Are you struggling to get the results you’re after? Even though you may eat relatively ‘healthy’ and do quite a lot of exercise?
In this article we’ll look at what actually could be the problem and how to actually fix it through the right mindset with nutrition and exercise.

The first thing that must be realised is what the problem actually is that we need to address.

Most people are very confused about this. Some recognise that their belly is getting bigger, they want to change it, and they focus all of their energy on losing weight.

Or for others it’s a health scare that kicks their butt into action and they take all the medicine they can in an attempt to reverse the problem.

The problem is not with your doctor, nor is it with your personal trainer. The real problem here is to do with your metabolism.

Now, I’m not entirely against medicine and I’m certainly not against personal trainers as I am one myself. So I’m not for a second suggesting here to give up seeing your doctor, or your trainer. But what I am saying is that a change of focus is what’s needed in order to truly change, and for this change to be a permanent one.

Firstly it must be recognised that this is a metabolism issue, and all the physical problems you’re experiencing are merely symptoms.

Well, all we really need at the moment is a basic understanding of what this is. So to put it simply, your body is nothing more than just a bag of chemical soup!

There are billions of chemical reactions occurring in your body at any one time, and it’s these reactions that take the stored energy (from the food you eat), and transfers it into usable energy, driving the processes that keep you alive and functioning every day.

What’s more important than understanding exactly what the metabolism is and how it works, is understanding what it’s actually responsible for.

The metabolism determines how we feel, function, and look. So simply put, it’s our metabolism that is responsible for our health, our energy and performance, and our body composition.

What we must know about the metabolism is that it can be reprogrammed. Every single person on this planet has the ability to reprogram their metabolism and experience the benefits from this.

Well it starts with recognising what influences the metabolism, and these first two areas may seem obvious to you: Eating and Exercising.

The biggest influence on our metabolism is actually muscle!

It’s not until we change our mindset to the way we think about these powerful tools of food and exercise, that we can start to reprogram the metabolism to start delivering the results we really want see with our health, the amount of energy we have each day, and of course the way that we look.

We’ve been conditioned to thinking that food is all about calories, or energy. We eat enough calories to get us to our next meal and if we want to lose weight we must eat less, and if we eat more we’ll put on more weight.

I’d like to present to you a new thought, a new way of thinking about food.

A computer is programmed in a certain way. How the computer operates is determined by the data, or information, that gets programmed into it by the computer programmers. If it’s programmed with a virus, it’s probably not going to do what we want it to, and if it’s programmed correctly it can run effectively.

The same goes with your physical body, or metabolism. And you are the programmer!

Every time you eat, you are programming your metabolism by the data you put into it. Here is your new mindset to food – Food is Metabolic Information!

So getting back to our conditioning that’s led us to seeing food merely as energy, the approach of deprivation that most health and fat-loss strategies seem to be based upon will only deliver short-lived results and will cause long-term problems.

Deprivation is not the answer! Research tells us that the average Australian has no more than 5 food choices in their week. When we’re told to cut out fats, cut carbs, or other things, there’s not much we’re left with.

Rather than trying to cut this or cut that, a better solution is to expand your food choices. Try some new recipes, experiment with alternative snacks, flavors, textures, colors, and you’ll be amazed by the delicious things you encounter.

Expand your choices with options that don’t come in a packet. If it comes in a packet, it’s likely to contain many ingredients as well as having gone through many processes, leaving the food calorie dense and nutrient scarce.

Look for ways of eating more, not less. Expand your choices, and get out of the ‘packet food rut’!

Let’s have a quick look at what exercise actually is. It’s a powerful tool that can be utilised in such a way of programming the metabolism to burn fat fast, to optimise health, and to boost energy. It can however, do the complete opposite if it’s abused. So it’s very important to know how to use this powerful tool in the right way!

Many view exercise as a ‘trade-off’ for the food they consume, which is why most gyms are busy on a Monday and relatively quiet on a Friday…

The over indulgence on calorie dense food and then trying to burn it off with exercise approach is not a great one, and I’ll explain why. Consider that even the most intense exercise will burn about 10 calories a minute, and that a burger and fries can easily contain over 1,000 calories, and that’s just one meal!

We must shift the mindset from exercise being about expending calories, to understanding that the purpose of exercise is to create a stimulus to achieve the desired outcome. And the great news is that it doesn’t take a lot of time to create this stimulus.

There is a big difference between fitness and fat-loss. If you’ve ever seen one of those athletes who spend most of their week training and still hold a lot of body fat you’ll understand what I’m talking about.

Here’s an example.

Structured bursts of maximum effort workloads (followed by lesser effort recovery periods) for just 20 minutes are shown in research to achieve three times the fat loss compared to exercising at a regular pace for 40 minutes or longer.

That’s three times the fat loss, in half the time!

We must be clear on what is the desired outcome of each workout. Is it to be able to improve endurance, to burn more calories, or to create a stimulus that blasts fat?

Exercise smarter. Get more out of every single minute you invest working out. And if you currently don’t exercise, plan out your week better to fit it in, make it a priority, tap into this powerful tool.

I’ve shared about what the real problem is that needs to be addressed, and even when you know exactly how this all works and even how to do it, you’ll be setting yourself up for failure if the correct mindset isn’t established right from the start.

Success in taking control of your health, and creating a great body all starts with taking on the right mindset. The first part of this is recognising that things aren’t the way we want them to be, and taking full responsibility for this. By taking full ‘response-ability’ you recognise your ‘ability’ to ‘respond’ to how things are. Too often we focus on the ‘whatabouts’, “What about my disease, what about my limitation, etc.” We must put these aside and shift the focus to what we can take control of and what we can do.

Think for a moment about the most important areas in your life. Perhaps your career, your personal relationship, raising your family, sports, hobbies, or spiritual life. All of the areas of life that are important to you typically will have one thing in common; they all require consistent work in order to be successful. Neglect followed by a simple quick-fix approach will not work. If this approach was taken in these areas your relationship would fall apart, your business would not survive, you’ll never be great at your chosen sport, etc.

It’s imperative to stop assuming that the area of health is any different. To be successful in getting your health under control and achieving the body you want, you must set this as a priority and something that’s important. And therefore recognise that it’s an area that’s going to take consistent effort in order to achieve success.

I challenge you to make the commitment!

The next part of this is actually recognising when your body is in great shape and your health on track, every single other area in your life is affected. My personal belief is that our physical body is the most important area, because when our health suffers everything suffers and when our health is optimal everything becomes easier and more successful.

By now you’ve hopefully changed your mindset in terms of recognising that the challenges you face are actually just symptoms of something greater, the metabolism, and you now have a basic understanding of what this is. You’re now aware of what the metabolism is responsible for and more importantly, how to influence it and reprogram it to deliver results in health, body shape and performance.

The way you think about both food and exercise may be quite different now, and having this new understanding of these powerful tools will change the way you use them.

Hopefully now you’re recognising that this area of health needs to become of importance and that it’s going to have to become a priority that requires consistent efforts to gain control of.

After making the decision that your health is an important area of your life and therefore committing to making it a priority in your lifestyle, you can now start taking some practical steps to make the change.

If you are someone who is prepared to make the commitment to take action on creating the results you really want, I’d love to meet with you and chat about what it is you want to achieve, learn your obstacles and challenges and create a plan for you to overcome them and start living in the body you deserve.

Written by Stephen Wakelam, Personal Trainer, South Pacific Health Clubs St Kilda Sea Baths

Contact details

Stephen@metabolicnutritioncoach.com

0432 088 524