Give yourself a break.

It's that time of the year when half the population is eating their body weight in chocolate and promising themselves they are going to get fit and lose in January.

And another smaller group of people are panicking that they will not be able to go the gym on Christmas Day and Boxing Day, wondering when they will fit in arm day. And waking up in a cold sweat about their fat percentage increasing by 1% when the ambassador offers them one more ferrero rocher.

Why yes ambassador I will have another Ferrero Rocher (and tomorrow I will spend 3 hours in the gym guilt ridden).

This is aimed at the second group of people.

A break from training for a week or so will not make any difference unless:-

• You are training for the 2018 Olympics.
• You have a 100 mile race in late January.
• You are stepping on stage and need to be contest ready in the middle of January.

If none of these apply give yourself a break.

A break will do you good.

This a good time for a deload week or two. Go easy, have some back off sessions, no heavy lifting, or if you are a runner some easy runs.

You may not be near your usual gym or usual running routes. Take some time to do something different. Do the opposite of what you normally do, if you normally lift heavy go for a jog or a run, if you normally do endurance work then do some body weight work or mobility.

If you normally train 4 or 5 times a week and can't guarantee your normal routine or you're not sure how many times a week you can train then go total body.

For example, pick one exercise from each of the following:

Vertical Pull

Vertical Push

Horizontal Pull

Horizontal Push

Quad dominant

Hip Dominant

Accessory - core/ arms/ whatever

Which could be something like:-

Latpulldown

Dumbbell shoulder press

Seated Row

Lunge or goblet squat

Leg curl or dumbbell RDL

Plank or some bicep/ tricep supersets

2-3 sets of 10 to 15 reps.

Or if you don't have access to any equipment then try a simple body weight routine:

Press up

Body weight squat

Do a simple a ladder up routine, 1 rep of each then 2,3,4,5,6 up to 20.

Other things to consider:

A simple Christmas mobility routine, you spend days on end sitting down in a chair or in car stuck in traffic or stooped over a stove (or over a pint), time to reverse posture.

Something like:

Cat camel

Bird dog

Downward dog

Updog

Spidermans with overhead reach

Half kneeling hip flexor stretch with over head reach

Sit back into hamstring/ half splits stretch

Finish in puppy dog pose.

This is the type of routine you can bust out in your Christmas jumper. (In fact I will film it later this week and post it up).

But most importantly - ITS OKAY TO TAKE A DAY OFF!

Think outside the box.

You are in a house that has been centrally heated to the same temperature as the Sahara. This is a chance to do some heat acclimatization training for that desert race you have been considering. Put on your running kit and rucksack and run up and down the stairs.

Mass building phase. Been trying to bulk up and put on weight but can never get enough calories in? Now is your chance, you should have protein and carbs coming out of your ears. For once you can hit those 6000 calories. Train hard up to until Christmas day, over reach as  much as possible, then sit back and let the super-compensation happen while you watch you favourite Christmas film. You are literally resting for mass. Your biceps and quads will be growing as you lay there with the meat sweats.

How much does that turkey weigh? Quick press it over head for maximum reps before putting it in the oven, a chance for a sneaky shoulder workout.

Always wanted to get photo shoot ready? Now's your chance. Go low carb for the week before hand. Then start drinking alcohol from 8am Christmas day, bucks fizz, wine and beer should dehydrate you nicely combined with the indoor greenhouse, then add in all those carbs. Next thing you know, your muscles have refilled with glycogen, all the water has been drawn out from under your skin, you will be pumped and ripped and all you need to do is find someone to give you a fake tan on Boxing Day and get ready for that photoshoot. (Ask for a fake tanning kit as a gift, problem solved).

Burpee drink penalty. Every time you have a drink do 10 burpees.

Exercise food label. Use your Christmas gift tags to label the exact number of minutes of exercise it will take to burn off the calories in the food. Yes, labelling every Quality Street or Heroes will take some time.

Sleep penalty. First person to fall asleep has to do 50 mountain climbers or is made to join a crossfit gym in the new year.

Christmas cracker exercises. Get those crackers that you can put your own gifts and jokes in. Instead of jokes put in exercise routines. What better way to start dinner than 25 jumping jacks.

Television penalty. If anyone mentions any soap opera christmas special, 1000 burpee penalty. Enforce this.

Exercise charades. You have to mime a sport and everyone has to guess which one. For crossfitters, WOD charades, you start doing a WOD and everyone has to guess which one, of course that is Kelly or is that Fran? Wear the crossfit gear you got as a present while you do this.

Weighted cups and cutlery. You can be working on your biceps all day long. A great stocking filler.

Baileys protein shake. Of course you can put Baileys in a protein shake. And yes, I've now decided this is a real thing.

Protein eggnog. See above.

Alternatively, relax. Don't be so hard on yourself. Go for a walk in the fresh air. Don't get too stressed. All your progress will not be undone in one week. Consistency always wins, if you're consistent the rest of the year, give yourself a well earned break and enjoy yourself.

Christmas dinner is basically lean meat and vegetables. And if you are in the UK Boxing Day is more lean meats and vegetables.

All the stats about people putting on weight at Christmas and never losing it are about sedentary people with crappy diets all year round.

And as long as you don't drink until your liver dissolves or eat until you go into insulin shock, you'll be okay.

And hey, there's always next year.

May the Kwanzaa-bot bring you everything you wished for.

Happy Christmas one and all.

Who Are You? The type of person who exercises?

You hear it all the time:

I'm no good at maths
I can't run
I'm no good with computers
I can't do this or that
I'm no good at learning languages
I'm not that type of person
I'm not a gym person
I'm more of a .....insert here what you believe you are... type of person.

Only yesterday I heard a guy in a coffee shop tell his friend he didn't have an ear for languages. And yet, he had learned one language fluently, the one he was speaking. He then told his friend he had an A-level in French. Despite this he had decided he was the type of person who was not good at learning languages.

At what point did you decide that was the type of person you were?
At what point did you decide there was a certain skill set you did not posses or there was a certain skill set that was your strong point?
Were you a child or a teenager? At what point did you think this is me?
And how many times have you changed your mind as an adult?

People adopt a series of habits and patterns and rituals and they become them.

Professor Michael Puett in his book The Path, about how we can apply some of the lessons of ancient Chinese philosophy to our modern lives, states

"What we in the West define as the true self is actually patterns of continuous responses to people and the world; patterns that have built up over time. For example, you might think, I'm just the type of person who gets annoyed easily. On the contrary, it's more likely that you have become the kind of person who does get irritated over minor things because of how you've interacted with people for years. But that's not because you are, in fact, such a person." (p.43)

A bad experience with maths or PE at school and that's you for life. Suddenly you are the type of person who doesn't like exercise or running.

Also, its easy, if that's who you are, then you never have to change, its just the type of person you are, its not your fault, you don't have to try new things.

Now this doesn't mean you have to try everything new thing in the world, every new activity. You don't have to be 'good' at everything and 'like' everything. For example, I'm never playing golf or watching Britains Got Talent.

Also, I'm not saying you have to be excellent at everything. There is a lot of ground in between saying 'I can't run' and being Mo Farah. And if you're not 7 foot tall you're probably not going to play in the NBA but you can still enjoy basketball.

However, don't dismiss activities because they may be hard or push you out of your comfort zone.

How many people leave school and never learn anything new? The pattern is set. It congeals and rusts.

You learned a series of habits and rituals and you accept them, you greet people in a certain way, in the West you use a knife and fork to eat, you drive on a certain side of the road - these were all learned - they are not you.

"We cling to a fixed idea of who we are and it cripples us. Nothing and no one is fixed." - Pema Chodron (2001)

There is no core self. It changes all the time. In the words of Chuck Palahniuk

But this means at any time you could start to choose something else, pick different 'china patterns', sit in a different place, brush your teeth with the wrong hand, be the type of person who buys a bicycle and cycles to work!

Was your view on the world and personality set by 16 years old by a few teachers, parents and friends. It doesn't mean you have to reject all this, and form a whole new personality, but don't be limited, build on this.

As a kid you learned the most complex things possible - how to walk, talk and read. And then at certain point many adults think, well I'm an adult now, I don't have try things that I may fail at or make me look 'bad', I will not push the envelope, I will seal it up and stay inside of it.

And if you only perceive the world in a certain way, and have already decided that you are not the type of person who takes up cycling or goes to a yoga, where does that leave you?

"But remember that who you think you are - and especially what you think is 'you' when you are making decisions - is usually just a set of patterns you've fallen into." (Puett & Gross- Loh, 2016).

And before you know it you never push out of your comfort zone or try something new.

Learning new things is fantastic for your brain health, learning new languages and new skills makes your brain form new connections. And the other thing that is good for brain health is exercise.

And this is where exercise rears its head. So many people like the idea of say running or being 'fit', but no, I can't do that, I'm not fit enough to go to a gym (cue flashback to running around a field in the snow at school while half the class hide behind the cricket pavilion for a smoke).

Its not easy.

Even confident successful people can crumble when faced with a new skill. Only the other day I was showing a lady around the gym, she was confident in herself, knew she wanted to get fit, she went on the cardio machines no problem, a few resistance machines no problem. Then we tried a goblet squat with a kettlebell, we were standing in the dreaded freeweights area. Her technique needed a bit of work, she couldn't get it straight away like she had on the machines. She was pitching forward a bit, had a bit of knee collapse. I gave her a bit of coaching, said not to worry, it was a new movement, just practice a bit and she would get it after a few sessions. But no, for her this was disastrous.

The next session in the gym she was adamant she did not like the goblet squat, did not want to do it again, despite the fact at this point she had probably only done 20 reps total in her life, and spent 2 minutes on the exercises. But because she had not grasped the technique and skill instantaneously she did not want to continue.

I have had a similar thing even on cardio equipment, a cross trainer that's a bit different to what people are used to, you say you just need to do this and this, and the technique needs a bit of work and next thing they are saying 'I don't like this machine I want to get off', after 90 seconds. This is code for 'I didn't come here to learn a new skill, or feel like you are judging me, or to look like I can't do something, I am adult now, I don't need anyone to teach me anything'.

What they expected and reality don't match and their brain doesn't like it, the ego kicks in, fear kicks in.

It is hard to break habits, set new patterns and learn new things, as Anders Ericsson says in his book Peak

"Getting started is easy, as anyone who has visited a gym after New Year's knows. You decide that you want to get in shape or learn to play the guitar or pick up a new language, and so you jump right in...Then after a while, reality hits. It'd hard to find the time to work out or practice as much as you should... you start missing sessions. You're not improving... It's why gyms that are were crowded in January are only half full in July. So that's the problem in a nutshell: purposeful practice is hard." (kindle edition of the book)

But as adults, its easy to duck out, no one is making us go back to school or go to the gym. The television and social media feeds are waiting to anaesthetize us as the end of another hard day.

My friend is learning to play guitar, its hard, he's an adult with a job. I can explain and show him things on the guitar which are easy to me, because I learned them when I was a teenager. Conversely, this same friend is a very good rock climber, he has been climbing for years. I'm trying to be better at climbing, but compared to him I'm terrible. He can free climb something in his flip flops which looks like El Capitan to me. But we are both trying to push out of our comfort zone, willing to fail and let go of that ego a little bit.

Ericsson talks about practice

"The hallmark of purposeful or deliberate practice is that you try to do something you cannot do - that takes you out of your comfort zone - and that you practice it over and over again, focusing on exactly how you are doing it, where you are falling short, and how you can get better. Real life - our jobs, our schooling, our hobbies - seldom gives us the opportunity for this sort of focused repetition..."

Fitness is a skill, many people perceive themselves as time poor, I don't have time to learn these exercises, I just need to get fit and lose weight. This is missing the point. They don't want it to be a skill or a process, they don't really want to change anything.

The future is wide open.

Something inside us likes the world to be stable and fixed, but if you never explore new things you may never find parts of you that you never knew existed. You go to a zumba class and suddenly find out you love dancing, you avoided swimming your whole life because you lacked confidence, you get a few lessons and suddenly you enjoy going for a swim to clear your head and like using the pool on holiday. You get the idea.

As coaches, it is up to us to show this to clients.

In 2009 I walked into a book shop in London and bought a book by Christopher McDougall. It was about a sport I hardly knew anything about; ultra running. Then a few years later I saw one of the lead protagonists talk in London. A couple of years after that I went to Leadville and run a 100 miles in a race that seemed mythical and for super humans to me 5 years before. If I had a fixed idea of who I was none of this would have happened.

Its funny how things end up.

So the final word to that person I saw talk in London, Caballo Blanco. During the talk someone asked him 'Can anyone run 100 miles?'. He answered 'If they want to'.

Can you be the type of person who exercises?
If you want to.

Can you change?
If you want to.
This applies to all things.

References.

For my tribute to Caballo and my thoughts when I went to see him talk
http://lostinfitness.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/micah-true-is-gone-caballo-blanco-runs.html
http://lostinfitness.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/evening-with-caballo-blanco-you-know.html

On why it is hard to form a new habit and how to do it
http://lostinfitness.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/forming-new-habits-how-long-will-you.html

On how habits are embedded in your memory and how you become them
http://lostinfitness.blogspot.co.uk/2017/02/forming-new-habits-part-4-memory.html

On habits and choices
http://lostinfitness.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/forming-new-habits-part-5-choice.html

Michael Puett & Christine Gross-Loh (2016) The Path.

Anders Ericsson & Robert Pool. Peak, Secrets from the new science of expertise. Kindle edition quoted.

Pema Chodron (2001) The places that scare you.

Forming new habits. Part 5: Choice.

For part 2, 3 and 4 go here, here and here

Why do you make the choices you make?

Why do some people choose to exercise and eat healthily and others don't.

Every day you are exposed to an enormous amount of information. According to Plassman et al (2012)

"Each second we are exposed to an estimated 11 millions bits of information that reach us through our senses, yet humans are capable of processing only around 50 bits of that information."

Think about that for a second (and if you did, 11 millions bits of information were just missed by you). Your brain filters information so it doesn't get overwhelmed.

Your brain and body use autopilot, short cuts and what Daniel Kahneman calls fast thinking all the time (see part 2 for a description of this system 1). Without it you would probably be paralyzed by indecision everyday. You get up, shower, clean your teeth, get to work without much thought. These become habitual activities. When you travel somewhere new, have you noticed how much you have to concentrate, in the car you have to turn the radio off and really focus on the sat nav and the road, not the same as when you do your daily commute.

Certain decisions have been taken out of your hands from an early age. Where you were born and your parents preferences have already determined the language you speak, the foods you culturally like, the school you went to, many of the hobbies and past times you chose. You may not even be aware of other choices, you can't miss a food you've never had or are not even aware of. And that job you drifted into after school or university, it may have not been your top choice, but possibly, only years later you realize you want to do something else.

This fast system of shortcuts is useful. Going out for a coffee on your lunch break if you live in a big city could be overwhelming. If you were really to evaluate all the options you would have to go to every coffee shop, try every different type of coffee, weigh up the price and distance from your work places and then make a decision (okay, I may have actually done this). Whereas, most people will intuitively go to the same coffee shop and order the same drink.

If the choice is limited it is easier, only one coffee shop, you go there. Only one gym, you join that one. In fact, it has been shown the more choice people are given the harder they find it to make a choice. In one study, given  a choice between two different types of jam, you pick one quite easily. Given the choice of 10 or 20, then what? You are frozen with indecision over a pot of jam.

Extrapolate that to big life decisions like choosing a career or partner, the number of variables is overwhelming. This is where the shortcut, intuitive system, works best.

Dijksterhuis et al (2006, good luck pronouncing that name by the way) state that conscious thought works best when you are making simple choices like "buying towels or an oven mitt" but more complex matters like choosing a house, or car (or life partner) should be left to unconscious thought. What they call "deliberation without attention". Your unconscious mind has much bigger processing power and your conscious mind finds it hard to focus on more than one thing at a time.

When buying a car, studies have shown people make better decisions when they don't consciously think about all the variables.

Dijksterhuis et al (2006) got people to choose a car based on 4 attributes or 12 attributes (safety, mileage etc). They were given 4 minutes to think about their choice, or 4 minutes distracted by doing anagrams. The people who were distracted doing anagrams and therefore used their unconscious mind, made a much better choice when choosing a car when they had to think about 12 attributes.

We make emotionally driven choices all the time. We are not even aware we are making them.

Companies and marketers know you can be influenced, so they exploit these systems.

You are influenced by marketing even when you think you are not.

Think about all the advertising you are exposed to. Does it influence you? Of course not, you are smarter than that. Or may be not.

In a study by Bagdziunaite (2014) three group of people were shown commercials before going in to a store to buy paint.
Group 1 - random commercials
Group 2 - random commercials plus adverts for brand A paint
Group 3 - random commercials plus longer adverts for brand A paint

They were then told to go and buy some paint for redecorating.
Group 1 - 78% chose brand A
Group 2 - 94% chose brand A
Group 3 - 100% chose brand A!!

Group 2 and 3 also spent more time looking at brand A on the shelf. And guess what, 23 out of 25 participants did not perceive the link between exposure to advertising and their purchase.

And ALL of the participants who saw brand A remembered it, but reported it did not affect their choice!

Now think about the adverts you are exposed to, the filter bubble you live in, the shops you go to, the choices you make. In the supermarket, trying to make healthy choices...

Plassman et al (2012) state

"At fast decision speeds a significant number of food choices were biased towards the food items with bright packaging, even when subjects preferred the taste of alternative food options." 

In fact, given less than 1 second you will choose the most salient thing, given a second or more you will choose your preference,

Now given that most foods that are brightly packaged are processed, and if someone has been eating unhealthy for a while and has certain in built preferences, what choices do you think they are going to make?

You will choose from the menu on offer. 

There is a myth that humans will make rational economic choices. Choosing between an apple and a snickers, you choose the one that costs the least or has the most benefit for you. Except in the Western world the cost difference between these purchases is irrelevant.

The value you assign to anything is subjective. For example, chocolate or strawberry ice cream have no intrinsic value, you make a decision which one you prefer (Padoa-Schioppa, 2011). And if one is not available, it doesn't figure in your decision making process.

Or put it another way, do you want a £1000 or a glass of water? The answer is obvious unless you just came out of the desert, you're dying of thirst and someone offers you that choice. Context matters.

The orbital frontal cortex (OFC) front part of your brain has neurons that are particularly active when you prefer one option. They are not sensitive to the menu, but decide based on what is on offer.

For example, Padoa-Schioppa (2007) offered monkeys* raisins or apple slices. Monkeys prefer raisins, but eventually when the monkeys are offered 3 times as many apple slices to raisins they switch to choosing the apple. The OFC neurons then start to fire off more, as they react to one decision that is clearly better than the other.

This also happened when the monkeys had to choose between drops of water and kool aid. The monkey prefer water, until they were offer 6 times as many drops of kool aid to water, and then they switched and chose the kool aid and the OFC part of the brain was more active and helped make this decision. They even did this when they were given 2 food options they had never encountered before, they would make a choice and then switch if significant quantity of their less preferred option was given.

What does this mean for you? It means you can switch your own choices.

I read somewhere that you should crowd your diet with healthy choices. If you eat enough vegetables and whole foods, you will 'crowd out' the unhealthy options. (Sorry, I can't remember where I read this, if this is your idea, let me know, and I will credit you)!

Eventually, you brain will choose from the menu you on offer.  You can control the menu and the quantity of the menu as well.

You go to a petrol station...

How does this all work in practice. A classic way people lose track of their diet.

They have gone to a petrol station to fill up the car. This is a top down conscious decision.

But then in the shop they are confronted by chocolate bars and crisps. All brightly coloured. There are no healthy options on offer, you're hungry (you've just left the gym) and you are not carrying any healthy snacks.

Before you know it you are making a bottoms up decision, you had no intention of buying chocolate. But it's there, and the menu on offer is chocolate or more chocolate. Before you know it you are in your car eating a snickers and your diet has been derailed before you've even had time to think. The pleasure centres in your brain are firing off and you go home and wonder what happened.

Why you will be fooled by expensive wine and works of art.

The orbital frontal cortex helps you make choices. And the medial part of it (mOFC) is believed to activate more when you experience pleasantness.

In one study by Plassman et al(2008) they measured the activation of peoples brain in an fMRI scanner while they were given wine of different value, they were told the wine cost $90 or $5 o $10. Of course, there was no difference in the wines but people experienced more activation in the pleasantness areas of the brain when they thought they were drinking the more expensive wine.

The perceived price did not change the activation of the primary taste centre of the brain, but the expectation of how good it was meant to be changed the activation in the pleasantness centre of the brain.

(And as a side note: Wine experts can't even tell the difference between red and white wine when blind folded!).

In another study people valued works of art more and had more engagement in the mOFC when they thought they were painted by an expert rather than a novice. Of course, none were painted by an expert.

If I told you I painted this you'd give me £1 for it. But if I told you Jackson Pollock did, you might be willing to pay way more.

This has led to the idea of "placebo marketing".

Why do people spend £200 more on a computer because it has an apple on it? (like the one I'm typing this on).

In the world of fitness and nutrition you could use this effect to your advantage. If you spend £80 a month on a gym membership or get the platinum super duper personal training package with the best trainer in town, you may well perceive that your results will be superior to the £20 a month gym and the free programme you got given.

You may possibly work harder and just have more belief in the product.

In terms of nutrition, the super detox juice you bought for £6 a glass may seem more beneficial than the apple and bag of spinach you bought in the supermarket.

This may also explain why people see famous online coaches, posting up pictures of clients, and testimonials. You may automatically perceive this person as an expert and expect to get results when you buy their programme or online product.

Even if objectively the expensive options are no better than the cheap options.

Where does this leave us?

So you know your brain is now making decisions on autopilot all the time and whether you like it or not marketing can influence you.

Here are a few take home points relating to health and fitness

• Make it as easy as possible for your brain to make the right decision. Reduces the cognitive load. This is why Steve Jobs wore the same outfit everyday. Put your gym gear in your bag ready to go in the morning. I once heard someone give the advice of sleeping in your gym kit and then getting up and going, it might be going too far, but you get the idea.
• Put the gym session or class on your schedule, it becomes an autopilot activity.
• Not sure what to do in the gym, get a plan/programme that is not too complex and stick to it. Again it will take another decision out of your hands.
• You will choose from the menu on offer. Fill your cupboards with healthy options, crowd out the unhealthy.
• Be prepared when out and about. Take your own snacks with you, a box of nuts in the car may stop you buying chocolate in the garage. Also prepare your own lunches.
• Avoid the office on cake day!
• Trying to give up fizzy drinks/soda? Try drinking 6 glasses of water when you feel the need for a soda. (I'm serious, give it a go, but don't over hydrate).
• You can change your preferences with regards to food, they are subjective and you can switch them.
• Take a shopping list to the supermarket. Take your time, when tempted by bright colours and packaging. Pause, take a breath and stick to the list.
• You may think the more expensive product is better, it may not be.
• OR if you are a personal trainer or gym, people may perceive your product as better if you charge more and be more willing to listen to you if they perceive you as an expert. (Testimonials, qualifications etc can help with this).
• Sometimes your brain will make the right decision without you thinking about it, especially if it is a complex decision.
• Beware of placebo marketing and living in a filter bubble.
• Your environment and the people you surround yourself with will influence your choices. The old adage that you are the sum of the 5 people you spend most time with is true. Expand that to environmental influences, the websites you visit, the TV shows you watch, the books you read.
• Buy cheap wine and tell people it's expensive. They wont know any different!

References.

Choosing paint research
Expensive wine research
Monkeys choose raisin or apple
OFC in making choices overview
Plassman et al "Branding the brain"
An Introduction to Neuroeconomics: How the Brain Makes Decisions. www.coursera.org
An Introduction to Consumer Neuroscience & Neuromarketing. www.coursera.org


*Yes, I find the research involving monkeys problematic, as they don't get to choose to be part of the study. But it is what it is.

Forming new habits. Why is it so hard to give things up? Part 2.

Why losing things is twice as painful as gaining things.

In this series I am going to cover some of the behavioural science and neuroscience of forming habits, giving up bad habits, goals and rewards. I am going to come at it from a different tack possibly to the usual writings on fitness and nutrition, and at points I am going to extrapolate, stretch the science if you will, or apply some principles to exercise and diet that you may not have seen framed in this way before.

Human decisions are complex, the brain is complex(go figure), so there will be some simplification as necessary.

Over the next few posts I will cover the parts of the brain that deal with addiction and reward, loss and memory, making comparisons, motivation and decision making.

But lets break it down.

First up

Prospect Theory.

I've covered forming new habits before, see here for part one.

Essentially, I don't think the process of forming the new habit is hard. What is hard is the things you have to give up for the new habit to work.

It might be time you have to give up to go to the gym, this could be time when you normally watch TV or cruise the internet.

It could be some foods you have to reduce or give up and then replace with better alternatives. Despite what you may have read, you can't just eat what you want and lose weight, you may have to actually modify what you eat.

I am an example myself. Yes, I add in healthy foods, vegetables, green tea and all that but I still eat way too much cheese. Yes, there may be some addiction here (which I will cover in future posts) but basically I don't want to give it up.

If humans were following purely rational utility, then we would not eat the donut if there was an option of an apple as well. But as we all know, this is not always the case.

Most of these traditional theories of economics and utility ignore emotions but obviously your emotions have a profound impact on what you choose.

Human beings are risk averse and loss averse.

In some classic studies by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, they showed people when given a choice generally accept the less risky option. Even if they could possibly win more money, people generally go with the sure thing.

Two of their classic problems:
Which do you choose:
Get $900 for sure OR 90% chance to get $1000?

Which do you choose?
Lose $900 for sure OR 90% chance to lose $1000


Most people choose option 1 in the first problem and option 2 in the second problem, essentially for the same reason. People don't like losing things, they like the sure thing, but will take a risk if the sure thing could involve a loss.

In fact, most people find losing something twice as 'painful' as gaining something.

See the graph below.

Prospect Theory graph: Note how losing something causes twice as much psychological pain, as the joy of gaining something.

(The caveat being if you trade on the stock market and take class A drugs there is a chance you are not risk averse and are prepared to lose big time).

These studies are normally done in purely economic terms, you could win money, but what if we applied these ideas to fitness and nutrition?

If you are trying to develop a new lifestyle there is uncertainty and this cause emotional arousal.

Yes, logically you know eating healthier and  exercising is good for you But these are things that are going to happen in the 'future'. All the time you brain is making a cost benefit analysis.

To frame prospect theory in fitness and nutrition terms, as some people see it:

Which do you choose:
Give up an extra hour in bed, eating crisps and chocolate, sitting on the sofa when you get home OR the chance you may lose weight, feel better and possibly prevent a future disease.

Or when taking out a gym membership think of it this way:

Lose £40 a month for sure (gym membership fees) and you may get fitter and lose weight and prevent disease

OR

Keep £40 a month for sure (don't join a gym) and you might get fitter a lose weight by going for a walk everyday or may not develop those diseases anyway by doing nothing.


Some speculation on my part...

There is the potential loss of your old self or things you enjoy. This can fire off a part of the brain called the Insular Cortex. This part of the brain is also monitoring body states such as disgust, if you are eating something you find horrible then could this part of the brain fire. If you find exercise painful and not enjoyable then this part of the brain could again be active. Meanwhile the part of the brain that responds to reward and potential gains (the fabled dopamine response) could not be so active.

Going into a gym, getting out of your comfort zone, trying something new are all 'risky' things. And to begin with you may not perceive them as pleasurable, in fact they may be decidedly uncomfortable to begin with.

Where you Insular is, in case you were wondering.

Then we have the amygdala, the so called fight or flight part of the brain. But, it is a bit more complicated than this. The amygdala is also working out cost benefit (should I do this new thing, what is the cost, what is the benefit), fear conditioning and more.

Of course, if you start to really enjoy exercising, or enjoy the health new foods, and enjoy the feeling of being healthier and maybe carrying a little less fat, then the potential gain has outweighed the potential loss of Dominos pizza and 10 hours on the internet. But, the gain would have to be perceived as twice as much as the loss.

This also relates to what Kahneman calls system 1 and 2 of thinking.

In general system 1 is quick, emotional, intuitive and can actually make better decisions than your logical mind when there are a lot of factors to consider.

System 2 is slow and rational.

When you eat that donut, you are probably already licking your lips before system 2 has had a rational chance to start working.

People are not risky in all aspects of their life, for example, people can make sound financial decisions, wear a seat belt while driving and still smoke.

People normally view monetary risk in terms of the status quo, you don't want to lose what you've already got.

In terms of health and well being you have to re-frame it in your mind. Make the potential gains and benefits overwhelming.

So to re-frame one of the statements above:

Invest £50 a month in your health, add a new enjoyable activity into your life for 4 hours a week, try some new nutritious food and it is a sure thing your health and fitness will improve and you will probably live longer and have less chance of developing certain diseases (and look better naked!).

People make subjective probability choices rather than objective ones. For example, If people were being objective they would never buy a lottery ticket, and they would realize that something like a terrorist attack in the western world has a very low probability (which they will tend to overreact to, thanks media) whereas heart disease, cancer and type 2 diabetes have a large probability and people tend to under react to them.

Except, if they get a health scare, then some people modify behaviour but some people don't.

One thing Prospect Theory cannot contend with is regret and disappointment. The choice you should have made, that could have been an easy financial win but you were greedy. OR in terms of health, the small lifestyle changes you could have made that would have had a profound impact on your well being but you chose the status quo instead.

Why is that? Why would your brain let you continue on a path of behaviour that may result in its early demise?

Find out in part 3.

References:
Kahneman D (2011) Thinking, Fast and Slow.
Introduction to Neuroeconomics, How the Brain Makes Decisions, MOOC, Higher School of Economics(Moscow).

How to stick to exercise. Is making it fun enough?

I was covering a class the other day, one of the exercises I gave was press-ups. I demonstrated full range press ups and even gave three quarter press ups as an alternative. One lady however, was doing box press ups, half range of movement.

And at first I thought, how can you still be doing poor box press ups after years of coming to classes? In the same class were people who couldn't hold a plank, were doing half range squats or avoiding lunges because of knee issues, complaining of back pain doing press ups or bent over rows or planks. I had to give one lady bird dogs, as that was all she could manage, and another lady alternatives to press ups because of tendonitis, as she couldn't support herself on her hands.

And then I thought, why have you all come to a general exercise class? You all need to get referred out and get all your poor movement patterns and injuries sorted out. Why don't you book in for a tailored one to one program in the gym, rather than going to a general class, why don't you go to an osteopath or physical therapist?

But then I thought, hang on these people have actually made the effort to come to a class. In some cases they have been coming for years, they may not seem to be getting any stronger or changing shape but they are still coming. They have formed the exercise habit. They are in the minority.

Of all the people who join gyms, up to 20% never attend. That's right, they join and then never come back, not even for their gym orientation. Don't forget, that only 12% of the population join a gym, or health club, and of those 2 out of 10 never come back. And after 48 months about 90% of people have left. It's actually a surprise that there is anyone in our gyms and clubs!

So does it matter that these women weren't doing the best exercise program, or that some of their technique was poor, or in my opinion they needed to work on their mobility and strength? After all, they were showing up and doing something on a regular basis. To them smart goals, and the latest exercise science were irrelevant. I guess, they continued to attend because they enjoyed it.

What is fun?

There is a big push to make exercise fun now in the industry. As members who are having fun stay longer. I will examine this later, and explore if it is really true. Plus, there is the crucial question of what is fun.

I read a blog this week, where the author berated this idea. You can read it here . (Note: I don't know this person or their background). On many points, you could say I agree, the industry is full of chancers and pretty much un-regulated on the internet. However, I am that guy who has all the level 4 qualifications and deals with the special populations everyday. BUT, I don't see it as much of a problem that people are following programs off the internet or ones they bought via online advertising.

Because, if people are doing this, it is because we failed as an industry to offer the product that people wanted. And we can moan about that, but we are to blame as well.

Does it matter if people are actually doing something. They are adults. It is highly unlikely that the middle aged woman with high blood pressure is going to buy a 12 week bikini body program off of someone on Instagram, it's just not the market. No more than the obese guy with diabetes is going to join a Crossfit gym, statistically, he isn't joining any gym, and when he does, he probably wont go back.

Yes, the workout put together by some unqualified person on the internet may not be the best or logical, but I've seen classes designed by so called master trainers that made no sense and were completely illogical. As these people hadn't really full grasped the fundamentals either. (Of course, by default, I have to believe what I design and write is better and makes sense).

I spoke to someone recently, who had bought a 12 week program via a trainer on Instagram. The reasons were clear 1) A 12 week program cost the same as a one to one training session 2) She had a session with the trainer, but felt the trainer hadn't really listened to her needs and had written a program that was more about what the trainer liked. 3) The sense of community, people sharing photos and progress online.

So the three things are:
1) Price
2) Listen, product to fit the clients needs
3) Community and support.

This person had no big goals, wasn't looking to step on stage or run a marathon. But she like training, she liked the process, she enjoyed working out, it was fun. And it was challenging and structured.

But what is fun for one person may not be fun for another. As an industry, we have decided that fun needs to be infantile. We have decided, that the mythical client who is put off by the gym and classes is a middle aged woman who likes Zumba. It could be, but it may not be.

Some peoples idea of fun is Zumba, for some, dancing in public is a nightmare (most men). Some people enjoy lifting weights, or doing a crossfit WOD, or running a 100 miles (okay maybe not fun, but satisfying and we will come to that later). There is no universal fun activity. Everyone is different. And there's the rub, you can't be all things to all people.

This is a route to creating a mediocre product for mediocre people.

Mindfulness and Satisfying.

There is something that makes people stick with exercise, and it is satisfaction. The more satisfying exercise is, the more people enjoy it. This is subtlety different from just being fun. But, how can you make exercise more satisfying and more enjoyable? Make it mindful. This article here , in the NY Times, gives a run down of the most recent research. Being more mindful with the exercise, makes you more satisfied with it. But, the habit of exercise has to come before mindfulness.

Mindfulness, means being in the present moment, fully experiencing the activity at hand, and accepting how you feel, moment to moment. (See the work of John Kabat Zinn for more information on mindfulness).

We have built our facilities to be anti mindful.

A True Story.

The other day a lady came to the gym, and due to a technical fault none of the TVs on the treadmills were working. At which point, she said she was going home as she couldn't work out with the television. Despite, the fact that she had already made the trip to the gym, and other equipment still had TV's working, she was going to leave and not workout. She was looking for distraction, the antithesis of mindfulness. For her, exercise without watching Eastenders was intolerable. Of course, she could have watched Danny Dyers haikus and would have got some mindfulness at the same time. (see video below, if you don't live in the UK, you have no idea who Danny Dyer is or what Eastenders is!).


Of course, I will point out that she was still coming to the gym, more than most.

I've known someone cancel their gym membership because they could never watch BBC 24 hour news on the equipment, yep, that was how mindful they were.

We have sold our facilities and products on the premise of distraction. We are saying to the public, we know you wont enjoy this, so why not watch TV or play sudoku. Rather than saying exercise can be enjoyable, satisfying and mindful. BUT, we have to realise that everyones definition of fun and enjoyable differs. There are some commonalities, but people are all individuals and different. What we do know is that certain types of activity promote flow.

Flow.

The concept of flow was developed by  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (professor of psychology and management) with a name that's impossible to pronounce. Whole books have been written on flow, but in short it is:

"In positive psychology, flow, also known as zone, is the mental state of operation in which a person performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity" see here

The type of activity where hours seem like minutes. The activity has to be high skill and high challenge to induce flow. In leisure time, the highest flow activities tend to be games, sports and hobbies. Something like watching TV is low skill and low challenge so doesn't really produce flow, but could be a mixture of relaxation, boredom and apathy depending on what you are watching. (Csikszentmihalyi, 1997).

In the context of gyms and fitness, we could consider things like Olympic weightlifting, gymnastic type moves, rock climbing high challenge and high activities likely to produce flow.

Cruising on a cross trainer watching Pointless on the attached TV is low skill and low challenge and more likely to produce boredom and apathy, the opposite of flow and satisfaction and more likely to result in the person never coming back.

And classes...

There is the idea that people come to classes because they want to get told what to do, there is no coaching, there is instructing. You get told what to do and you don't have to think. BUT maybe there is some flow going on here. Yes, something like Yoga has always been considered mindful. However, could the person in Zumba or body attack also be in flow? They are learning new moves and routine, they are being challenged,  their heart rate is up, add in some music and a social atmosphere (socialising can be a flow activity for certain types of personality) and boom you've got a whole room full of people in a flow state; an hour has passed in what seem like minutes, all their worries forgotten and they have booked in for next week.

Yes, these people may not be competing in a complex crossfit WOD, but for them the activity was satisfying and challenging enough.

In conclusion.

• The members and clients you should focus on are the ones in your facility.
• 20% of people who join aren't coming back, you could spend all your time chasing them down or focus on the people already in the building.
• Pareto's law, 80% of your income comes from 20% of your customers. Focus on them. Tailor products to them.
• Find out what your customers enjoy, what is satisfying and what produces flow for them.
• This has to also match your values. Be authentic. If for you flow is kettlebells and olympic weightlifting, then you are more likely to be able to sell this. However, don't dismiss the fact that for some people its an LBT class.
• Machines with TV screens are pretty much anti flow, anti mindful and are not what you want to sell yourself on.
• I've said it before, there are no special populations anymore, the general population is the special population. Nearly everyone entering your facility will have an injury, ache, niggle or medical problem. Decide how you are going to deal with this. Bear this in mind if you are selling yourself on high intensity fitness. Know your proposition.
• There is no universal idea if what is fun, find your niche and build it.
• To beat the people selling programs on Instagram or facebook, you have to provide a better a product. Listen to your customers. Why aren't you selling yourself this way too?

Fun doesn't have to be infantile and it doesn't mean easy either. Sometimes, we have to take things seriously, but sometimes we can have fun, makes something satisfying and educate people at the same time as making them feel better about themselves.

"Matters of great concern should be treated lightly." Master lttei commented, "Matters of small concern should be treated seriously." - Yamamoto Tsunetomo, Hagakure.

References:

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/02/18/how-mindfulness-can-jumpstart-our-exercise-routines/?_r=1

Csikszentmihalyi (1997) Finding Flow. The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life. Basic Books

The Retention People. 10,000 study http://theretentionpeople.com/5-proven-ways-for-new-joiners-to-succeed-at-your-club/

EDX online MOOC course, University of Berkeley. The Science of Happiness. https://www.edx.org/course/science-happiness-uc-berkeleyx-gg101x

Danny Dyer words of wisdom.