It's important to realise that absolutely everyone will let their training and nutrition slip at some stage. Unless you are a professional and your life is dedicated to a sporting or athletic goal, other things in life will come up which need more attention.
Your first goal should be to reaffirm yourself with the thought that you haven't failed. We are all exposed to so much 'highlight reel' content on social media, and this can make it seem like we have failed compared to other people.
Remember, you see the highlight reel.
With that out of the way let's focus on getting back on track.
Step 1 - the best thing you can do to help me, help you, is fill in your tracking sheet. If the tracking is not filled in I have absolutely no clue what is going on with your day to day.
Get back filling in the tracking sheet. I don't mind if the calories tab isn't filled in, but fill in what you can. This lets me know you are actively back in the process of trying to look after some of the important things that help you live a healthy lifestyle.
Step 2 - Plan tomorrow today. Plan ahead, tomorrow, the next few days, the next week if possible.
It will take a certain amount of organisation to help you get back on track. Hoping things fall into place definitely won't work.
Plan out your training sessions for the next few days. What times are you going to do them at? Is your gym gear ready? Get this sorted. If you miss a session because something comes up that's okay - you planned to succeed. Life can take over.
In terms of nutrition - do you have food in the fridge? Are the foods that will help you get back on track in the house? Your food environment is so important and you need to take control of it. You can reach out to me if you need specific goals (the calories target on your sheet), but if you're generally trying to just eat better make sure the house isn't overloaded with junk food.
Have your room tidy, your bed made, and plan what time you're going to sleep at. If you do not get enough sleep regularly it will be so tough to motivate yourself to make good decisions.
Step 3 - Get into a routine and try to replicate good habits 5 days out of 7. This is based on the premise that you will have some sort of regular work week.
If you do have a Monday to Friday, 9-5 job, it will be very simple to plan what you need to do each day.
What time is breakfast at (if there is one)?
What time is lunch at?
What are you having for those meals etc.
Falling back into a healthy routine takes a bit of planning and then replication. This gives you 2 days over the weekend to mix things up a little if needed.
Planning and routine beats a chaotic lifestyle every single time when it comes to health and fitness.
If you don't have a structured job like I have mentioned you still need to apply the principal of you dictating what is going to happen on a given day.
Step 4 - Nutrition can be the hardest thing to get back on track.
Training is much easier. You throw your gym bag in the car and get going. Maybe you train in a class and you can just text someone to see if they're going in at the same time. If there's a regular crew in it also makes it so much easier to do.
Nutrition is trickier. You are much more on your own on this one.
The key is to keep things simple and not get overwhelmed.
I discussed earlier about planning ahead, well, this is incredibly important with nutrition.
One of the best things you can do is plan a number of meals/snacks you're going to eat in a given day. For example, at the moment I usually have my breakfast at 10:30. Lunch is at 14:00, I have my dinner at 17:00, and then I have another small meal at 21:00. I have 4 meals per day at similar times.
The time itself does not matter. Don't worry about any myths like 'don't eat carbs after 6 p.m.', or 'don't eat late at night, you'll put on weight'. Pick the times that suit your lifestyle and preferences (they probably aren't going to be the same times as me, and that's fine).
Having some kind of timed window also helps. You may know of this as intermittent fasting or time restricted fasting. All this means is there is a window in the day in which you eat your meals.
Look at my day. My window is 10:30 - 21:00, and having that cut off point of 21:00 helps me not overconsume.
Step 5 - Try to troubleshoot what caused the problem. Why did your training and nutrition go awry?
Maybe it was something major in life happened. Maybe you just got a little bit demotivated. These are perfectly fine reasons.
Getting back on track will help reinforce those good habits though, and eventually going off track becomes less and less frequent. When it does happen it's much easier to get going again.
You build strong habits which support a healthy lifestyle helping you feel and look your best.
Something to consider is whether or not you have been affected by what you consume on social media. A lot of younger fitness influencers preach that we should all be training and getting our nutrition right ALL the time.
We all have the same 24 hours in a day.
No we don't. Anyone with a busy job and kids will tell you the hours in a day they can devote to fitness and nutrition are few.
Not everything has to be perfect like the 22 year old fitness influencer.
When I think of the people I coach and what I hope to achieve with them, I think of healthy behaviours versus unhealthy behaviours. If someone can get some training done, focus on healthy meals, get some steps in, hydrate and get enough sleep, they are going to feel much better versus sitting around all day (being sedentary) and eating garbage.
Stringing healthy behaviours together is our goal. We don't have to be obsessed with perfection, and we shouldn't be.
It is important to note though that if losing fat is something you really, really want to focus on, you do need to be very consistent and quite strict with your targets.
Lastly, it's important to that you get in touch with me if you need help. It's my job to help you get back on track, and I certainly won't be annoyed no matter what the reason is you haven't been getting things done.
I thoroughly enjoy helping people get back on track, it's one of the most satisfying parts of the job.
Speak soon,
Philly