KEYWORD ‘NEED’ mere desire or requirement? All too often do I observe people’s rationale for last minute dieting, cleansing, juicing and seemingly tactial starvation. 

Holidays and works parties aren’t logical justifications of the above. If you really cared about your body or general appearance enough to do something about it, you wouldn’t be far off in the run up to such a time months before. It’s only the beckoning realisation of the things you cannot have alongside a good body that breaks the EMERGENCY F’ IT GLASS to which the contents inside are fat burners and quick fixes.

Fast dieting so late in the game is a nightmare for hardgainers and those with a fast metabolism, considering how hard it is to preserve any progress on even less food and a much higher output. In addition, quick fixes and the like only have bearing on satisfying the short term, they might reduce bloating and water weight, improving body composition somewhat, but they are still compromising ideals which require consistent factors purely to maintain. A 4 plate squat fuelled by 4000+ calories does not equate to 5 plates when eating a 1000 more, nor does acquiring a leaner state warrant overindulgence just because you’re further ahead than before. Do you need to diet? Or stick to that which brought you results previously. For weight loss and body composition, said approaches may bear a different response each time; stress factors, TDEE and lifestyle changes, time being on your feet throughout the day. It’s not necessarily how long you spend in the gym, how many hours of cardio you do a week or how many days you can tick some form of exercise tick off, it’s the rest of the time in-between. I bang on about recovery but just because you’re not working does not mean you’re resting. Drinking on a night out, EVEN IF it’s not a late one, might put you to sleep faster, but you are not really sleeping, you’re merely sedated. The same thing goes for justifying smoking a joint before you go to bed, if you cannot sleep without it, is it serving you a purpose anymore or are you dependant on being sedated to function.

If you don’t need to diet, and you firmly grasp your list of do’s and don’ts well enough not to guilt fast and guilt sweat, it’s easy. It’s failing to acknowledge your downfall and making use of this realisation which is hard.

ALCOHOL>

DRUGS>

STRESS>

PEER PRESSURE>

BOREDOM>

WHEN IN ROME>

How do we act upon these states of influence when it means justifying a guilty pleasure or something entirely regretful afterwards. Is it lack of will power or do we merely fail to acknowledge the above in their forthright bearing over our decisions, as we cannot decide for ourselves half the time.

Mere desire or requirement? No justification needed for a drink after a stressful week, so what if every week was stressful. We are still peer pressured into that which we may not want to partake, is it merely influence or control, do you need someone else to dictate what to eat, where to go, what to wear, what if they told you to diet? Then it would be an insult. It seems we only care when it means harming our image, but the very thing holding our image together is self control, conviction and security in ourselves, Do you need to diet? No, but are all your friends ‘skinnier’, maybe I should diet? ‘fitter’, maybe I should run? ‘funnier’, Maybe I should laugh more? ‘smarter’ Maybe I should read more? Are these justifiers or motives? Does your motivation come from other people or from means so unwaveringly deep rooted that no lapse of competition or stance of trend beside yourself will contest to it.

DIET, EAT LESS? WHY? WHEN? WHAT?

A diet doesn’t just mean eating less, or more restricted, it merely outlines a list of things which are conducive to a said goal or approach, MORE calories being the premise of a predominantly STRENGTH orientated diet. This doesn’t necessarily mean it is a green light on junk food and multiple Dominoes visits, though this may help appreciating your discretion. While strength and weight may be a useful gauge of progress, it should not be a fixed determiner for irrational eating. If strength may be down during a prolonged cut, consider what your end goal will depend more on, strength or body fat %. In an ideal world we would all like to be as strong, as lean and as fit as possible, but these are often three different rings on a venn diagram which are interlinked by exercises that still need independant bearing.

Somehow it’s almost for the sake of making a point of how hardcore people are for their justification of doing so, but realistically, a few weeks of hard dieting won’t do much in the grand scheme of things. Here the WHY has not really been a strong enough WHY, but more of a HOW long it will be until the next bigger WHY comes.

A HOLIDAY? IT GOT CANCELLED

DIET STARTS MONDAY? SEE YOU A WEEK NEXT MONDAY

LOW CARB HIGH PROTEIN? YES BUT WHY?

INTERMITTENT FASTING? WHY?

Be your own devils advocate and question the reasons for going on a diet or changing your eating habits before you have the option to be corrupted by everyone else’s rationale. It might even be worth working out what your DOWNFALL is before you even consider to diet, if it is even necessary, the premise to which the thing/things holding you back may prevent any resolve with eating habits, found above “>…”

So how do I know what my downfall is and how do I fix it? If only it were that simple.

My next blog will discuss what my biggest downfalls have been and how I resolved them.

Jake