting the pause button on other areas in your life?
Let’s say you’re in contention for a major promotion at work. You’d love to be able to spend all your time thinking about the promotion and doing your best to win over your boss. So, you go home and say to your partner “I’ve decided I’m going to push pause on being a parent for a while”. How well would that go down?
We can’t speak for you, but with our partners, not very well.
Because you simply can’t hit the pause button on being a parent, it’s kind of a job-for-life situation.
In the same way that you can’t stop paying the bills, or start missing work. Not showing up to your family gatherings or leaving your emails unanswered.
Even when you’re feeling stressed, you’ve got other things on your plate, you haven’t slept and you’re not on you’re A-game, you have to keep soldiering on through life.
Why should it be any different with your health and fitness?
So, if you’re struggling with work, moving house, a new job, etc. relax the rules a little, but don’t press pause. You could think about:
- Working out a maximum of 3 times a week
- Cutting your sessions down to 15 minutes
- Scheduling a more convenient time (first thing in the morning, last thing at night)
- Exercising without equipment
And do that for as long as you need. Is it the best workout in the world? Well, to be honest, no. Are you going to reach your peak of fitness? Probably not, but guess what? It’s a heck of a lot better than pushing the pause button.
The point with your fitness is not perfectionism. The point is not reaching an end goal, or completing a program, neither is it being the very best at something for a short time period. The main point is to keep on going, even if it’s hard, even if it’s awkward, even if it seems downright “half-assed”. Keep on going never the less.
Here is something that we often tell our new clients:
Slow and steady wins the race and it’s better to be a tortoise than a hare. Don’t think of it as all or nothing, because if you fail to get all, you’ll most likely end up with nothing. So, let’s change your mantra to “always something”.
Adjust the dial, change the rules, but don’t press pause
Health and nutrition is like having a dial. You can adjust it to suit your needs.
Crank it up when you know you can give it all your best effort, turn it down when your time is limited. But never turn it off completely.
Let’s look at a few examples of how to use your mental dial
Let’s say you’re training for a specific event, like a half-marathon or some other kind of competition. You’ll probably want to turn your dial to a 9 or a 10.
10 means that you work out every day and plan every meal with extreme care and attention. Your main focus in life will be your fitness and everything else takes a slight back seat.
Work, family, friends, university – they all go into, what we like to call “maintenance mode” (for as much as you’re allowed).
Now let’s say you’re moving to new city, renovating your home, supporting a family member through an illness, looking after a new baby, running a business…
You might want to adjust your dial a notch or two, or maybe four or five.
Set it to a 3 or a 4. Make sure that your meals are good enough and that you’re doing some kind of working out program.
No guilt, no repercussions, you’re doing the best you can under the circumstances and, better than that, you’re not hitting pause.
The main point here is that adjusting your dial even right down to a 1 is better than turning it off completely.
As soon as you realise that it’s perfectly possible to carry on with your health and fitness on a lower channel, you’ll never have a reason to hit pause again.
It’s easy to get all self-critical, especially when you’ve been used to doing more in the past. But push Mr or Ms perfection aside and remember your new mantra “always something”.
We’ve had people on our programs suffering the loss of a loved one, or going through tough times at work. They could have asked for a time-out, no one would have thought any the less of them. But, instead, we advised them to adjust their dials and go a little easier on themselves, rather than striving for perfection. You know what? They were able to carry on.
Every day, ask yourself, if you can’t do the absolute best, what’s the next best thing you can do?
And start with doing that. You won’t be by your ailing loved one’s side forever, or in the midst of work stress all your life. There will come a day when you can pay more attention to your fitness, and when that day comes, you’ll thank yourself that you never ever hit pause.
Even if you find yourself doing squats in a lift or in the corridor of a hospital, it’s better than doing nothing.
Life is not perfect and you should not expect your health and fitness to be either
Sometimes, you’re just going to have to make the best of what you’ve got.
And that’s OK.
You’ll still be making progress and getting fitter. You’ll still be doing your body and health a favour. You’ll just be doing what you can under the circumstances that life throws your way.
If you take a break, if you press pause, you’ll get nothing at all.
You don’t get any progress if you allow yourself to say “I’ll take it up again when Dad gets better”, or “I’ll get back into fitness when things have calmed down”.
Sustainable fitness solutions you can live with
Sustainable fitness habits are our mission at The DVCC because we want you to be fit and healthy for life. Not for a short period before taking a pause.
And you know what? We do it extremely well. We really help clients to adjust their fitness habits and training around their lifestyles – not the other way around.
Not by pretending to be someone they’re not, donning the Lycra and drinking nothing but juice for two weeks. Not by striving for perfection under extremely hard situations and for limited lengths of time. But, by remembering the motto “always something”.
Pressing the pause button isn’t only a cop out. It’s placing focus on something unattainable – the moment that your lifestyle circumstances are 100% perfect and you’re ready to focus on your fitness.
Asking to start over again at a later date when the timing is perfect is simply deluding yourself that life comes with no distractions.
Unfortunately, life is not perfect and there is never a perfect time.
Of course, we all have those magical moments when everything seems to be going right. They tend to come in short burst when everything just fits together.
And then the baby vomits on the sofa. The toilet gets blocked, or your car needs taking to the mechanic. Maybe all three things at once.
You press pause. You get no progress over time. You might even get stuck on such a long pause that it’s really turned into a STOP.
Remember your dial.
Remember that you can adjust your fitness program to fit into your life, your life doesn’t need to dominate your fitness.
Remember, nobody’s perfect. At the end of the day, we’re all just doing the best that we can under the circumstances.
Slow and steady wins the race, so stop hitting pause. Stop thinking about hitting pause, just remember your dial.
Here are the most effective ways of keeping your fitness going even when life gets really tough:
1. Adjust your dial
OK, so let’s think pf your dial as going from 1 to 10.
If you were on a 10, think about:
What your workouts would look like
What your nutrition would look like
What else would be going on in that scenario?
If you were on a 1, think about:
What your workouts would look like
What your nutrition would look like
What else would be going on in that scenario?
Now look at your current situation, where would you say your dial was set?
Would you like to turn it up or down?
Can you adjust the setting slightly?
If you could, what would it look like?
2. Aim for just a little better
Remember that an all or nothing approach means that you’ll more than likely end up with nothing when things get tough. So, aim for making small and consistent improvements.
Think about your current situation and how you can make it just a little bit better. Even if you’re in the throes of looking after a newborn baby sleepless night after sleepless night. Or stuck at a computer around the clock. They may not be best-case scenarios, but they’re not hopeless either.
So, look around and get creative and look for small ways of making things better.
3. Anticipate in advance and strategise
OK, since we all already know that things are going to go wrong at some point in time, we need to learn to anticipate the problems and come up contingency plans.
Try answering the following two questions:
What obstacles may come my way?
Can I do something about it today to make life easier when they come?
For some of our clients, that might mean making batches of healthy food and freezing it in advance. For others, it’s knowing a great place to pick up or order healthy food from. Maybe it’s jumping on the exercise bike instead of getting to your workout class.
Don’t get thrown off course when things don’t go your way, it’s more than likely you’ll hit bumps in the road, but try to come up with ways to make things easier.
Keep your health dial on no matter what happens.
If you’re still wondering how you can shift from an “all or nothing” mindset to an “always something” one, why not try coming down to The DVCC and discussing it with us?
We teach men and women simple and effective ways of integrating healthy habits into their lifestyles so that they can always look after their health, no matter how much life gets in their way.
You can sign up at any time for a trial at The DVCC. Remember, we won’t impose hard-to-follow eating plans or a regimented routine. You’ll just get a real sense of how real people work fitness habits into their lives for the long term.
