Seven Bulletproof Habits for Fitness Success

Understanding fitness and what it means to you personally can be quite a profound learning process. Most people these days gauge their fitness on how they look – but is fitness actually a lot deeper than this?

I am going to be completely honest with you. My main reasons to improve and maintain my fitness are:

1). To be able to play with my little girl with few functional limitations (which is tough, considering my injury profile – but I do my best).

2). To feel good in social environments with friends and family.

3). To look good naked.

How do I achieve maximum outcomes with a very low time commitment? Through smart training and creating bulletproof habits that serve my goals, that’s how.

Generally, we are used to being told that it only takes a small amount of time to get fit and stay fit (just look at the best-selling fitness books of all time, they all give programmes that are based around good outcomes in less time). What they tend to leave out is the amount of mind management it takes to build those strategies into your life.

To succeed with these programmes, you must be mentally resilient and believe strongly in ‘why’ it is important for you to succeed in your fitness goals.

Once this is established and the power to create change (or to ensure maintenance, for those who are currently on their journey) outweighs the power to stay as you are, then you have taken a step towards success in your fitness goals. 

It must be made clear: sacrifice is a certain part of fitness (I use the word ‘sacrifice’, but I quite enjoy the discipline and self-control involved). But whatever we call it, you know that this is what it takes to succeed at anything in life (buying a house, sending your kids to university, etc.).

What are we sacrificing? Time, mostly.

Who wouldn’t want to spend more time with their family, with their partner or watching Game of Thrones?

But what activities are you spending the rest of the 24 hours in the day on? 

What I am highlighting here is your choices – your behaviour. This could be limiting you and preventing you from being successful in your fitness journey.

What I have learned (and what science supports with regard to building a psychological environment that will lead to fitness success) is that it is a case of ‘marginal gains’. You have to take a holistic approach and make sure you have all the bases covered.

Here are my seven bulletproof habits for fitness success.

1). Remember that you’ll never walk alone.

Recently, I had the devastating news of my dad dying. He had cancer. As you can imagine, this had a deep effect on my life. Watching this mountain of a man go from 16 stone to less than 10 stone had a huge impact on my mental health.

The self-reflection I engaged in during the period immediately after my dad’s passing had me turning myself inside out and questioning everything.

My emotions were so overwhelming that every day I had to battle the urge to hit the bottle. Alcoholism runs deep in my family, and unfortunately is something I must counteract on a regular basis.

I started to walk. At first, it was an every-other-day thing. Then it became a daily thing. I found that the more I walked, the more I figured stuff out and the more I started to accept that my dad had gone. It was a peaceful place that I had created within my mind. After around 30 minutes of walking, I would feel at peace with what had happened, instead of wanting to go out and destroy myself finding the bottom of a bottle.

Rather than feeling the urge to drink my way through the pain, I was replacing it with something that was cheaper and healthier, had no negative consequences, and was more positive for me, my family, and my friends (and most importantly, for my little girl).

Once I started to observe the mental health benefits that walking had in my life, I started to preach its virtues to my friends and family. I told them how it made me feel and how it was helping me with my weight loss (which was pretty drastic – since my dad died, I have lost 16 kg using a holistic approach, as you will read below).

At work, I got a small group of colleagues together, and we would walk in the mornings before work. At weekends, I would invite friends to take a stroll.

Currently, I am starting a walking group near where I live, as I believe that walking is the king of mind management and building bonds with friends and family.

The first habit I encourage my clients to form these days is to start taking a daily walk. Once they have got the buzz, they can then get their family and friends involved. Motivating others gives people more of a sense of responsibility too.

2). Focus on really NEAT ways to lose body fat.

Everyone within my social circles knows why I love standing desks and love doing the housework (gardening included). 

I left the Royal Navy a few years ago to follow my crusade of getting people moving more and moving better. I started working from home and had little contact with the outside world except through social media.

Working from home is a tough nut to crack, as you need to have the discipline to switch from work mode to chill mode (and I struggled to do this).

When I was serving, I would be on my feet all day, with minimal time to sit down. I would also be in the gym once or twice a day (as I worked there), so keeping in shape was easier.

After about four months of working from home, I had gained 16 kilograms and had some serious back pain (from an old injury that when mismanaged will always let me know about it).

What were the key factors in this change?

I was still eating the same amount of food, but I was doing less physical activity. It was that simple.

Something had to change. Fortunately, I had the opportunity to go back and work in clinics as an Exercise Rehabilitation Professional, so my activity increased again. 

However, I still seemed to spend a lot of time sitting, and the back pain was still very intense. Along with this, I wasn’t shifting any of the weight I had gained (and I wasn’t willing to reduce my calorie intake – greedy bugger!).

Now, housework and gardening along with standing desks may seem strange to you when I talk about weight loss, but they are activities that count as something called NEATs (Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis).

Firstly, let’s just define a calorie:

‘A calorie is just a measure of a unit of energy; technically speaking, it’s the energy required to heat one liter of water by one degree centigrade.’

(American Council of Exercise)

So, this leads me to the fact that when you are moving more, you are burning more calories. Simple.

The intensity with which you burn those calories is another story altogether.

With this in mind, rather than coming home and giving in to the craving to just sit on the sofa, I was more active, doing the housework and tidying anything I could.

Another way to have calories burning at a low intensity throughout the day was to introduce a standing desk into my life.

I came across the ‘Get Britain Standing’ campaign, and after reading Dr Kelly Starrett’s ‘Deskbound’, I thought, ‘What have I got to lose (pun intended)?’.

After a week, I was exhausted.

After two weeks, I started to adapt.

After three weeks, my back pain symptoms had reduced dramatically, and I started to lose some weight.

Weight loss and back pain relief love the same thing – movement.

What the standing desk does for me is makes me fidget more (stepping, swaying, and all that jazz).

Standing desks have been found to increase calories burned per hour too (although there is mixed evidence out there – from personal experience, I am a big advocate).

Forming a habit of being on your feet as much as possible will – along with making you get the housework done – lead to some calorie-stealing you would never have thought of.

3). Learn how to manage YOUR 24 hours each day.

Have you ever sat down and considered how much time you truly have to do the things that you really want to do?

Time is not a limitless commodity – we are all aging and moving closer to death (sorry to be so morbid).

Here is your time broken down:

·      If you live to be 80 years old, you will have 29,200 days.

·      You’ll spend 5,840 of those figuring stuff out until you reach the age of 16.

·      We sleep on average for 7 hours per day – that’s 8,517 days sleeping.

That leaves you with 14,843 days. That is an incredible realisation.

Your body is here to serve you, and can serve you very well if you make some small investments on a daily basis.

‘For God’s temple is holy and you are that temple’

(1Cor 3:17)

Apart from the essentials (going to the toilet, brushing your teeth etc.), how often do you reflect on how you spend your time during the day? Have you maximised every moment?

I often hear from my clients that one of the barriers to changing their lifestyles so that their bodies can serve them better is that they don’t have time. I give them this:

Here are some of the pastimes most people spend their time on:

·      Social media – the average person spends 1 hour 40 minutes per day on social media – that’s 511 hours (21 days) per year. WTF!

·      Watching TV – the average person watches TV for four hours per day, that’s 60 days a year … 

Time is therefore something that I pay absolute attention to.

Even if you are someone who spends most of their time working, there is only a certain amount of time you can be productive before the brain crashes.

Also, exercise has been proven, in numerous studies, to improve productivity.

If time is a barrier to exercising and investing in your fitness, consider this – what did you do in the last 24 hours, and can you make time for 10 minutes here and there?

I started to gain more control over my time when my little girl was born. Before then, I’ll admit I mistreated my time and didn’t understand how precious time is.

Watching her grow and doing all I can to ensure she is in an enriched environment and able to cultivate a strong spirit takes up most of my time these days.

That said, I know that being fully able to fulfil this role requires me to be fit and strong and ready to rock and roll at any time.

I never train for longer than 30 minutes in one sitting, and I break up disciplines like core strength and mobility across my day in blocks of 5 to 10 minutes.

It doesn’t have to be about hours in the gym. Once I changed my mindset to acknowledge this, I was more productive with the time I dospend exercising. 

Every Sunday, get into the habit of writing everything you have on for that week. Then make a plan of where you can fit 30 minutes (even if it is in 10-minute blocks) of exercise daily.

4). Focus on what is necessary, not the shiny things on YouTube.

I was watching Pavel Tsatsouline (the godfather of kettlebell training) do a Turkish get-up a few years ago. He made it look effortless and was lifting something like 32 kg.

In my younger days, training was all about variation and keeping the body guessing (kind of like the CrossFit mentality we see today). My reasoning: ‘I’m training for the unknown’. What does that even mean?

I decided to load myself on to Pavel’s kettlebell course with the team at Strong First. I posted some of my kettlebell swings on social media, and as quick as a flash I had an inbox message.

‘Hey Dan – I see you have loaded onto the Strong First Certification. Can I give you a few tips on your technique?’

At first, my ego wanted to say, ‘Who is this lady, and what can she tell me that I don’t already know?’

This is a very na?ve way to think in the fitness industry, in my opinion. That said, I am human, and I do have an ego like everyone else.

After having a word with myself (‘Be open-minded,’ I told myself), I jumped at the chance.

The information given to me by Claire (Claire Booth; the Team Leader of Strong First in the UK) included things I had never considered. The next weekend I had free, I went and spent some time with her. Wow! She knew her stuff and kept to the absolute basics. The thing was … the basics were done with perfection. Using the mind-body-soul to engage with strength training was something I had never come across before.

Claire also told me that I trained too much, and that I was not doing myself any favours by constantly smashing cardio and high-threshold training.

It made me reflect hugely on my intentions around training. Being ex-military, I had just got too used to going for it all the time.

Claire advised me to invest some time into a programme called Simple & Sinister, which involves:

5 reps each side of the Turkish get-up;

100 reps of kettlebell swings.

No more and no less, daily. At first it drove me insane. I cursed, and said, ‘This isn’t doing anything for me, this programme!’.

I managed to stick to it for 6 weeks.

My one-rep maximum (lifting for maximum effort for one repetition) in the deadlift gained 20 kg without lifting anything more than a 32 kg during the swing.

After 6 weeks, I’d lost body-fat percentage (I was eating well too during this) and increased muscle tone.

What did this tell me? We should focus on training the things that matter. And in my opinion, strength is the master of all fitness disciplines. From strength we can build mobility, stability and conditioning through something we call graded exposure. That means: try a dose. If it’s too little, do more; if it’s too much, do less.

Am I saying that everyone needs to do Simple & Sinister? Not at all (although it wouldn’t be such a bad thing). 

What I amsaying is that you should assess what matters to you. Not just your fat-loss. That is only a small part of the fitness journey – and is actually better viewed as a side-effect, in my opinion.

I wrote Lifelong Movementswith this in mind. It focuses on training for everyday life and maximising movements – like the deadlift and lunge – that will benefit other movements during everyday activities.

Make a habit of readdressing your goals (fat-loss, strength, cardio etc.) and ask yourself the question: is this new exercise going to help with my goal or am I being distracted by something shiny?

Don’t stop your progress by being distracted; focus on what is necessary. Be patient, and the results will come.

5). Take note: counting calories is old science … said no sensible person ever.

So here I am, scoffing my third fajita jammed with around 400 calories, thinking, ‘It’s ok, I’m walking lots … I’m training twice a day (30 min and 10 min, remember). I have earned this’. 

Plus, it’s ‘healthy food’, right?

Again, very na?ve.

I’d fallen out of the routine of keeping an eye on the calories I was consuming. Even if the calories are healthy, they are calories and they will be stored as body fat if they are not utilised.

I went back to tracking my calories through a food tracker app, and I was shocked to find I was around 200 calories over on a daily basis. Add this to a weekend binge, and I had been around 1500 calories over – every week, for months.

I went away and created a deficit during the week of 200 calories per day and saw little difference over about 6 weeks.

‘Right, what is going on?’ I asked myself.

Every weekend, I was eating a bag of Doritos and a bag of Sports Mix (sweets).

That’s right: just those two things contained an extra 1600 calories or thereabouts.

So, my deficit of 1400 calories (7 x 200) was cancelled out by just those two things, which were creating a 200 calorie overflow.

I removed the two snacks from my diet, and the weight started to drop off me.

Is it always that simple? In theory, yes. Calories will always be a game of numbers.

Do I still count calories? No. I have a rough idea of my portion sizes and know that if I am not working out as much, I have to reduce my intake.

Calories count, even if you don’t count them.

Something that catches a lot of youngsters out (and was actually why I always had puppy fat in my early twenties) is the amount of alcohol it is possible to consume at the weekend.

A family member asked me for some advice around her training. She said that her exercise was spot on, and her work rate was very intense.

She ate well all the time, even when she was hungover.

Once I told her what was in one bottle of beer (around 150 calories), she knew straight away what was stopping her fat-loss goal … calories at the weekend.

Get into the habit of tracking your calories across the week – not day to day. If your weekend starts on a Friday, that’s 40% of the week or more.

Winning the weekend is an absolute game-changer when it comes to fat-loss.

6). Treat yourself as you would treat your nan.

I love my nanna. So much so that I took her on a jet set holiday to the US once. We visited Las Vegas, New York and Memphis. What a holiday.

I felt totally responsible for my nan, as I had taken her out of the safe and comfortable environment she was used to. But I knew I was capable of fulfilling her care needs.

If I can treat myself with that same respect and uphold the same responsibility for myself, there are a few things that will happen:

·      I will eat regular and wholesome foods and not overfeed myself;

·      I will drink the amount of water needed for me to function well as a human being;

·      I will sleep for at least 7 hours a day to ensure I am attentive; 

·      I will make contact with friends and family on a regular basis.

Responsibility for personal wellbeing can fall by the wayside when we have others to think about and look after. But at the same time, if you are not functioning well, how can you give someone else your best?

Taking care of yourself is essential in order to show up every day and be the best son, daughter, mum, dad, sister, brother, grandad, nanna, husband, wife, partner, boyfriend, girlfriend, friend, carer … or any of the many other roles we play in life.

Not always looking after ourselves is something we are all guilty of, and it is something I challenge you on … so take care of yourself.

Make a habit of always reflecting and asking questions like: would I let my nan go all day without drinking any water? Would sleeping only 5 hours a day be healthy for my nan?

7). Remember that preparation is more than just buttering the cracker before putting the cheese and pickle on.

I saw a post on IG recently from a company selling ready-prepared meals containing the right amounts of calories, macros etc. to fulfil your fitness goals.

Wow. Someone has hit the market with perfect timing.

It struck me, though, that not many people have the money available to buy meals from these incredible food-prep companies. So where does that leave the rest of the world? 

My partner and I cook with similar ingredients on most days. We just change the way our food is cooked. We make sure we have plenty of veggies and always have lots of fruit.

We tend to cook extra in the evening so that we have food to take to work the next day.

We are parents, so to put 2-3 hours aside on a Sunday to prepare food for the week is, for us, unrealistic (I’m not saying it is not possible; I am just saying that it wouldn’t work for us). 

Our plan is to only have wholefoods in our home so that we don’t have the opportunity to indulge in foods that are not conducive to our fitness goals.

Breakfast needs to be quick, so we have smoothies that contain oats, milk and frozen fruit – it takes literally 2 minutes to make these.

What I often find helpful is planning the week’s shopping in advance, and this has been our key to success.

Do we eat out? Yes. I just make sure I have an awareness of the calories within the food and will offset them with a morning walk with my partner and little girl.

Preparation is about careful planning at first. After a while, though, it just becomes a part of your life (hence the reason Public Health England promotes lifestyle changes more than anything else).

Make a habit of carefully planning your shopping (not necessarily your meals; it’s more about the ingredients and what you have in the fridge and cupboards) for at least 4 weeks. After that, it will become second nature.

Take-home message

Habits can be easy to make but very hard to break. Replacing your unhelpful habits with positive behaviour is the first step.

Keeping on track through the rollercoaster of life is challenging, I know. I shared my story earlier, right?

You have to be clear on your reasons for staying on track. Bad things happen, and when they do, you either revert back to old habits or stand by the habits you’ve built and become even more driven to succeed.