The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Fat Loss

I've been listening to the audio of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People in the van recently, as part of my Magic Hundred goal to learn stuff and make the most of otherwise wasted time spent driving between clients.

There is a lot of useful stuff in there and pretty much all of it can be applied to fitness and fat loss:

1. Be Proactive

We have to build our own momentum, so it is essential to take the initiative to get of the sofa and TAKE ACTION! No-one will do it for us, so if we want to achieve anything in life, professional or personal, we have to accept responsibility and get moving!

2. Begin With The End in Mind

We can start a fitness or fat loss journey randomly, but my taking time to really consider our goals and get a real understanding of how we will look and feel and behave when we get there, we make the journey more focussed, and also ensure we are going in the right direction! In the book, Covey uses the example of a businessman who single-mindedly climbs to the top of his career ladder, only to realise upon looking back down, that is was up against the wrong wall!

Make sure your programme fits your goals and you maximise your time and effort by having a clear goal in the first place!

3. Put First Things First

Don't run before you can walk and don't buy a fat-burning, metabolism boosting pill until your diet and training are sorted (if at all!). If you are not training at all you may want to run into things head first with two feet (not sure that's physically possible, but you get my point..) but you will end up burning out or causing injury. Work up at a sensible rate and ensure you are setting a good foundation for more advanced exercise.

With nutrition, this is why fad diets will fail - the actual diet will cause you to lose weight but in the long run it is the daily lifelong habits that need addressing.

Adding exercise into an already hectic schedule may also be a challenge and then exercise is the first thing to go when something takes the schedule into overdrive. Instead, look at time-management first - you may have some dead time or time spent micro-managing that with a little alteration could be delegated more effectively.

4. Think Win-Win

'Win-Lose' is the mentality that to win in your fat loss mission, those around you must 'lose' your time or output. 'Lose-Win' would mean that for your family to 'win' or get time spent on them as they require, you have to 'lose', martyring your workout time to the good of the family.

A 'win-win' mentality is the only one that we should strive for (or a 'win-win or 'no deal' as Covey discusses in more detail!). And it very much applies to getting healthy and fit in many ways. For example, if you are fit and happy within yourself, you have more energy and more positivity to share with your family.

You may spend time on your health (but who would deny you that? Certainly no-one who loves you..) but that will be repaid many times over in the quality of the time you do spend with your family. It is well known that offspring of unhealthy parents usually end up overweight themselves - if the cupboards are ful of healthier foods and it's the norm to eat more healthily your whole family will benefit in the short and long term.

And fitness and activity can so easily be integrated into family life. Most kids love moving and have more energy than us adults can usually handle! If you play with them or take them biking or whatever you are getting quality time together while both getting fit and feeling great!

We need to alter our mindsets to truly get a handle on the fact that just because we 'win' doesn't mean someone else has to lose - and that we should always strive to make any situation 'win-win'.

5. Seek First to Understand Then to Be Understood

The way I have related this one to fat loss and fitness is more from my own perspective as a trainer. Many trainers will 'prescribe' the same training programme or nutritional approach to all their clients, regardless of who they are and what their unique needs are.

I laughed when Covey used the illustration of a guy who goes to the optician to get some glasses. When he explains that his sight is failing the optician pauses, hands him his own glasses, and says 'here, try these, they've worked for me for years'!

When the guy protests 'but these make things worse!' the optician dismisses his concerns, telling him to 'try harder' and 'think positively' as they must work - after all they worked fine for him.

This is all to often seen in the fitness industry! I screen my clients for postural issues and weaknesses etc before starting with the training. I spend the hour long consulation finding out about their history in exercise and about them as a person. All this feeds into the approach I take which is different for every client - what works for one will make another worse!

Nutritionally this is really important too. I thrive on what most people consider a low carb diet (it's really a moderate carb one though!) but I will not make my clients follow it because it works for me. Some people need to make big drastic changes in order to stay motivated and fired up whereas others need to take it step by step so they don't freak out over all the change and revert back to where they started.

Listening to yourself and understanding how your own mind works is just as useful, then you can more easily identify the approaches that will work for you and the ones that don't.

6. Synergise

Diets don't work? Or do they? Diets essentially do work but they have to be implemented correctly by the dieter. And this involves the steps above - making sure you have a goal, ensuring you are choosing the right programme for you in the first place etc.

Plus it is the synergy of mindset, training, nutrition, rest and recovery that get results - the total is definitely very much more than the sum of its parts. Exercise for a while, give that up, try a diet for a while, give that up - nothing is going to work on its own. Implement all in a steady, progressive way and you will get results, and keep them!

7. Sharpen The Saw

Well, I'm not onto this chapter yet! Will see how I interpret it with regards fitness and fat loss and update you all soon!