How happy are you with your current health and fitness? Some ideas and tips to share with you ...

​As you all know I have been on an 18 month journey to improve my health and fitness and find a way to beat the menopause symptoms as naturally as possible.  When I started The Body Coach back in April 2016 I joined an online support group and met the lovely Bev Thorogood.  I loved her posts they were so motivating and intuitive and really helped me along the way with my journey.  I was then fortunate enough to meet Bev and we have become good friends.  Bev had already trained as a fitness instructor many years ago but like all of us approaching a certain age had not managed to maintain the weight and level of fitness that she wanted.  After completing The Body Coach SSS Plan she decided to add to her qualifications and is now a Certified PT and Nutrition Coach.  What an inspiration! 

She has now set up her own business Floresco Fitness and Fat Loss Coaching and has an excellent online support group on Facebook (Your Best Midlife) and in January will be launching a new habit change programme called Floresco Diamond.  I asked Bev to write a guest post for my blog to share with you the challenges that we as 50’ish ladies face with fat loss, fitness and the menopause.  I am sure you will love Bev’s tips and will relate to her common sense advice..  

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​Hi
 
I’m Bev Thorogood, founder and owner of Floresco Fitness and Fatloss Coaching.
 
Let me ask you a question?
 
How happy are you with your current health and fitness? 
 
On a Scale of 1-10, where 1 is totally fed up and 10 is ecstatic, what number would you give yourself?
 
If you’re a 10 that’s fantastic, it’s a great place to be and, to be honest you probably won’t need to read on any further – although you’re very welcome to of course.
 
If you were a 9 or less then read on, this is important stuff!
 
After years of being constantly on either this diet or that diet, I finally figured out that actually diets didn’t work for me in the long term.  I often lost weight to be fair, but as soon as my diet finished – or rather my self-discipline and willpower ran out – I’d revert back to all my old ways and the weight would just pile back on.  
 
I was 50 years old before I finally figured out that there must be something I was doing wrong.  I started to think about how I felt about food rather than what I ate.  I initially embarked on a very strict 12 week diet and exercise programme through The Body Coach.  It was radically different to anything I’d done before and I learned a whole load of new knowledge that basically tipped what I thought was right on its head.
 
I lost weight, got fit and felt great.  But guess what?  At the end of the 12 week programme old habits started to slip back in.  I could feel it happening and it scared me.  I’d put in so much effort to get fit and healthy, to feel fantastic at 50, and I could feel it starting to slip away AGAIN!  It was clear that I still hadn’t tackled my underlying habits and feelings around food. 
 
I started reading everything I could find about emotional eating, mindset, habit formation and habit change.  I started to work on my subconscious mind because that’s where the deep rooted poor habits lived.  I started to work consciously on changing my habits and repeating them over and over until they became the new ingrained habits.
 
I didn’t really know at that time why things were changing, I just knew that something in my mind had shifted.  I was starting to make healthy choices without having to think about it.

People started asking me how I had managed to keep the weight off.  They wanted to know the secret!  And now, having trained as a nutrition coach, people will often ask me ‘What’s the Best Diet for Me?’.
 
This is such an interesting question, not least because every single one of us is unique and every one of us reacts differently to different foods. 
 
We are built differently, we have a different metabolic make up.  Some of us naturally produce greater proportions of some hormones.  Some have a greater amount of lean tissue than others.  Some develop sensitivity and intolerances to certain foods and indeed some have food allergies.  Some are more active and require a greater amount of certain macronutrients than others.
 
So, for me, the question isn’t about which diet is best.  It’s not even about which diet works. 
 
In truth, all diets work if pure weight loss is your goal and you don’t mind how much metabolic damage you may be doing getting to that magical number on the scales.
 
They all aim to reduce overall calorie intake, create a calorie deficit and get us using more energy than we consume.
 
In fact, we can pretty much think of a diet as simply a vehicle for losing body weight. 
 
Imagine, if you will, you switch the word ‘diet’ for the word ‘car’.
 
What’s the Best Car For Me?
 
Maybe you’d love a sporty little Lotus ‘cos you like to go fast.   Maybe you’d find a leather seated Mercedes more you.  Perhaps budget is your priority so an economical little micro hatch is just up your street.
 
Truth is, they will all get you where you want to go.
 
One might get you there quickly, while another one might make for a more comfortable journey.  Another one might even give you bragging rights if it’s the ‘in-thing’ at the moment, others might simply be the best you can afford.
 
BUT HERE’S THE THING!!!
 
None of them are any good if you don’t know how to drive.
 
Think about the process of learning to drive.  It’s all about learning new skills and turning those skills  into unconscious habits.
 
When you’re first learning to drive everything feels new and a bit scary.  You have to think consciously about every single thing you do.  You’re trying to develop lots of new skills all at once and your brain has to take multi-tasking to a whole new level.
 
It takes time.  You make mistakes.  Hell, you might even crash the damn thing.
 
More than likely though, you don’t give up and simply say ‘that’s it, I can’t do this’.   No.  Instead you find someone who can teach you and you keep trying and practicing until all those new skills become second nature.
 
If you’ve been driving for some time, you’ll no longer get into the car and say out loud ‘mirror, signal, manoeuvre’.  You just do it.
 
When you’re about to start your journey, you don’t have to consciously think about putting the key in the ignition, putting on your seat belt, putting it in gear and figuring out the bite point.  You just do it.
 
That’s because you allowed yourself to go through a process of habit change.  And now, it’s second nature.
 
Learning to eat properly isn’t about the vehicle it’s about learning to drive.
 
It takes patience, it takes time and it takes consistent effort.  It takes learning from your mistakes and not giving up because of them. 
 
Once you’ve learned to drive your own diet, the road belongs to you.  You can go anywhere you want safe in the knowledge you’re in control.

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I love this analogy!  I will be joining Floresco Diamond in January to discover how I can change my habits.  Like Bev, I really loved The Body Coach SSS Plan and it got me some fabulous results BUT I cannot be on a 'plan' forever - surely 'plan' is just another word for 'diet' and for me it is about creating a lifestyle that can give me balance and flexibility - something I have been learning with the 8020 Lifestyle Plan, education is key!

Interested?  Find out more below:

Your Best Midlife - Bev's Facebook page that offers day to day support, lots of tips and information, exercise suggestions and recipe ideas.

Floresco Fitness and Fat Loss Coaching - contact Bev via her website and find out more about Floresco Diamond or Bev's online coaching.

Bev is offering 15% off Floresco Diamond if you sign up before 1st January 2018 - £15 per month for a 6 month habit change coaching programme - find out more here.  Or go to this page to sign up!

Love
Michelle xx
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