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Plan for success in 2020 – Part 3

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Plan for success in 2020 – Part 3

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Over the last few days we’ve (hopefully) convinced you that you need a plan and showed you how to put together a simple plan to ensure that you get to the gym regularly.

Now let’s talk about nutrition.

Nutrition is the base of the fitness pyramid and planning your nutrition ahead of time is key.

If you read our recent blog, How Much Protein Do You Actually Need? https://crossfituv.ca/blogs/much-protein-actually-need/, you’ll know that you need 0.8-1.2 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight. I tested the higher end of this during the first 9 months of 2019 with fantastic results. However, it meant that I had to get 200 grams of protein every day for 9 months straight!

I tried this a few times in 2018 but I couldn’t manage it. However once I sat down and took a few minutes to plan it out it became very simple. Here’s the video if you want to hear more. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gx1G3lk_qYg&t=21s

The quick version is that I had to break the 200g of protein as evenly as possible across my meals and snacks. I don’t have the time to eat regularly so I end up with two meals per day, a post workout meal and a pre-bed snack. A daunting task but with planning I was able to find the right foods to make it easy.

I also found that I’m a bit of a salad dodger! So now when we do our weekly shopping, I buy a mixed salad and have it with my dinner every night. That simple task took me from having almost no salad to having salad nearly twice a day! (I now have a salad at lunch too because these days I crave it!).

If you plan to get 0.8-1.2g of protein per pound of bodyweight and eat a salad everyday then you will make a massive difference to your nutrition, how you look and your energy levels will improve immensely!

We have a lot of nutrition tips on the way in future posts so look out for them. The final tip is a another game changer!

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Weekly Balance

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Looking at your nutrition across the week instead of on a day-to-day basis is a fantastic way of keeping you on track to reach your goals.

Apps like my fitness pal are very easy to use and fantastic at helping you staying within your overall calorie goal.

If you over-indulge on a given day then you have the entire week to balance the books.  Therefore, if I decide to over indulge tonight I can simply cut back on the carbs and fat over the next few days so that when I look at the week as a whole I’m in line with my goals.

It’s that simple but very effective.

Drop us a line if you need help setting your calorie and macro goals.

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Junk Food

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Do not keep chocolate, sweets, crisps (chips to Canadians), fizzy drinks or any other unhealthy food in your house.

If it’s there you will eat it.

Please don’t say “but I have to have it for the kids”. That’s a terrible excuse because by giving them easy access to it you’re hurting their health and building a terrible habit of eating sugary foods which they will spend their whole lives struggling to break. Believe me, I struggle with it constantly.

Try to avoid buying any junk outside of Saturday or Sundays (the weekend doesn’t start on Friday night when it comes to nutrition!) and try to avoid bringing any junk food into the house. If you do bring it in it must be consumed that day or thrown out. These are my rules for junk food and it has literally been a game changer for me.

Gym visits are planned out and nutrition is taken care of so tomorrow we’re going to talk about the most important thing to plan if you want to achieve your body and fitness goals.

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Sleep

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We constantly preach the value of a good night’s sleep because is the fastest and easiest way of; reducing body fat, gaining lean muscle, improving recovery, concentration, strength, enhancing mood and even virility!

 That’s why sleep IS the ultimate performance enhancer.

In simple terms, 7 hours or less of sleep is sleep deprivation, not just insufficient but deprivation! If you are getting insufficient sleep you are surviving, but we want you to thrive!

Right now I bet you’re saying that you’re one of those people who ‘don’t need much sleep’. I can almost guarantee you that it’s not true. What’s most likely happening is that your body is in the habit of getting up at the same time so it’ll wake up at that time even if you haven’t had enough sleep.

Check out this absolutely fantastic podcast by Dr Matthew Walker where he does an excellent job of summarising the benefits of sleep.

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/dr-matthew-walker-secret-to-improving-your-metabolism/id1414073313?i=1000430314948

Ok, so you’re sold, you’ve finally realized that improving your sleep is the fastest way to getting leaner, having more energy, improving your mood, skin, strength, virility and basically being an all-round better person.

Now here are some simple tips:

      • Decide what time you need to get up at and count back 8 hours. This is your bedtime! If you need to get up at 6am then you need to be in bed, phone off and lights off before 10pm. It is literally that simple.
      • If you normally go to bed much later then it will take you a few days to get used to your new bed time but it will change your life!
      • Go to bed and get up at the same time every day. Our bodies get into a rhythm so it’s important that we get up at the same time every day, even on weekends!
      • Make the room as dark as possible – get blackout blinds (or an eye mask like me) and turn off all lights in the room.
      • Remove electronic devices from your room – leave your phone in another room, and definitely don’t have a TV in your room.
      • Keep the room cool – 19.5 degrees or lower – you can always throw an extra blanket on the bed if you feel cold.
      • Invest in your bed – buy a medium-firm mattress that supports your posture, buy as high-quality sheets as you can afford, get a pillow that helps you sleep on your back or side.
      • Unwind your mind – avoid looking at screens within 30-60 minutes of bedtime and try reading a book just before bed.

Do the above consistently and it will change your life!

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Wrap up

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Over the last few days we’ve tried to help you make a plan so that 2020 is your best year ever!

This was originally meant to be a one-page mail to help sew the seed of why you should plan but, as you can see, it really snowballed because our target is to help as many people as possible thrive and live the lives that they’ve always dreamed of.

To do that we want to ensure that you get 2020 off to the best possible start, a start with a plan!

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