Achieving a Healthy Mindset for Maintenance
Dr Paula Watson
Liverpool John Moores University
Paula delivering her talk to our Accrington Be Strong group on Wed 26th June 2019
Continued from last week: –
View last week’s discussion article here
Point 2: Physical activity is your friend
Questions to reflect on (honestly):
- Do you enjoy being physically active?
- Do you feel you have a healthy relationship with physical activity?
- What role do you see physical activity playing in your lifestyle change/weight loss journey?
What is physical activity?
In this section, you will see I am purposely referring to “physical activity” (any bodily movement that increases your energy expenditure) rather than “exercise”. Exercise isn’t for everyone, and there are many other ways you can achieve the recommended levels of physical activity to benefit your health. Here are just a few:
Exercise – repetitive, structured activities that you do purposely to improve fitness (e.g. Be Strong sessions!)
Sport – exercise that is competitive (e.g. netball, football – or walking versions of these)
Active transport – walking or cycling (e.g. for commuting or leisure)
Occupational activity – active jobs or careers (e.g. postal worker, builder)
Lifestyle activity – being active around the house and in daily life (e.g. hoovering, taking the stairs instead of the lift)
Why is physical activity important?
The benefits of physical activity go far beyond weight management. In fact, research shows that physical fitness is actually more important than weight for your long-term health. Somebody who is overweight and physically active will have a higher life expectancy and less risk of disease than someone who is a healthy weight but is physically inactive.
If you are regularly physically active you will have a reduced risk of:
- Heart attack and strokes
- Diabetes (type 2)
- Cancer
- Falls
- Dementia
- Joint and back pain
Physical activity can also help with your weight management by improving your sleep, and helping you regulate your diet. For example, on the evenings I train Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, I eat a lot less than when I’m just sitting around the house working or watching TV. So a good workout can be seen as a double whammy for weight loss – you’re burning calories through the activity itself, but you’re also distracting yourself from snacking therefore reducing your calorie intake.
But above all physical activity makes you feel good! There is extensive evidence to show physical activity promotes positive mental wellbeing and reduces the risk of depression.
So if you’re struggling to meet your target weight, but you know you are physically fit – take in this good news and remember it!! It may be time to give yourself a pat on the back for all the activity you are doing, and stop worrying about what the scales say.
How much should you do?
The Department of Health (2011) recommend that for health benefits, you need to aim to be active daily, and do at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity aerobic activity over the week. This equates to 30 minutes on 5 days of the week and can be broken down into smaller bouts (e.g. 3 X 10 minutes). Moderate intensity is activities such as brisk walking, cycling, swimming.
An alternative way you can meet these recommendations is by doing at least 75 minutes of vigorous aerobic activity per week (so the Be Strong session would count as 30 minutes of this!).
The guidelines also recommend that you do strength training on at least two days of the week (this doesn’t need to involve going to the gym, it can simply be carrying heavy bags from the supermarket!), and reduce the amount of time you spend sitting.
It is important to remember these recommendations are a “guide” only and are based on minimal levels for health benefits. So with respect to weight management, there are several important points:
- If you are trying to lose weight, you may need to do more than 150 minutes of physical activity per week to achieve this.
- BUT you will gain health benefits through doing 150 minutes of physical activity even without any weight loss
- Remember that you will gain muscle with physical activity, and as muscle weighs more than fat the scales won’t be a true reflection of how your body is changing. Your clothes are a much better indicator – so focus on how your body looks and feels, rather than what the scales say.
- The 150 minutes per week is a minimal level, so if you do more than this you may gain additional health benefits
If you would like to know more about physical activity and why it is important, you can read the full government guidelines here.
Or if you’d like a quicker, easier read, this info-graphic summarises the key points.
And if you’re doing far less than 150 minutes at the moment, don’t panic! Read the section below about how to develop a healthy relationship with physical activity.
A healthy relationship with physical activity will enhance your changes of long-term successDr Paula Watson
So…how do you develop a healthy relationship with physical activity?
How much physical activity you aim for will depend on your starting point. If you are currently doing very little, it may not be realistic to start doing 150 minutes a week straight away. Instead, try and build it up gradually over time.
A healthy relationship with physical activity is one in which:
- You enjoy the activity you do
- You are in a regular routine that you are confident you can maintain
- There is some flexibility in your routine (as you recognise it is sometimes necessary to shift things around)
- You don’t beat yourself up if you miss a day, or have to take a break due to other commitments (as sometimes these things happen, and you are confident you will get back on track)
- Physical activity is important to you and you view it as a constant in your life
You can use the above checklist to consider your current relationship with physical activity, and identify areas that might need to change.
If you currently don’t tick any of these, and this aspiration seems a million miles from where you are now, don’t worry – it takes time to develop this kind of relationship with physical activity. Instead see this as an aspiration, and something to check back with on your journey, or to keep yourself on track if you are slipping into unhealthy tendencies (e.g. being too “all or nothing”, beating yourself up, or finding you’re not enjoying physical activity).
Below are a few tips that will help you develop a healthy relationship with physical activity, or might help you out of a motivation “lull”:
- Find what makes you “buzz”! There are many different ways of being physically active, and if you are going to keep it up forever it is important to find something you enjoy. You may not enjoy classes, and would rather fit your activity into your lifestyle, through walking, taking the stairs and doing household activities. Or you may like to add in a more vigorous activity such as Be Strong, running, swimming, exercise classes, a martial art, yoga or dancing. You may even like to re-try a sport or activity you left many years ago – nowadays there are many classes in adult dance and gymnastics, and slower versions of sports such as walking netball or walking football. But the important point is everything counts! It may take you some time to find what is right for you, but I truly believe everyone can find some kind of active pastime that makes them “buzz”!
- Remember vigorous physical activity can be challenging. But this challenge often adds to the buzz! (because it shows you how much your body can achieve) Whilst moderate physical activity always makes you feel good, research shows that if you are exercising so hard that you are sweating and cannot speak the exercise stops feeling enjoyable at that point (I’m sure you know what I mean!). But then when you stop and slow down again, the “feel good factor” returns and you feel joyous at what you have achieved! So remembering this is a natural part of vigorous activity can help you keep going. Even if it feels tough at the time – you’re going to feel great afterwards!
- Focus on being the best you can be, rather than comparing yourself with others. It is human to want to compare yourself with others, and judge how you are doing on based on these comparisons. But sometimes this can be demoralising, as it doesn’t take into account everything that makes you different from the next person (e.g. your starting point, your weight, personal barriers to exercise). Research shows that if you focus on self-improvement (i.e. being the best you can be!) rather than comparing yourself to others, you will feel more motivated to keep going with physical activity, and will maintain a healthier wellbeing.
- Set yourself physical activity challenges to help with motivation. One of the basic human needs is the need to feel like you are “good” at something in your life. As with anything else, if you are feeling like you’re not making any progress with your physical activity, you might begin to lose motivation. A great way to push yourself is to set yourself a challenge (e.g. one of the Be Strong monthly challenges) or to enter an event, such as a 5k race or a sprint triathlon (this is a short triathlon). So if you haven’t yet done Couch 2 5K, perhaps now is the time to consider it!
- Make physical activity a social activity. And where better to do this than with the Be Strong group? Whether you’re an online member or attend one of the groups, try and find a buddy to be active with you, or if that doesn’t work, try sharing your active stories in the Be Strong facebook group – that sense of connection with others will boost your motivation.
- Mix it up or take a break. If you’re doing the same thing week in, week out, it is natural that you might get a bit tired from time to time. A great way to keep yourself motivated is to add variety into your routine, or if you’ve been doing a lot of one activity, take a planned break or try something else out for a week – you’ll be surprised how much you enjoy it when you go back to it!
- Try and establish a regular routine so that physical activity becomes a “habit”. A habit is something that you do naturally without thinking about. So if you can make physical activity a habit, it will be a lot easier to maintain in the long run. The way you develop a habit is by repeating it regularly, within the same environment, over a period of time (examples might include walking for 10 minutes before breakfast every day, or going to Be Strong every Monday). Research shows the period of time for a behaviour to become habitual can vary from about 3 weeks to about 9 months, depending on the individual and the type of behaviour you’re trying to change. So when you’re starting out it is important to persevere, over time your routine will become a habit and it will be much easier to stick with in the long-run.
- Plan! You have probably heard the saying “Fail to plan, and plan to fail!”. Well it is equally true with physical activity. You can have great intentions, but if you don’t plan for when you are going to be physically active, you are unlikely to do it. The more specific your plan is the better. I find a useful strategy is to write what I am going to do and when on my calendar at the start of each week, I then tick this off as I achieve it (or cross it off if I don’t do it!). It is important you learn not to beat yourself up if you need to cross a session off though, this will happen from time to time and it is absolutely fine. Just cross it off and either revise your plans for the rest of the week or continue where you left off.
- Get out there and do it! The irony with physical activity, is that the more you do the more you feel like doing (and unfortunately vice-versa). Energy breeds energy! So the most challenging part if you’re lacking motivation can be getting off that couch in the first place. When you feel like this – try reminding yourself why physical activity is personally important to you, remind yourself how great you will feel afterwards, and get out there and do it! I find if I have a session written on my planner (see previous bullet point) I just see that as part of my day, so there’s no question about whether or not I will do it – I just get on with it. If however I let indecision start to creep in (“maybe I won’t go because I’m tired, or because I’ve got work to do etc.”) that’s when I become vulnerable!
- Finally, remember the more physical activity you do, the easier it gets. If at the moment you are doing couch 2 5k and every running section feels like a nightmare, keep going and one day you will – I promise you – be able to run at that pace whilst smiling and talking to your friends. But the only way you can achieve this is by actually doing it!