Next week here in Australia we have a few public holidays for the Christian tradition of Christmas.

And for some people it can be all a bit hard with a lack of routine, different foods, no alarms, an unusual work schedule, travel, etc.

Over the years I have seen personal trainers and coaches telling people to do this and that at Christmas to avoid all the ‘bad’ foods.

Well, that is crap. 

One: There is no such thing as a ‘bad’ food. Sure some foods should be consumed sparingly, think fast food, takeaway etc, but it still doesn’t make them bad.

Two: if you have eaten healthy and done a good amount of exercise in the 51 weeks between 2nd Jan 2024  and 23rd Dec 2024 then the week between 24th Dec 2024 and 2nd Jan 2025 is a great time to just relax a bit. To savour. To enjoy.

To me this time of year is a good time to recharge.

If you have taken yourself super serious this year, you are more than allowed to have a little time to sit back and laugh.

If you have weighed and measured foods, you might allow yourself to just have a little bit of nan’s Christmas pudding.

Have you trained consistently all year long? Well you could reel it back in and go easy for this week.

My main point here is that lots of people can get worked up about all the ‘extra calories’, the sleep ins, the lack of routine, the downtime. But if you have had a prolonged period of being switched on, you need a little time to just breathe, to relax and enjoy the moment.

This time of year isn’t about punishing yourself, or denying yourself the time to enjoy family and friends, and if that involves some relaxation on your exercise and nutrition regimes, it is AOK.

So this festive season enjoy yourself, relax a little, don’t beat yourself up over having some Baileys custard, or a bit of ice cream and pudding.

The extra few prawns or that bonus slice of ham aren’t going to bring all of your efforts undone.

Keep moving, go for walks, do an easier workout than normal, but just move your body for the next week or so, see how it feels and recovers.

You will be able to get back into it as soon as all the irregularities are done. Life will go back to what it was pre Christmas once work returns, the gym is in full flight and all the Christmas stuff is off the shelves at the supermarket. 

Oh, yeah, Hot X buns will appear then haha.

I have written about doing your 2024 wrapped.

So I thought, I better do mine.

And well, 2024 was a much better 12 month period for me than 2023 was. And really that is all I can ask for, hey?

From Oct 2019 until November 2024 was an incredible roller coaster.

Lockdowns, rumours, losses, and through a lot of that I just sort of lost myself a bit.
I lost my way with nutrition, training, learning, and generally became pretty guarded.

I was just sort of floating around.

Jodie had been diagnosed with a couple of different kinds of arthritis and coeliac disease.

So I went into my caretaker mode, which meant I made sure everyone around me was OK. Jodie, Georgia, all the members at CFA. But I forgot that it is all well and good to be a caretaker, but you can’t perform that role if you aren’t at your best.

I had allowed the pandemic, increased market pressures in town, the losses of four people close to me in the space of four months, financial pressures, rumours, to all get the better of me and allow myself to neglect myself.

So this year I set about sorting it out.

It wasn’t just a ‘hey, it’s January let’s do this!’, for those that know me, I am not at all a New Years Resolution person. It was more that I looked at my state, was honest with myself and did an audit on me.

I had been inconsistent with what I was eating, my sleep patterns were shithouse, I had not been hitting my workouts with intensity, and I had not prioritised the right things to do at work each week.

I knew what to do, so I used my coach (yes I have a coach) to keep me accountable to my plans, but mostly to keep me accountable to myself.

Am I where I want to be right now? Mostly I am. And I think that is a good way to be. If I am ever completely satisfied I may not go on to do more. I might just rest on my laurels. I have done that before. The fall is not at all graceful.

So you might be reading thinking, ‘gawd mate you are bit of a bloody bore talking all this shit about yourself.’ but I am only telling this to you so that you can see that sometimes we fall off by the wayside. All of us, we don’t look after ourselves like we should, but we can get back on track, in a decent way, in a reasonable amount of time. And really a year is not a long time.

When I think back to Dec 2023, I was really struggling, but I had to hold on for those around me. I had to be resilient, and it took a quick look to realise that to do that, I had to look after myself.

Move
Eat
Sleep
Head

Or MESH, came from this.

Each day am I doing something to Move, toe Eat well, to Sleep better, ande to have a better Headspace?

Each day, I audit these things, I assess and evaluate and then make the necessary adjustments to be better.

Those four simple things have helped me get right back on track and still be here, still be doing all the things, still enjoying each day, seeing the beauty in each sunrise, still being able to open the doors of the business here each day, still see those I care about, still find joy in so many things.

So this next twelve months, instead of just living by the MESH model I am really going to help you all use it to find your way to the place you want to be at this time next year.

2024 Wrapped

All over social media today, and it seems like it will be for a few days, is everyone’s Spotify Wrapped.

If you are unfamiliar, it is all the songs, stories, podcasts etc you listened to over the past year on Spotify bundled up and put in a playlist and little slideshow.

And now I am seeing a few other social media accounts doing their own joke version of it, footy clubs, retail stores etc.

Well how about you do your own little Wrapped? How many times did you go for a walk? Read a book? Hit the gym? Drink enough water for the day? How many movies did you watch with your family? How many bushwalks? How many times did you mow the lawn? Do the dishes? Put on loads of washing?

 

All of these tasks add up.

 

Some are pleasant, others, not so much. So where did you spend most of your time? And is it where you wanted to spend it?

Ie, did you have a plan for 2024 to be your year? The one where you got onto a fitness regime? Ate better? Started cycling? Playing squash again? Decided to take a cold plunge every day??!!
When you look back at your year did you do what you set out to do? Did you get some of the way there? Or did life, like it does, throw a spanner in the works? 

 

If you got there. Sensational! Got some of the way there. Solid effort to accomplish what you did. Life got in the way. That is OK, setbacks can be opportunities.

 

If you didn’t get there and things went horrible you can look to next week, not next year, and see what you can do. Can you get a new water bottle and sip a bit more each day? Can you go for a walk with the dog one afternoon next week? Can you jump on a phone call and talk to someone like me about a plan? 

Any of those small steps will start you in the direction you might have intended at the start of the year.

 

Whenever we see someone else’s change we only notice the leaps and bounds, never the little steps, like 200 more mls of water a day. The boring but tiny steps.

Yes those tiny steps will add up, just a little one each day or week. Layer each one on to the next and in 12 months time when we are seeing all the Spotify Wrappeds for 2025 you will be able to look back and see your own wrapped has a very different look to it.

Do you give yourself grace?

 

The all or nothing mentality. It can work sometimes, but seldom does when it comes to looking after ourselves.

Have you ever gone on a diet? (I actually don’t like to use that word!) And then one day on that diet you ‘messed up’? Had a Tim Tam, a Snickers, a few chips, or bikkies and dip? And then said ‘Ah!!! My diet is ruined!!’ And proceeded to go completely off task and eat everything and anything in your path!!

Or set a New Year’s resolution only to miss one morning, and then get all annoyed at yourself and think ‘Why can’t I just do it? Next year I will, this year is done!!!’

 

In times like these you need to reframe it and give yourself some grace.

 

Name an area of your life where you have been absolutely perfect in it your whole life, you have never made an error, never even slipped up slightly. I’ll wait.

There is likely no area of life where we never make an error or have a setback.

We have all messed up at work, performed not so well on an exam or assignment at school, were late to an appointment, let someone down in a friendship, relationship, etc. Yet we have made up for it, we didn’t just keep on with what we were doing by messing up or erring, we made adjustments and saw that the error may have been an opportunity to grow.

We can view a missed workout, or a Tim Tam as just that. So what if you one morning out of seven hit the snooze button because you needed an extra 30 mins sleep? This is an opportunity to look at your sleep habits, maybe you are also going to bed too late or using tech too close to bedtime. You can go to bed earlier that night, and then go for a run tomorrow morning!

 

So you had that Tim Tam at morning tea, maybe even three of them. You can just have the regular lunch you planned, a small treat here and there like that won’t derail all of your nutrition efforts. Maybe it is showing you you need to adjust how much you are actually eating. Is it really enough for what you are doing?

 

So, next time you ‘slip up’, miss a workout, sleep in, whatever, give yourself a little grace and see where the opportunity lies in learning from your efforts and behaviours.

Have you Crammed for an exam?

It is the week before your final exams for the year, you look at your texts and think ‘How will I know everything I need to for the exam??!!’ So you open the book, make notes, highlight, do practice exams and the final night you are still reading over everything and thinking ‘Arrrgggh, I should have started sooner!!’

Well, I have seen plenty of people ‘cram’ their fitness.

They have waited for a huge event, a wedding, a reunion, something that seems important to them to be in shape for. And they push hard!

And they scrape into what they think they wanted, and after the event, they mostly go back to old habits. Because 1: They didn’t train long enough to maintain the habit 2: They don’t have a subsequent goal to achieve 3: Their short burst sprint was HARD, like really hard, and it cannot be maintained long term.

 

So what is the answer if you haven’t started an exercise regime this close to Christmas and the New Year?

Start now anyway, but don’t go into it thinking ‘I am going to lose 10 kilos by 31st Dec!’

Look at it as I am getting a start now, to cash in on my fitness in a year’s time.

 

Think back to November last year, it wasn’t long ago hey?

Now think, if you start moving now and doing something, anything, where could you be this time next year?

With just a little more each week you will have changed so much in a year’s time, your health markers will be better, your home life much better, work easier, and your love life will be very different!

 

I would love to have you say that you don’t want to cram your health, that you want to improve it, long term, ie for as long as you are actually capable.

And well, that starts now. Right now.

There are two best times to start looking after your health and fitness, five years ago and right now.

 

So hit me up, see how I can help get you started.

 

Do you put yourself first or do you allow other things in the way?

Anything. Work, clubs, social commitments, other peoples commitments!

So are you doing what you can for you that will allow you to help those around you like your family, friends, kids, etc?

I know the headline was quite clickbaity, but hopefully it grabbed your attention.

Us humans are actually pretty damn good at putting others wants and needs before our own, and sometimes to our own detriment.

 

I am not saying here that you need to be a selfish narcissist! I am pointing out that we can do something between being other people’s doormats and being an absolute Patrick Bateman!

We can put things in our calendars for us and treat them like a work meeting or a Drs appointment, as in, they are not negotiable! 

And not just your exercise regime.

It might be lunch in the park with a mate on Thursdays, a coffee with a work colleague each week before going into work, reading 10 pages of a book each day, going for a walk on the weekend, playing D’n’D with your friends, picking up your musical instrument at the same time each night, playing Mario Cart with your kids, go to bed a little earlier to get the rest you actually need, the list goes on. This isn’t saying do all of these! But do what you know you need to be a better person for yourself and those around you.

The saying you can’t pour from an empty cup gets used a lot more presently, and it is so very cliche, but it is true.

If you are someone that keeps putting others first you may start to resent them, you will start to get tired, lethargic, even unwell.

And to rectify that it is as simple as blocking off your time and sticking to it.

Guard that gym time from everything!

Defend your coffee time with Colin from accounts!!

Read your book and switch the phone off!

Forget time and enjoy Mario Kart with the family!!

You just need to set these times aside to start with.

And there is no better time than to start now.

If you do it now, by Christmas it will feel old hand and you, you will feel so much better than yesterday each day!

Facebook is a pretty funny place. 

It can have people get all up in arms and angry and it can provide some very happy memories.

And the latter happened to me this last week or so. I sometimes cringe when I see what I wrote as a status update ‘On this day 12 years ago’ or a pic of me with my mutton chops sideburns in 2007 makes an appearance. But this time, it was a great little ‘Oh wow!’ moment.

 

It popped up that 15 years ago I had gone out and taken a leap of faith to pursue a career in the fitness industry completely.

I had a few clients, I had a ute with some gear in it to travel around to their house or run a group session at Bruce Browning Oval or Rugby League Park. I had been told by the education providers in their marketing I would be able to make my own hours! I could, I found out. They just had to be at 6am and 6pm most days haha. Life was pretty good!

 

That was 2009.

 

Then in 2010, I had a car accident. Someone pulled out in front of me as I was going to get some marketing materials from the old uni printery, and the mobile PT business wasn’t mobile anymore.

So this constantly varied thing again. I had adapted the last year and a half, added groups, set a sort of base, but now, it was I needed somewhere! So we set about finding that place and the first fully private PT studio was started in Armidale.

Before then it was all in the gyms around town, out in the public eye.

And this was my thing. I always wanted to do what others weren’t. I didn’t want to copy anyone, I didn’t want to steal clients, I wanted to grow the fitness market in Armidale and in turn help more people. 

 

So as more people began private personal training around town, and doing it really well! I went towards CrossFit.

 

So in 2012, we launched CrossFit Armidale and started not just Armidales, but pretty well the New England and North West’s first functional fitness facility, premier if you will.

I was, and still am very big on adapting and changing, yet at the same time, doing what you do best. It was with CrossFit I discovered that I could help and train so many more people than I could any other way. It worked for me, and it was working for my members. I drank the Kool Aid hard!

 

And so, 15 years of doing this little training thing, here we are, 2024.

 

I have seen others tell people what we do is bad for them, then construct workouts similar to what CrossFit might be, and even use some of our benchmarks.

I have kept doing this methodology, I have helped people with it, I have seen people do amazing things. I have watched members head to other cities and towns and join the CrossFit boxes there and still love it.

The thing through absolutely all of that has been the community, the people.

CrossFit is unique in that the people from the official affiliates around the world are some of the most supportive people I have ever met.

There were times I really struggled. We were locked down, other people tried to white ant us, locked down again, and just all the head trash that comes with that.

And it was the people, you all kept me going, you all had a place in my heart and I knew I had to pick myself up time and again and ensure we were there for you.

 

People rely on us in the fitness industry, and to me it is my job to help people and be there for them. I couldn’t do that if I didn’t keep picking myself back up, and I would have let you all down.

I have constantly said I will keep going, I will find a way, and so far, for the last twelve and a half years, I have managed to find a way.

 

So yes we are still CrossFit, yes we still practice that methodology, but the program has changed, I have learnt, I have adapted and all for you, the people that entrust me with their health and fitness. I promise you all I will keep finding ways using  the CrossFit methodology and community to help you all be better than yesterday in every way, shape, and form.

 

You want the silver bullet, the magic wand, the one thing that will get you where you want to be.

Being fit and healthy really is simple, not easy, but simple.

Move well and with intention

Eat plenty of veggies, some fruit, protein and some good fats day to day.

Sleep for around 7 to 9 hrs each night.

Head, keep it learning, growing, aware and able to relax and unwind when needed.

 

Simple right?

But it’s not easy.

We can do all of this, or even some of it, and improve each day.

Life has a lot of distractions. Weddings, injuries, illnesses, kids birthdays, sport commitments, social commitments, overtime at work. All of these are important no doubt, but they can actually distract us from what we want for our health and wellbeing.

 

And the main thing they distract us from is being consistent with our routine.

 

Have you heard yourself say things like ‘Oh I can just grab takeaway tonight, I have nothing ready for dinner’

Or ‘I didn’t get to bed on time, so I will miss the gym today, couldn’t possibly go in the afternoon.’

And ‘I have been unwell, it is natural to have to rest because of that.’

Now saying these things here and there isn’t an issue. It is when it becomes more often than not that the problems start. These become the thing you are consistent with!

 

Can you replace them with something like? ‘It is super simple to grab a couple of things from the supermarket and whip up a quick salad for dinner tonight’

‘I need that extra sleep this morning, but I have my gym bag packed. I will take it to work and get a session done this afternoon.’ 

‘Yes I was unwell, but that was a month ago, I can actually get back to it now for sure’ (this last one is me by the way!)

I have been super consistent this last couple of years with my training. Doing sessions when I can fit them in so I can coach sessions and not miss out. BUT! I was not consistent with communicating everything here with you all. And that means I have let you all down.

To me, I need to keep giving you guys plenty of info and help to see that Armidale becomes one of the healthiest rural cities in Australia. Letting and illness I suffered in June (I had Influenza A for those that don’t know) get in the way of writing a weekly blog an helping you all get better to me was really bad.

I left you high and dry. No words of assistance, no drive forward.

So I am sorry for that. It is on me and I am the one that harps on about consistency, and here I wasn’t being consistent.

So my thing, from now until Christmas is at least one blog a week, one reel for how you can do one small thing a week to get you to be better than yesterday.

You reading this are my accountability.

If you don’t have a weekly update from me by Thursday each week, shoot me an email, text, or DM via the gram and I will get onto it again.

Enough woe is me though! There are eight more Thursdays before Christmas, that means for you it will be eight more ways to be better than yesterday.

CrossFit at its core is defined as Constantly Varied, Functional Movements, performed at High Intensity.

That first part to me is pretty important.

Constantly Varied.

What else is pretty well constantly varied?

Life.

And that is why the constantly varied part of CrossFit is something I love so much. It prepares us for so much.

We are constantly thrown curveballs in life.

Car repairs, vet bills, doctors visits, kids sick, a work colleague quits and you have to pick up the slack, relationships ending what they once were, the list goes on. 

And through all of those constantly varied events, we keep going, we adapt.

In time what was once a major upheaval for us looks like a blip on the radar of the past.

So for me, about 13 years ago, I had the upheaval of going from a regular old gym program of bis and tris, leg day, chest and back, etc to this new thing called CrossFit. Well it wasn’t THAT new, but was for me. And at the time the upheaval was huge!

I was moving things around the gym, trying to find space, I was constantly worried ‘Would this work?’ ‘Does anyone else in town want to join me?’ It was scary to change at that time.

Some people didn’t talk to me again from within the fitness industry, CrossFit was so maligned back then. Others told me I was nuts, some said ah it will never last, it is a fad, and you will just get injured.

And here I am 13 years later, still CrossFitting, still not injured, better off than I ever have been. Because I lent into that constantly varied aspect of life and business back then.

I took a chance on something different, not completely different, just a little really, and that something different proved to be so much better than I ever could have imagined.

We have now coached thousands of hours, trained similarly, helped hundreds and hundreds of people get fitter, stronger and better than yesterday. All because I accepted that life is constantly varied and went with it.

What can you vary slightly today?

You will be surprised how good it is when you do.

I remember this being a catchphrase when I was a kid in the 80’s and 90’s, can never remember where it came from, but it just always sticks in my mind.

When it comes to training I have seen plenty of people go by this adage, and plenty become unstuck by it.

There is a commonly held belief that is actually a myth, that you need to end up in a pool of sweat, gasping for breath, hot, bothered and feeling really taxed for a workout to be any good.

MYTH??

Now I have seen this myth propagated by the fitness industry time and time again, and at times I will admit, I thought it was the right way to go (well, back in to ‘00s when I was just starting and knew no better.).

Realistically an all out, high intensity effort should only be hit maybe three times in a week. The other two to three training sessions should be light to moderate intensity at the most. 

How much then?

A bunch of research has been done on high intensity training over the years, and most of it has concluded that 30-40 mins (cumulative) is what you should be aiming for each week.

That is an effort at 85-90% capacity! So it is going pretty hard the whole way!

Now this is part of my love of the CrossFit methodology. Most of our workouts are between the 5 and 12 minute mark in length. This allows for maximum effort in that time, you do three or more of these a week and bingo! You are at that 30-40 mins cumulative per week.

Now, you also should not be smashing yourself each day in a row. And the original CrossFit method knew this, hence the three on days one off, short high intensity days interspersed with longer steady state efforts and heavy days.

It should be built in

So right from the beginning with CrossFit I would see a day where I would go all out! Super hard!!! Then the next day would be a steady state for 20 or 30 mins and I would finish feeling like I could do more, which was the goal that day.

Most of us aren’t professional athletes, we are people that go to work, have a family and social life and just want to be healthy. So we don’t need to smash ourselves into the ground every single day.

A solid exercise program should have three tough, all out efforts in it per week, and two to three lighter efforts, and at least one full rest day, maybe two.

Rest!!! You need it!!!

Yes, full rest days, a light swim, bike ride or walk should be the most that happens on that rest day outside your regular activities. You need to recover, you need those lighter days, otherwise your exercise program designed to have you be fit and healthy could start to push you in the opposite direction!

 

If you think you have been going a bit too hard, or are feeling a bit run down and tired even though you are working out regularly and it sort of doesn’t feel right, drop me a line and we can sit down, have a chat and assess what you need to do to keep making progress.