How to stick to a health & fitness plan as a Mami
Good morning, just in a zoom session with the mammies of Turtle, all our mothers came on zoom and we had a chat about what's the toughest thing, what really works, what doesn't and just general chat about the life and what the mindset really, the mindset of why you have to adapt. So this isn't gonna be useful for anyone not just mothers but what I've really realised speaking to all of you looking on is the efficiency in most mothers have is phenomenal and they like there's a lot of efficiency which you should really be applauding yourself on in terms of like getting up here doing this for kids doing this and that and all the tasks massive massive to do lists. So I think realizing that planning and being a planner and getting that done is great. Some people aren't but there's definitely huge benefits to plan and I think everybody needs to start getting into the routine of doing but let's go over what we spoke about. First thing is the mother's guilt.
Speaker 1:So spending time with a kid, depending on age of course, like if you're 13 years old, don't wanna speak to you, they don't wanna play Xbox but if they're younger maybe you wanna spend time with them like getting over the guilt, doing something for yourself in the evening over spending time with your kid. Now the reality is it's not very rational to think that you should have that guilt because you're looking after yourself. Because in reality if you can look after yourself you're doing a massive favor for your kid because you're going to be someone who's more calm, resilient, happy as they grow up and they they pick up on these like the vibes you give off. Like if you are always stressed out, panicking, not really doing what you want to do, you get very kind of resentful, pick up on it. And they're imitators, imitate behavior.
Speaker 1:So you someone who you know, kind of gives off the vibe that you are looking after yourself, you are putting your health as a priority and you are calm and you are looking at doing things that better your own life because you know then that's gonna help better their lives and that So being rational in a sense is why you need to go and the Stoics would say the difference between a human and an animal is that the human has the ability to be rational and if you're not using that you're basically an animal. So, there's a truth to it, there's definitely a truth to it like use your rationality, okay. Question your first impressions like, should I really feel guilty about this? Really? I mean if you're drinking every night and not spending time of course is guilt because that's not very productive but if you're doing stuff for your health, your mental health, your physical like all this stuff, no need to be guilty about that at all.
Speaker 1:So rationalizing I think is the answer not so much not doing those things because that's not going to benefit anyone down the line. Rule number one really of mommy world is working out in the morning, it's a must I think leaving into the evening seems to be something that does not work. So carving out thirty minutes in the morning to work out is very very important and I think you know depends on people saying you wake up at five, seven at six. But really understanding as well like workouts are a thing fat loss and if your goal is just fat loss fine, but if it's mental health and getting strong all you need is three workouts a week. So you could look at Saturday and Sunday as Monday and Tuesday if you wanted to, you don't have to see it as a weekend which means you don't work out which means whatever.
Speaker 1:You can do, you can start your first workout on a Saturday you do work at number two in a Sunday and then work at number three somewhere in that week where you get a bit of time. So that's important to look at it and I think is to question yourself as well like you know ask people to look at their screen times varied between you know two hours fifty nine minutes up to eight hours you know a lot of we do we even as being efficient as a mother, we still waste time on our phones and we all, we have to admit this. Once we admit it we can say right, have I really got zero time or can I carve out time because you know if you are spending all our time on your phone scrolling wasting your time away, there is no excuse then because that's just you just prioritizing you know killing boredom over doing something that's a bit productive and bad for you? The reality is that. So look at your screen time if it's too high, work on reducing it and you know I don't have to fit the workout in on that time but definitely like meal prep or like getting like things done on your to do list is important.
Speaker 1:Just that will gonna improve your day make it easier as opposed to you know scrolling Instagram has got no benefit to you it's gonna make you feel worse there's just literally no benefit to it. So make sure you, lock your screen time. Okay and on that note as well as Parkinson's Law, so that means that work expands as to fill the time available for its completion. So sometimes most of us will act like this, if we got deadlines we work like hell and we get it done in a short time frame and if we've got eight months to do it, will take eight months to do it. Similar, can we actually use this to, well can you actually use it to your benefit as a parent or someone with no time like if you've got less time, this kind of the inverse of Parkinson's law means the less time you have the more you're gonna, you know, you're still gonna fill the sit and fill out with the work needs to be done, you'll actually be more efficient.
Speaker 1:So if you go more intense periods of time to do work, is that better and there's actually people saying now there's a few books and research coming out that humans aren't meant to try and work like you know like moderately for eight hours, we work in intense sprints. So this tends to work in your favor if you've only got short periods of time to do work, you actually become far more efficient and definitely look up the Pomodoro Technique which is twenty five minutes of work on that one task only. Don't look at your phone, don't look at other tabs, you do absolutely nothing apart from the task you've been assigned for twenty five minutes, five minute break, go back into another twenty five minutes. It is a productivity super hack that you should try if you do struggle. Okay.
Speaker 1:And let's have a look more. So yeah, so no morning is no success is kind of the rule, too tight in the evening. Realistic worker schedule we spoke about making sure and that's for everybody like just have a realistic workout stop trying to do the impossible. You're just winding yourself up, you catastrophize and wind yourself up, you get stressed and guess what happens when you're always stressed. It impairs your decision making abilities like you, affects the frontal cortex, your decision making part.
Speaker 1:So you actually make worse decisions when you are overstressed. So if you are making bad decisions all the time and you're all stressed, the goal isn't to try and make better decisions during those stressful times because you're probably not going to, you need to fix the cause and that is to reduce your stress. So this is don't catastrophize, don't wind yourself up. And this plays straight into the next fact, you have to adapt. As in general change is the only constant as they say, but it's even more, turbulent for parents.
Speaker 1:So change comes sometimes daily, sometimes weekly, you get into routine and boom, something else happens as they age the routine changes. But is there really a point in fighting against the change? Oh, I did have such a good routine. Well, so what is gone now. Let's focus on being adaptable, pliable like Bruce Lee would say like bamboo, flexible in the wind.
Speaker 1:So making constant, the flexibility, you know like we talk about the core concept of macros is and you know it's called flexible dieting and you know I'd like the word dieting and it's not really a diet because there's no foods off the table. It is a flexible approach to live in depending on your days, depending on your emotions, depending on plans. You can eat more, can eat less, you can eat any foods and you are super flexible with your macros and it works. Now apply this to every other party life, being flexible with your working hours, you don't have to work nine to five, Henry Ford is dead. Okay, he came up with his nine to five you know, on the production line, we still fall away and it's a bit stupid like some people aren't productive nine five, some people prefer to work 6PM to 9PM, some people prefer to work 8PM to 10PM, some people prefer to work 5AM to 8AM.
Speaker 1:It doesn't like if the more the world is going work from home the more we get this flexibility which is great. It's not, it doesn't apply for everybody of course because school is you know nine to three or whatever nine to five but you don't have to be fixed. You don't have to be trying to be too fixed and you know when you do plan stuff out another thing people are saying holidays and half terms and trying to plan all these things it doesn't go to plan and getting annoyed and then you know not in control. You can't control outcomes of all these things especially with kids. They're crazy.
Speaker 1:Gonna get ill, gonna have the shits, become the, what's it called, chicken pox. You know, all this stuff you've mentioned, you know, this thing these are gonna be thrown at you. And I think we go back to stoicism again. Yeah. Marcus Reyes would be like, well, mate, you're gonna wake up every day, and you're gonna meet people who are gonna piss you off, annoying people.
Speaker 1:You're gonna get these people who are always angry la la la, don't be shocked by this, this normal. So when it does happen, if you are shocked it's your fault. So if you are raising a kid I would say if you are shocked that they get ill randomly or something this bizarre then I think you're not accepting that that's the reality of it as opposed to everything should be perfect like the films and that's not true. So leaving go of control of outcomes and just being able to do your best is something that needs to be taken up I think. Just be like I'll try my best just today, know, I'll try my best to work out, try my best to be productive, try my best not to waste my time on my phone, try my best to get things ready for you know school and you know might not be able to do everything today but I'll try my best and I'm okay with trying my best.
Speaker 1:I'm okay with going in the right direction and not so much getting the exact numbers like you don't have to get 10,000 steps a day, don't have to do three or four workouts a week, you don't have to do everything. You can maybe do two workouts one week and you get 6,000 steps a day and then you track you know most of the time but not quite. Like that's not a failure, that's a success, that's the reality like we have these like ideals but we have to be flexible and I think accepting that is the main step for everybody I think and I think Irene mentioned a really good point as well like, is a culture point, it's like you know Mediterranean lifestyle is you know, you don't leave a house until like twelve and all days and stuff, you don't try and meet your mate at 9AM for the coffee and all on like you know, rush out of the house. It's kind of like a lot of the you know, the lesson there really is that a lot of the stuff we think is just how we should be, we don't have to be like that.
Speaker 1:We don't have to follow everyone else does. I don't have to rush out to 9AM and it's like why do it to yourselves just because other people are doing it. And again another point was you know when you're eating, you're going for lunch or brunch or whatever with other mothers and you know they say, oh you should eat that chocolate bar. You shouldn't be trying to look after your food now you just had a kid la la la. But they just want you to do what they do because they feel shit anyway.
Speaker 1:And I think they make you feel, they try to make you feel weird for not doing what they say to do and I think being able to say no, like you may have seen, being able to say no is a big thing in this life definitely for you new parents and stuff like that, being able to say no like no do you know what, I'm not following to the norms here like where all mothers that put you know stones of weight on just because they fall into the trap of trying to eat for comfort all the time and just doing what others are doing, drinking wine, laurel and nice to de stress all the stuff that everybody starts doing. For what reason, question it. Like Irene is saying, question the culture, the British culture of this on holidays going out the doors by nine, just chill out man. Live a morning to yourself and have to, give workouts in, bring the kids to do the workouts with you, that tends to work. Kids imitate, so if you had to see you doing workouts get him to join in.
Speaker 1:You don't have to do separate stuff like a lot of people are saying they take the kids to the gym because you can allow kids enough to 12 years old sometimes 10 and some gyms like David Lloyd's have, you know, crash or whatever for kids so you can work out and you know, just bringing them on the journey with you. Like they want to do what you do most of the time. You go on your phone, they want to go on the phone, like Irene was saying, you wanna do this, you wanna watch TV, they wanna watch TV. But if you can try and convince them in a sense or try and get them to follow your lead in some of these things it makes it easier to know. So get them to work out, them their little mats, get them their own little dumbbells.
Speaker 1:If they don't weigh anything just get them to do, you know, do it with you. Little things like I think can help a long way. Rachel Underhill was saying prefers doing things live, okay, and I get it being live it's easy, it's not easy, it's better the other people that same time but just because you prefer to do something live doesn't mean you shouldn't, you should feel like it's a failure to do them on demand or on replay like preferences are great, but having a preference doesn't mean that that's you know, the only option we should go by. In an ideal world, we would do everything live, join everything, we have all this family life and be perfect, we have a job is less stressful and this and that, But that's not how it works. So is it really that bad that you just can't do a live but you can do it at the time of the future?
Speaker 1:Of course not. It's the same workouts, it's the same Q and A's. The only thing you're missing out on is some live feedback which is fine. But you know that's minuscule compared to doing the workout itself. Do know I mean?
Speaker 1:The doing the workout is the main thing not doing, getting feedback on you know bent over row. We can get out anyway, we can have a look at what other people are saying to people. That's another thing. Next we talked about making sure that you're prepared with snacks, know, comfort foods, you should definitely have your problem foods in the house and getting used to being moderate with their consumption because that has been shown to lead to successful weight loss. Trying to eat the low calorie version doesn't work, try not to buy it doesn't work, tell your friends and stuff not to get a few doesn't work, like all these interventions don't seem to work.
Speaker 1:What does seem to work is accepting. I love milky bars, I love them and I love them I but I'll control the portion size because that's something in my control and I'll do that and I'll be satisfied and I get joy in being able to control it but still knowing I can still have that lovely cloud like milky bar that I've not had in years but now I really really want one. More now later guys, more my milky bar adventures later. No milky bar, I'm talking Milky Way I'm on about. Oh my god, milky way, are they gone?
Speaker 1:Are they still in biz? What's now? I'm RBJ, really great comment. A good morning routine starts with your evening routine. Let's hear it again.
Speaker 1:A good morning routine starts with a good, well starts with your evening routine which is super super important. Sarah mentioned that she hired a treadmill instead of going to the gym membership which meant that she'd wake up and it was a less blow by and instead of waking up going oh my god I gotta do a workout, you wake up and I'm going to a few steps into my treadmill whilst the baby's there looking after her get five or 6,000 steps day start off feeling fresh, easy to do, it had a knock on effect, a good habit Sarah said which is important having that the morning, when the morning when the day there's a definite truth to it. So if you can find what works for in the morning leads to bad habits in the day. Okay so again and she said she felt hungry if she didn't get steps and this is shown in research if we don't move enough per day like our ancient ancestors did, we actually have our appetite regulation system gets messed up which means we feel way hungrier than we need to be which means we consume more energy than we need.
Speaker 1:Getting that movement in helps. Know music, podcasts in the morning, you know is important and being able to adapt all the time instead of being upset over routine change adapt, adapt, adapt. Great point by Amy Neve as well, what you can still control in all of this which is the most important factor behind weight management is your nutrition. You can still control what you eat, okay, the baby is not pushing that mask back into your face twice a day, the baby's not going, hey go on have that McDonald's, go on. They're not, they're just not seeing it.
Speaker 1:You're saying it yourself that you feel like you love and it's comfort and it's a temporary pleasure but pleasure doesn't equal happiness let's remember that, pleasure does not equal happiness and if we chase pleasure it's not a good thing. Okay, pleasures actually neither good nor bad but the stoics would say not to chase pleasure and we try and chase pleasure to get out of feeling sad but pleasure is not good. Why? It's unstable and if something's unstable we can't put trust and confidence in is what they would say. So pleasure as a means to an end is not good because it leads us down to feeling that because I had the McDonald's and had pleasure from it, we mistakenly think maybe that's good and I feel better but in the long term on the bird's eye view it's not good because it's given us habits that we really really don't want and actually we can get more pleasure by abstaining from those easy simple pleasures that we know are just comfort eating.
Speaker 1:Okay comfort eating has its place, okay, but we have to be really truthful of ourselves, like are we overdoing it? Will I actually feel better tomorrow if I add this McDonald's again for the third time this week, Chicken McNuggets, 20 of them, Big Mac, fries and one of those amazing, what are they called, fraps, it's got loads of calories in them. Nice guys but come on, it's just a total waste of calories. Again, another thing I think so saying is hard of consistency with the change of routine. And what I'd say in here is as a parent and not so much consistency is resilience that we need.
Speaker 1:Resilience is the way to bounce back, how we bounce back. Can we bounce back fast? Resilience. Okay, if we can be resilient we can adapt fast, we can find that new norm fast. Consistency, I mean there's you know the two forms of this consistency in the actions, it doesn't have to mean everything you know every day is the same.
Speaker 1:That's not what we mean by consistency. I think consistency and resilience is kind of similar and what I mean here is just being adaptable and not letting one day turn into two bad days and thirty three bad days. That's really what we want to stop. If we can stop that we'll be consistent and we'll be resilient won't we? What else we got here?
Speaker 1:Block out time from work even activities harder listen on replay. Yeah, nice one, Natalie. So Natalie would listen to the replays of the Q and A's during workouts, get a block out of time and work. You know, you have to be flexible again 100% focus on what you can control. Okay.
Speaker 1:Let's have any other notes I got here. Bulk cooking food. So we'll have to come up with a batch cooking guide, which should be great. And, yeah, and then in terms of buggies, know, if the kids sleeps, putting them in the buggy taking them for a walk to get his steps in is very important as a, know, if they're gonna sleep in a buggy versus sleep inside, what are you doing whilst they sleep is really the important question. Are you just messing about wasting time?
Speaker 1:Are you gonna get your steps in? Are you gonna do this and that? Or are you just gonna wait until they wake up and go, Oh, he's awake now. So maybe the habit is when I sleep we go in the buggy and you run up the hill like a maniac, I don't know, up to you. But it's all about mindset at the end.
Speaker 1:All is about mindset. You're not gonna be perfect, you're not gonna be like someone who has no kids with all the time in the world, it's not how it works. But what you can take away from being a parent I think whilst I'm not a parent is that you become more efficient. And if you can become more efficient you actually work in more intense sprints when it comes to work and doing stuff and that's actually a better way to be as opposed to having eight hours a day to just stare into the screen with nothing else to think about. You'll be surprised at how much less people get done with that type of schedule versus having this strict schedule, but you get loads more done.
Speaker 1:I think that's one of the things you can look at as a benefit of the parenting lifestyle. Apart from you know cleaning up poo, I don't think that's a good thing. Well you have to do it but I'd rather not do it you mean. Guys I think that's it and we have to do more these sessions and for people that are not parents of course listening to this there's a lot of information here that can help you as well it's not just like parent specific it's like time restrictive, time management really. So hopefully that was of help I've just blitzed through some of the notes, hopefully it came out coherently, but thank you all for turning up to the zoom.
Speaker 1:I always love learning from everybody different walks of life, parenting. And I think it opens up our horizons, we stretch our minds out from new experiences basically and we can be more sympathetic and stuff like that, empathetic whatever the word we use for other people's kind of situations. And it all knuckles down in the end to the mindset stuff. You can become your own prisoner if you you know in any regards here. It's all about rationalizing your first impressions.
Speaker 1:It really comes back to stoicism as well. What is your first impression you get from stuff? Is it legitimately a good impression? Put it to the test. Use your rational mind as a human being and you will improve the days and you won't let catastrophizing thoughts run away and ruin your days.
Speaker 1:But this is one of the longest voice notes in the wild guys. I'm sorry. It's twenty two minutes. I'm trying to keep on fifteen. I say five to fifteen.
Speaker 1:I don't think I've ever done a five minute voice note. I'm a complete liar. But thanks for listening. Hope it's helpful. Let me know and, speak to you tomorrow.
