Normalising abnormal health.
Normalising Abnormal Health.
If you know me, you’ll know that everything Restart Coaching promotes in weight loss, fitness goals and lifestyle change is centred around current Health Psychology and Sport Science research. Implementing proven interventions that bring balance (from both fields) creates sustained, achievable, and realistic health changes, crucial for making meaningful change to whatever unhealthy habits you may have developed over a lifetime, or maybe just lockdown…
Most people would say that I was a complete nause when it came to research. Others would say i’m an academia snob and only support those interests, I don’t. What I do support is empirical evidence, driven by research that has gone through the rigours of falsification and peer review. Not pseudoscience or Doctor Google. However, lived experience from a professional standpoint is also a key contributor to insight into whatever field it is from, whether it be coaching in sport, gardening, firefighting or playing a trumpet. These are highly valued pieces of information that often drive specific research and gave birth to qualitative research. I’m also aware that correlation doesn’t always mean causation before you hit me with that.
So, it might come as a surprise when I say, calorie counting and all the awful things that fall under its umbrella term “dieting” needs to be seriously reevaluated as “healthy”. Everyone will scream “but it’s what’s proven to work” or “it’s worked for me” or something to that effect, however, it simply isn’t conducive to realistic and sustained health change. Of course it worked, at the end of the day, any “diet” will because it is based on a calorie deficit. Tada, magic trick spoilt.
The real change you make isn’t by sticking to the new diet Joe Wicks comes out with or Dr. Moseley’s 5 2 diet that took drastic transformation after his original one (I can’t remember the name of it) got professionally picked to shreds. Instead, it comes from behavioural change with an emphasis on gradual reduction of negative health habits. So, if we take Weirs (2021) example of sugar and you eat let’s say, 4 chocolate bars per week, the aim is to slowly (over a month perhaps) cut down to three, two and then finally one. I wouldn’t say you have to get rid of chocolate or sugar entirely, the latter would almost be impossible as there are several types of sugar. However, it is well documented that refined sugar is extremely calorific and totally lacking in any nutritional quality, not to mention highly addictive. As Malhotra, Noakes and Phinney (2015) state “Sugar calories promote fat storage and hunger. Fat calories induce satiation or fullness.” Gradual change means the subtle and slow replacement of negative health habits with positive ones. This organic approach means that junk food of old will either be reduced in consumption (as part of a balanced approach to nutrition) or replaced entirely by healthier alternatives. All this and there’s never any pressure you put on yourself about “failing” your diet. Why? Because it never really existed if you go for balance.
One of the biggest contributing theories to Health Psychology is Herman and Polivy’s (1975) “Restraint Theory”. It emphasises, and I cannot EMPHASISE this enough, that the more we restrict ourselves through dieting, the more we will ruminate on the absent food(s) to the point not only of relapse but increased weight gain than at baseline. Therefore, keeping a balanced nutritional intake buffers the need to ruminate about “bad” food as it is about slow change that allows wiggle room. Nothing is labelled as “bad”, and nobody is saying you can’t ever eat the foods that most diets restrict (Brytek-Matera, Bronowicka & Walilko, 2021). Remember, there really is no such thing as “BAD” food, it’s just excessively eating one food type, especially highly addictive refined foods (which is why they should to be kept to a minimum). You only need to watch the James Haskell food rant over lockdown to see a hilarious viewpoint emphasising this, albeit through slightly expletive commentary from an elite athlete’s frustrated perspective.
Moreover, there needs to be an emphasis on increased activity. The truth is, we are becoming more and more sedentary, and if you don’t believe lockdown wasn’t proof enough of how negative health behaviours are developed in a very short time when things become overly restricted, then reading this blog isn’t for you.
If you aren’t moving much and don’t burn any extra calories than those of dieting alone, how do you expect to burn the extra calories needed to reach the holy grail of a calorie deficit once your weight plateaus? Restrict even more food?! It seems crazy that there simply is no emphasis in most “diets” on movement and exercising. It’s not just about dieting; exercise and movement count too. It’s also not just about exercising. You’ll never out train a bad diet. But then I hear people say, “I hate jogging” or “I hate spin classes”. So do I! I couldn’t think of anything worse than those two forms of exercise. Jogging is so boring I could find the nearest rope and swing from it and the second attracts a certain clientele (as James Smith so eloquently puts it) I’d rather go jogging. Exercise doesn’t have to be as bland and soul destroying as dieting either. It can be whatever you enjoy. I’ve got a dog, so I love to walk him. No dog, hardly any walks though as I just don’t find them as enjoyable on my own or without my children. Asides from picking up your dog’s poo, nothing is better than seeing your little furry friend or your kids charge about the place. I also love functional and conditioning training, not beach weights or cross-fit, but hey, that’s just my preference. I use a form of Strength and Conditioning based on how I used to train as an athlete. It’s what I know and what I really enjoy. It combines different training modalities aimed at increasing hypertrophy, power, endurance, and aerobic fitness throughout a training week. It means my training is never dull and the by product is i’m not only strong but fit as well (maybe even a decent rig if my nutrition is balanced and I don’t over do the Thatchers Haze on a weekend). I may not get muscles that look aesthetically elite but if you want bodybuilding, diet and exercise. If you want to train like an athlete and have a complete fitness repertoire also known in sport science as GPP (general physical preparedness), eat and train. You will never convince me other wise so leave your comments in my special “I don’t care” section.
The thing is, nothing is perfect, it is a journey that has ups and downs. There is no such thing as a perfect diet because it doesn’t exist. What does, is a balanced and healthy perspective on nutrition that isn’t highly restrictive or banishes certain food types. It identifies that at times things go a bit shit, but hey it’s a damn sight easier to get back on track than fasting, fasting whilst exercising and banishing everything you enjoy about food forever to lose weight drastically and then pile it back on when the diet finishes. Then repeat that cycle 3, 4, 5 times a year if you’re a yoyo dieter. The key is staying active and finding an exercise that you like. Exercise doesn’t have to be boring or so lung busting you nearly die every session. Just get moving more to start with and see where that takes you? If it’s walking that turns into hiking, great! If it’s lifting weights, fantastic. Maybe you’ll enjoy choking your mates out twice a week like some of mine do? Awesome! Running or jogging great too. It might even be spinning, I’ll let you decide the reaction to that…
Brytek-Matera A, Bronowicka P, Walilko J. Restraint theory: Significance of rumination. Eur Psychiatry. 2021 Aug 13;64(Suppl 1):S179–80. doi: 10.1192/j.eurpsy.2021.476. PMCID: PMC9471519.
Herman, C. P., & Polivy, J. (1975). Anxiety, restraint, and eating behavior. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 84(6), 666–672. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-843X.84.6.666
Weir, K. (2021, May 9). The extra weight of COVID-19. Monitor on Psychology, 52(5). https://www.apa.org/monitor/2021/07/extra-weight-covid
Malhotra A, Noakes T, Phinney S. It is time to bust the myth of physical inactivity and obesity: you cannot outrun a bad diet. Br J Sports Med. 2015 Aug;49(15):967-8. doi: 10.1136/bjsports-2015-094911. Epub 2015 Apr 22. PMID: 25904145.