food choices Archives - Andrew Shaw

Peanuts

I’m going to share with you a story from when I was working in a Health Club.

I was delivering a seminar and afterwards a couple came to speak to me. They told me they had tried every fad diet and product that I had slammed in my talk. And they still were struggling with fat loss. I could see it in their eyes, hear it in their voices, they were desperate, at the end of their tether. We spoke briefly and they booked in for a consultation the following week.

When we met they brought with them their food diaries which I had asked for. As I reviewed their diaries I had to refrain from laughing at the bickering between them. As I went through one persons food diary the other would throw in dispersions and judgements. ‘I don’t know why you eat that crap’, ‘I told you not to eat that!’

What was confusing to me was that on reviewing their diaries, their diets looked pretty good. They were far from the best I had ever seen but far from the worst. The judgements and condescension from their partner were definitely unwarranted. It wasn’t evident understand why they were in the predicament they were.

My train of thought went to recording inaccuracy, which is very common. People underestimate their true calorie intake by astonishing percentages. I’m talking about possibly 45 percent! Depending on factors like age, sex and body composition.

I asked them in a polite way if they had recorded everything. And how accurate they thought they had been. It looked like they were very thorough. because things like takeaways and alcohol had were on there (plus the amount). Which some people tend to omit out of fear of judgement. There were even some corrections to amounts in their recording.

At this point it was a case of delving a little deeper into where things were going array. As the calories they were consuming were at an amount where they should be losing weight. I went through in detail each of the foods on their diaries to confirm amounts. And then we made a breakthrough.

I identified on both their lists a bag of peanuts. I knew the energy content of a bag of peanuts and confirmed with them it was just a bag. To throw more confusion into the mix they told me that sometimes they didn’t finish the bag. Befuddled by their congruence with what they had told me I sat there perplexed. Until a thought popped into my head.

‘Trust but verify’.

Maybe it was my assumption that had caused my confusion?!I loaded up on my phone images of different bags of peanuts. To my amazement they pointed at the bag they had been ‘snacking’ on was a kilo bag! Yep 4,300 calories per bag!

The reason for which was because they had heard that nuts were a ‘healthy’ snack. So they worked on the premise that it would be healthy to have a lot.
I explained that whilst nuts are a good source of nutrients it was the amount that was the issue.

Unless you are a heavyweight boxer or artic explorer it was unlikely you would need that much energy. Especially with their sedentary lifestyle. From here it was a simple switch to a small bag of peanuts. The most straight forward resolution I’ve ever made to improving someone’s health.

This simple change to their diet saw her close to 5 stone, and him nearly the same. But more importantly it has hugely improved the quality of their lives. They are more active, they have more energy and yes they still enjoy the odd peanut 🙂

exercise, nutrition, stress, time management, weight loss

The blame game

The big mindset switch for me, the thing that has helped me the most, was from when I was studying psychology.

It was something that resonated with me and has been so important in my perspective of life. Thinking about it today it’s almost like a secret that I’m so glad came to hear about.

This secret, this Bastian of power is taking responsibility. No longer believing that other things were to blame. It was down to me. Thinking this was flipped the narrative and meant I took charge of my life.

I believe that no matter what happens to me I created it on some level. I am responsible for it. It it’s not there because of my physical actions it’s there because of my mental action. Thoughts of things which I’ve attracted.

And here is why you might want to adopt this belief system, because the alternative is scary! Let me explain. If you’re not in control of your life, you’re not responsible. If you blame others or circumstances, you’ve got a big problem! Because you have no power to change it. You are impotent.

But with the belief system I’m proposing to you. the belief that you are not a victim of circumstance. If you believe that whatever has happened is down to you generating it on some level. Then if you don’t like it you can change it!

Do you see where I’m going with this? My point being that I’m not trying to make you feel culpable. But I’m empower you, so if you don’t like how things are going you know you can change them.

In victim mode the following things or circumstances are responsible for your health:

Carbs

Thyroid/slow metabolism

Big bones

Lack of time

Body type

When you take control /responsibility what you’ll see is that your poor health and fitness is down to:

Lack of self control

Unaware of energy balance

Overestimating your calorie expenditure

Rewarding yourself with food

Poor food choices

Poor stress coping mechanisms

Now I know it’s easy to play the blame game. I’ve been there. The universe, him, her, this, that and everything else but myself, was to blame for why I wasn’t where I wanted to be.

But once you take responsibility for everything, good or bad. You can take credit for the wins. But you must also take responsibility when it doesn’t go your way. Knowing that you can change it!

You are 100% in control of your health and fitness!

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Feedback not failure

I could make out the police insignia through the window on one of the envelopes I picked up from the hallway floor. I had an idea what this this was going to be.

My suspicions were confirmed on opening said letter. A speeding offense.

I have the choice of 3 points on my license or speed awareness course. It’s like asking would you rather be shot or stabbed!?

As with everything the way I frame this is, as feedback, not failure, which is important. I haven’t failed at driving, I’ve received some feedback that I need to be more aware of variable speed limits.

I’ll call it exuberance, maybe I got a little over excited. This is what happens when you borrow a 6 litre Continental with circa 550 ponies under the hood.

Going forward I’m not going to make the same mistake again. This is feedback, not failure. And it is an important mindset.

Let’s take eating out. This is a scenario when people feel guilty about the food choices they make. You may eat things that you don’t usually eat or may eat more than is comfortable.

You may be thinking ‘I need more self control’. But do we have to sacrifice the foods that we enjoy? To claim that we have self-control?

No!

Self-control failure comes from believing that there are consequences to our actions. Even if it is something minor. Let’s go with choosing chocolate instead of celery sticks.

If we eat one meal or several meals over the course of the day where you feel uncomfortable. If you believe you have broken some food rules. Or there are going to be serious consequences to your actions. Those can be perceived as a self-control failure.

If we don’t have those food rules and we give ourselves permission, you don’t break any rules. So you don’t have to deal with the guilt shame, frustration and anxiety. That come with breaking those self-imposed food rules.

You simply enjoy that food or meal and move on. Or if we don’t we use it as a learning opportunity and move on. Learning not failure! We don’t repeat those habits over and over again!

And if you do find yourself in that cycle of repeating those habits that are not in line with your goals. You can reach out to to a professional and find out why you might be doing that.