Pizza, Haribo and coco pops – How Robin got shredded and you can too

You’ve tried dieting before, the first thing you did was throw all your favourite foods out the cupboards and invest in a whole set of new Tupperware. To start with you quite like the idea of the suffering, restriction and rules. For you it means progress and your excited to start this new diet. However quickly you realise you don’t enjoy eating cold chicken breast from a tub and you do miss sharing a bottle of wine with your significant other on a Friday night. Depending on how long you spent being hardcore and restricting yourself from the things that are important to you will dictate how harsh the rebound is- but there’s always a rebound. The weight come’s back on and a few extra lbs, suddenly your back to square 1 and often even a couple steps behind that.

“the definition of madness is trying the same thing repeatedly expecting a different outcome” – Albert Einstein.

So why do we keep trying this same approach only to fail within a matter of weeks? 

The first point I really want to hammer home for everyone reading this is that the body does NOT understand where calories come from! Of course, different foods have a slightly different impact on our hormones and provide us with different amounts of nutrients, but this point is completely invalid when we are in a yo-yo cycle of dieting and binge eating. Let me explain why.

When we start dieting we try and be ‘healthy’ with our food choices. If the approach we take to this is so unsustainable you quickly find yourself back in bad habits of eating junk food and drinking alcohol, how healthy is that?

Let’s take 2 people in 2 common situations-

Person 1 is a ‘clean eater’ who’s constantly trying to find the next best diet- that they hate… Away from these diet’s their relationship with food and habits are awful. They binge eat and binge drink alcohol. They try 3-4 of these different diets per year on average.

Person 2 take’s a more flexible approach year-round. They understand moderation and frequently enjoy the foods they love especially in social situations whilst making small swaps to other meals where needed to account for this. They train hard and move lot’s frequently through the day because they understand the importance of having a high calorie output. This approach is enjoyable for them, they aren’t even ‘dieting’ so they sustain it year-round resulting in a healthy relationship with food.

Average it out

If we take a yearly average between the ‘clean eater’ who can’t sustain their diet for more than a few weeks and compare it to someone who take’s a more flexible approach but sustains it year-round. who’s going to be consuming more quality nutrients and have a better hormonal profile over the year? Not to mention a healthier relationship with food. It’s a no brainer, right?

 

Education

The body doesn’t discriminate against calories depending on the source. Carbohydrates from pasta and sweet potatoes won’t be treated differently once they have left the small intestine and enter the blood stream. At this point the pasta and sweet potatoes are now just single glucose molecules, Insulin scoops them both up the same, the deciding factor on weather they get stored in a muscle cell or as body fat is the total amount we are consuming.

Calories are a unit of energy and unfortunately energy can’t just disappear or be created from nothing. Lot’s of very clever scientist have been trying for years! If we are consistently consuming more energy than our bodies need those calories need to go somewhere and once we have maxed out the storage capacity of muscle tissue (why is why weight training is so important for fat loss) the next storage point is fat cells.

 

The solution

In a world of people with extreme diet approaches and strong, extreme (not backed up by science) opinions, be a person 2 who takes a more sustainable approach to your fat loss and health goals.

All your favourite foods can and most definitely should feature in your nutritional approach to whatever your goals might be. Once we understand moderation, habits and context it becomes very easy to enjoy this new approach whilst still making progress, only this time there’s no need to quit.

 

Here is a great visual showing how even on just a weekly basis you can undo all your dieting efforts. Photo credit Cartergood.

  

Enter Robin

I’d like to make it very clear nothing in this article changes or isn’t relevant to you because Robin got on stage and you’re not. Regardless if its for a holiday, wedding or to get on stage looking a questionable shade of brown the information still applies. Also the degree of flexibility an individual will have will vary based on age, height, muscle mass, daily activity levels, performance in the gym, some genetic factors and some lifestyle factors.

 

“When I first started working with Leo I wanted quick results however I also knew it would be a long journey and therefore I needed an approach I could sustain and even find enjoyable. The fact Leo is such an advocate of a flexible approach is what first made me get in touch, I quite liked the idea of not having to eat specific foods at specific times, that strict ridged approach just wouldn’t work for my crazy busy lifestyle. I was quite happy to make the trade off and track my calorie intake under the guidance of Leo, we got structure in place, created an outline of a meal plan with rules which left room for flexibility. As I got leaner and stronger in the gym I was able to get more flexible with my food choices, Pizza, Cocopos and Haribo featured a few times a week as part of my post workout meal! Initially I wasn’t able to be massively flexible as my calorie ‘budget’ wasn’t huge, however the longer I was on this journey, my health and gym performance improved, and my body was able to handle more food giving me greater room to factor in treats. Ultimately, I love the idea that health and fitness should enhance your life, not detract from it and for that to be the case you need to ask yourself “Can I see myself sustaining this approach for the next 12 months?” The answer to that question for me is most definitely yes!”

So, you’ve read this and your thinking great “Leo’s told me I can achieve my goals without hating my life, how do I get started with this more sustainable approach”

If you’re ready to get started with a new way of thinking towards health and fitness let’s get to work, helping people achieve their goals in an enjoyable and sustainable way is my passion and I’m confident I can help you do the same. Email leo@tysontransformations.co.uk or message me on social media to see if online coaching is right for you.

Thank you for your time reading this article, I know it will help empower you to break that yo-yo dieting cycle.
– Leo ‘Cocopops’ Tyson