Allegedly I value my Health, Body and Lifestyle

By Coach Lloydy: Co-Founder Brawd Men’s Health

I’ll let you into a little secret… it’s really powerful.

Interested?

You should be as it could be the difference between success and failure.

I quite often hear this familiar story….

Everywhere…

“I’d like a little bit of guidance if that’s ok?

I was pissed Friday and Saturday evening and in my office there is always loads of chocolates and cake. At home there are loads of temptations everywhere like crisps, beer in the fridge and fizzy drinks.

My kids treat cupboard is like a scene out of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

I do work extremely long hours and never really have time to cook, so I just eat processed food and takeaways (just a click away on my phone).

Most of my friends drink heavily and love eating out, I live for the weekend where I can treat myself and live a little too.

Oh, and allegedly I value my health, body and lifestyle.”

Ok, if you’re not able to give me any guidance, would you at least make some assumptions on what type of person you’d expect me to be?

Would you foresee me to being fit?

Would you foresee me eating healthy food each day?

Would you foresee me as someone who is happy, calm and content?

I was also hoping that you’d be able to give me some pointers?

To be honest, I’m a bit overweight and generally feel tired all the time. There’s a history of hereditary heart conditions in my family, so I’m really worried about my high blood pressure.

What would you recommend?

Should I be counting my carbs? I hear that coconut oil makes you lose weight? Do you think I need a new diet? What do you reckon? Apparently cardio makes you fat so I’ve cut that right out.

Left Brain vs Right Brain

By now if you’ve read our other journal posts on the mind, you’re probably aware of the left and right side of our brains?

Well if you didn’t know, left = logical brain and right = emotional brain.

We can’t have one without the other and they are both of equal importance to us.

The challenge we have as humans is when one tends to take charge of the tasks the other side should really be handling. If you want to make a lifestyle change – this is important.

We’ll come back to this is a bit…

Let’s zoom out of our grey matter and look at something else.

Our Habitat and its POWER over our success.

At the start of this post, I spoke about my situation remember? I’ve got 99 problems and a cupboard full of sweets IS one.

Well Hombre… our habitat has a huge influence on the “Situations” we sometimes find ourselves in…

Scenario 1 – Sometimes as if by Magic.

“ I just don’t know how it happened, I’ve just smashed a whole box of chocolates and I only wanted one”

It’s as if some Alien power took over you and forced you to eat every one yes?

Scenarios 2 – I only went out for ONE pint.

The same Alien power made you drink TEN pints and order a kebab! Well kinda – it’s that right brain again.

How did you get into the SITUATION? Let’s zoom back out and look more into our habitats – yes plural.

Your Habitats

Our home habitat – What’s at hand? Does it help you or hinder or give you temptation?

Our daily habitat – How do we go about our day? How do we go about our evenings and night? How do we behave?

Our physical habitat and social habitat – What and who do we surrounding ourselves with? Who do we spend a lot of time with? Who’s in our peer group?

Our resource habitat – Do we have a phone with every take away in town on it? Apps at the touch of a button? Do we have healthy, delicious meals prepped in the fridge?

WILL POWER vs Your Habitat

At the start of this post I mentioned the “secret” and that it’s really powerful?

Well, here it is… and it’s a beaut.

“WILLPOWER IS A LIMITED RESOURCE”

Ok… yep…we know that there are lots of blogs and sources that shout out about having the willpower to do anything and we’re not saying that willpower isn’t powerful.

What we are exploring is the idea of constantly using will power to resist temptation or concentrate and the idea that this DOES leave us depleted so we have LESS SELF CONTROL to tackle other challenges.

There is even evidence that willpower gets depleted as the day goes on. So maybe this is why at 20:30 on Friday after a long hard week you just opt for pizza and beer.

Can you therefore rely on willpower?

Well I kinda know myself and know that I can rely on Willpower to get me through some difficult situations every now and again…but every day?

Nah…

Put me in a bar on Friday evening with some crisps, beer and some peer pressure…

Lloydy Collapse

Agree? Disagree? Regardless – I’m going back to my left and right brain.

My right side or emotional brain wants to spend money on more beer, even though my left side tells me I should go home as I’ve got a day with the kids tomorrow.

My choice: on this occasion either don’t go out or stay at home and buy only 2 beers.

My right brain can’t stop thinking about the packet of chocolate biscuits in the treat cupboard. My left brain say’s its ok to have one.

My choice: Don’t buy the biscuits in the first place.

My right brain wants to stay on at work as working long hours will impress the boss and make me stand out from my peers. My left brain tells me that when I get in I’ll have no time or willpower to cook so it’s another takeaway.

My choice: I’m going to leave work an hour earlier than I normally do and see what happens.

My right brain says leave the fitness until later. It only takes me 25 mins to drive to the gym, I’ll be fine.

My choice: I get up earlier and do a home workout in the garden as I never feel like it later on

Your habitat, your choice.

If I went out on the town every weekend, I’d probably get drunk every weekend. So instead I pick carefully the nights I go out and you won’t find me in situations that revolve around pubs and booze.

If I had chocolate and crisps on my office desk, I’d eat them all day.So instead I don’t have any food on my desk.

If all my friends and peers were pissheads, burning the midnight oil, ate junk I’d probably be doing the same.So instead I have friends that exercise, love adventure and challenge me…to be a better me.

If I put myself in the same habitat as most men in the UK today, I would live, look and be like most of them. I’m 42 years old.

“I don’t consciously make the choice to be healthy every day, far from it – I love drink and kebabs. So generally I just go along with the habitats I’ve created and chosen to interact with”

So why would you set yourself up to fail?

If you live the life of a highly stressed, overweight and ill prone individual, why should you expect anything else?

What habitats are you putting yourself in?