Jeanpims

On this day, 7 years ago I brought this good boy home. They estimated he was 3 years old and that’s all the back story we got.
I’ll tell you now he loves:
* bread and pizza above everything else
* sunbathing
* people
* waiting by the loo if we’re using it
* napping
* sitting on people like we are chairs
* walks of moderate length
* the occasinal game of fetch
* and although it took him a bit of time to get accustomed to him, his younger brother Ringo.

After having made him move with me from London to Sicily and now Barcelona where our family is celebrating his tenth birthday today, I really can’t put into words how much better he’s made my life.

I always thought the term “rescue dog” implied a hooman rescuing a dog, but if anyone’s been rescued here it’s me.

If you ask me what a successful diet is, I’ll tell you it’s the one that you follow with your eyes closed, on auto-pilot. It gives you the outcomes you want in the short and the long term. It doesn’t make you feel tired or hungry or constantly full and doesn’t stop you from having a social life either.
You maybe already be following it.

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JP

Something weird happened last week.

My cousin, who’s technically my oldest friend, and a very recently made friend shared the same (very wrong) observation about me.

They both said: « you’re always happy ».

Breaking news: I’m not.

What I am however is (annoyingly) optimistic.
I think some of that comes down to practice, but some is definitely just hard-wired in me. Last week, after a horrible night’s sleep due to an overanxious dog I said something I never say especially with the whole day ahead of me: « this day’s going to be horrible ». I generally avoid saying such things but I was in such a bad mood that I did. Little did I know it would turn out to be a much better than average type of day in part thanks to the same cousin and her whole family who visited me in Barcelona.

Seeing the positive side of any situation is something I love to do with my nutrition clients, cause the truth is that things are never as bad as you think.

Message me if you want to chat.

I hate it when people think that January health and fitness motivation will last them long enough to reach and sustain their goals

It won’t. And well all know it. (Exhibit A: previous years)

If you want to lose weight in a way that it will stay off, it will take time.
If you want to gain muscle, it will take even longer.

Science shows that if you perceive progress, it will fuel your motivation. But if you track progress in kg or body fat percentage you’re not going to see progress quickly.

What if you tracked how you feel instead?

Because what I know both from my nutrition clients and personal experience is that small nutrition changes have an imlediate effect, if you stop and pay attention.

💧 More water and less booze: immediate improvement in sleep quality.
🥦 More fruit and veg and less refined sugar: immediate boost in energy.
🥚 More protein: satiety sorted.

Focus on the small immediate wins and your weight loss/muscle gain will happen (at a normal, slow pace) in the background.

And stop thinking you can do it all by yourself. When you clearly can’t, ask for help. You don’t want to be in the same spot next year.

A beach holiday over ten years ago and my friend Alex, pictured above, turns to me and says: for someone who goes to the gym 4-5 times a week you haven’t got much to show for it.

GASP

Hear me out before you go onto Alex’s profile to hack and/or troll him (I would expect this is how you feel about it him right now)
And let me say, although he’s still my friend despite this episode, I still believe that unrequested comments about someone’s body appearance should be kept to oneself (also if your comment comes from a “good place” or is meant as a compliment)

Despite his complete lack of basic human skills in that particular moment Alex had a point (he’s much better these days 😜)
I was going to the gym to for vanity and the outcome wasn’t there.

There’s a million different reasons one might want to exercise and as much as we like to shame vanity, training for looks is an acceptable reason if that is YOUR reason. Had I been going to the gym for mental health, joint health or socialising I wouldn’t have cared that I didn’t “look the part”, but that’s not why I was going. And telling myself “I go to the gym" made me feel better about “doing something something for my goal", yet didn’t bring me closer to it.
The framework has to be:
What is my goal?
What can I do to achieve it?
Is what I am doing working? (this is where my plan wasn’t working)
Continue or pivot.

And if you want to know the end to my story, I changed the way I trained after that holiday. I did fixed my training and later on improved my nutrition too. I no longer train for vanity though so my goal has changed but the framework remains the same: if what I’m currently doing isn’t getting me closer to where I want to go it might be time to change. Alex is still my friend and I will tell him to S**U if he says anything inappropriate.

If you’re looking for help, get in touch, helping people through nutrition coaching is one of my passions.