Someone once called me disingenuous about how I portray my nutrition. I think what she meant to say was that she thought I was a “hypocrite” and dammit I’d have to agree.

My nutrition is shocking considering what I do for a living. 

I get one thing right however and this in a way proves a point. I understand calorie balance and more often that not I hit my daily allowance and my body fat levels remain consistently low.

By today’s Instabody standards that’s health and wellness all wrapped up. If it aint broke don’t fix it, right? 

But this is not the whole picture and as someone put it recently

“fitness looks different on everybody”

Opex Fitness

What exactly am I getting at?

Well for the last thirty years I’ve suffered with pretty bad IBS in fact I think I invented it back in ‘80s Ireland when nobody had even heard of it. 

Symptoms of bloating, pain and bad mood (finally get to put that excuse out there😉) There are more symptoms but I’ll leave them to your imagination.

I go through periods when it’s good and then not so good. These painful episodes tend to coincide with times when I don’t pay attention to my diet, drink too much and don’t deal with stress effectively.

It’s like a wake up call to get back on track. 

The physical pain and mood swings are sufficiently strong enough to give me a reason to make some changes.

Perhaps you’ve been thinking about making some changes too? It is the right time of year after all.

Well if only it was that simple eh?

In a search carried out by Strava the social network used by athletes you’ll probably not make it any further than mid January before your willpower crumbles and your new year’s resolutions get pushed back yet again to next year.

Not exactly inspiring you to take action here am I…🙄

Going back slightly and touching on what I mentioned earlier. I only ever think about making changes to my diet when the pain of not doing something is too much to bear.

Attaching deep emotional or physical pain to some behaviour that you wish to change might be what Simon Sinek would call your “why”

One would assume that this should be reasonably obvious however the research tends to show that this is not the case.

Whimsical half assed attempts to change stubborn habits will invariably fail to dislodge them and choosing more than one at a time will likely result in a similar fate.

Figure out what’s really important to you and what’s causing enough pain that you feel compelled to take action. As much as I’d like it to be true, aspirational goals of desired outcomes that you move towards may not be as powerful as focusing on negative pain that you wish to avoid or move away from.

That’s enough pop psychology for today 😉

Enjoy the rest of the holidays and remember nothing and no-one is perfect. Cut yourself some slack especially at this time of year.