The results are in!

“I’m so confused about what to eat, how I should eat, people keep telling me different things I should try and none of it works, I just don’t know what to do!”

Hannah came to Blinco Built confused about what to eat

How many of you have been in that situation?

There is SO much information out there and with friends and family telling you to try this, that and the other, it can all seem so hard

Should you try keto, or paleo, or juice fast or the avocado and asparagus leaf diet….

Okay, I made the last one up

We kept things simple with Hann, she’s a busy working mum of two, who could only train twice a week, and shares the cooking load with her husband so we needed him on board too

Portion control and a plan in place for what happened when things went off plan, regular accountability and…

She did it!

She lost 2.6kgs of body fat! (also increased her muscle mass in the process!)

“My whole mindset has changed, I know I can have the occasional treat and I don’t feel bad about myself for having, if I do stray I get straight back on to it afterwards, it’s completely different to what I used to do”

Hannah now has the playbook for the results she’s always wanted, and it’s easier than she thought possible

Well done Hannah! Absolutely killed it

For more posts on improving your life outside of the gym follow our instagram at https://www.instagram.com/blinco_built/

If you’re ready to take the first step in your fitness and health journey then contact us at:  http://blincobuilt.com.au/

Don’t focus on the scales, focus on this instead

To juggle better you need to catch better. Right?  

 

Wrong. 

 

So, if you were to learn how to juggle, what would you focus on? 

 

The throw

 

You see, if you execute the throw well, then the catch takes care of itself

 

You will drop it sometimes, or the wind will blow it off course, whatever

 

If all you did was focus on the catch, you’d be swapping out the part that you have 100% control of, for the part of which you have limited control 

 

The throw is what matters

 

And how to get better at throwing? Well, to throw of course

 

What about weight lost. Is that the catch, or the throw? Take a minute to decide before reading

 

Who am I kidding? You already skipped ahead

What actually matters?

 

It’s the catch

 

By focussing on weight lost you are focussing on the thing you have limited control of, environmental, hormonal, sleep, sodium content, can all have an impact of weight lost (or gained)

 

You can’t control all of these things

 

Actions though. Those you can control with much greater accuracy

 

Hitting an extra 2,000 steps a day

 

Eating an extra serve of vegetables with every meal

 

Going to bed at 9:30, instead of 12

 

That’s the throw

 

The better you get at those things, the better you will get at the catching

 

Not to say you can’t keep track of catches, it can serve a purpose

 

Start with the throws though, and the catches will take care of themselves

 

Read this for more information on how to get started on your weight loss journey: http://blincobuilt.com/top-5-nutrition-tips-for-sustainable-results/

 

Need help with juggling, or weight loss? Reach out for a plan 

 

Think this could help someone you care about? Share it for good karma

 

How we can help:

For more posts on improving your life outside of the gym follow our instagram at https://www.instagram.com/blinco_built/

If you’re ready to take the first step in your fitness and health journey then contact us at:  http://blincobuilt.com.au/ 

 

Do you have a dog? Have you ever had a dog? 

 

Then you fell into two categories, either you walked your dog, or it walked you

 

Depends on whether you spent the time early on to train your dog on the first few walks 

 

With a pocket full of treats, time after time after time going over the same routine. Some days it seemed like you’d turned the corner

 

Only for the next day to be back to the start

 

But you kept at it. Heel. Heel. HEEL. Treat. Stop. STOP. Treat. Let’s go. Treat

 

You might have had a wilful dog, maybe it was the breed, you spent time with a trainer, on Youtube, seeing what works, what doesn’t

 

Finally, you got there. Sure if Kelvin sees a bird, he’s off! But generally it’s pretty pleasant to go for a walk now

 

Or, you thought that’s too hard, tried the treat angle for a bit but couldn’t get passed the no treat stage

 

And spent every walk for 10 years tugging the lead, pulling your precious pup away from onlookers

 

Calling, calling, calling at the park. It’s too hard, just keep them on the lead

 

Being walked.

 

Both things are hard. Because they are both hard, it’s easy to think both are worthy

 

You’re doing the hard work it’ll pay off

 

Maybe one of the stories you tell yourself

Why does this matter?

Like when you try to follow a strict meal plan and train 6 days a week for the 100th time

 

It’s hard work so surely you’ll get somewhere with it this time

 

If you stopped and thought about it, you know deep down, it’s not working and it won’t work this time, like it didn’t the time before

 

Might be time for a different route, one that’s hard early, but will pay off

 

There’ll even be early wins, how much easier was training Wayne when you had an experienced trainer standing right there, helping you along

 

You had to do the work yourself, but it was a lot faster and a lot more effective with knowledgeable help 

 

Better off to learn how to eat, to learn what to eat, to learn how much to eat

 

For good. 

What to do with this information

Stop using restrictive meal plans, start with easy to follow portions of the foods you already love to eat and include social plans 

 

Men, 8 palms of protein, 2 cupped hands of carbs, 6 fists of veggies and 3 thumbs of fat might be a good place to start

 

Women, 4 palms of protein, the rest the same

 

Get results? Awesome, carry on

 

Don’t get results? Adjust carbs or fats or increase steps. Pick one, just one. Go again. Rinse and repeat

 

Do the hard work early, that you know will work

 

It will get easier

 

Then, you can sit back and enjoy the fruits of your labour later on

Roald Amundsen was the first person to lead a team to the South Pole in 1911

 

Robert Scott Falcon also made it there. But he and his team did not make it back

 

Both experienced adventurers, tough, driven, courageous men

 

Two very different approaches on how to get there. And more importantly, back

 

You have to imagine what it was like back in 1911. Cars were available, but not roads

 

The Wright brothers had taken the first flight. Women had just been allowed into some universities. The hamburger had just been invented 

 

Most children didn’t go to school, they went to factories, and 50% of children died before the age of 5

 

And yet these two groups of men wanted to go off into the world’s harshest environment in the hopes of being the first

 

Captain Scott was a gungho kind of adventurer. When the weather was clear, he took the approach to push his team to their absolute limits

 

When the weather wasn’t great, they would stop and rest

 

In the south pole, the weather often isn’t great 

 

Amundsen took a different approach. He focussed on one simple task. Everyday, he would make small progress towards the South Pole

 

The amount of progress he made was what was doable on the worst day, when the weather was terrible

 

Even when the weather was great, and it would have been easy to push his team further, he stopped when that small amount of progress had been made

 

Every day, no matter what the obstacles, small progress was made. Enough that the team could recover and continue on the next day

 

By doing this, Amundsen was first to the South Pole. By a month. 

 

And he made it back. Tragically, Captain Scott and his team, did not

Why is this important?

It’s easy to sit back and see how little sense it makes to wait for the perfect circumstances so that you can push as hard as you can, when those circumstances almost never come

 

And how much sense it makes to instead push a little bit towards your goals everyday, so that no matter how hard things get, you always get a little closer

 

How often do you do that though? 

 

You want to lose 10kg. 

 

So you decide to change EVERYTHING! Push as hard as you can while motivation is high, the weather is great!

 

Even though you know, more often than not, the weather isn’t great. Things will get in the way

What to do instead

Instead, pick one task, that done everyday, will move you closer to your goal

 

Eat 1 serve of veggies with every meal

 

Walk 15 minutes every morning

 

Join a gym

 

Whatever it is

 

Pick something easy to execute. That you can do even when everything else is hard

 

And take it one step at a time

 

Not only will you get there first. You’ll also make it back

 

For more posts on improving your life outside of the gym follow our instagram at https://www.instagram.com/blinco_built/

If you’re ready to take the first step in your fitness and health journey then contact us at:  http://blincobuilt.com.au/

How important is sleep?

 

 

• Trouble with focus
• Mood was terrible
• Willpower was incredibly low
• Skipped the gym
• Couldn’t remember the drive in

 

 

• Increased weight gain and obesity
• Excess caloric intake and poor diet quality
• Decreased cognitive function and memory
• Impaired glucose tolerance
• Decreased testosterone and growth hormone levels
• Increased cortisol (stress hormone) production

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Here’s 10 ways of improving your sleep to get you firing on all cylinders!

 

• Get to bed before 10pm (give yourself an hour more in bed than you need)
• 10-20 minutes of sunlight in the morning (any bright light will do though)
• No screen/blue light distractions an hour before bed (read or talk instead)
• Aim for your room to be as dark as possible (blackout blinds ideally)
• Keep your bedroom cool (cool enough to need a blanket is great)
• No eating within 3 hours of bedtime 
• Keep coffee to the AM (none after 12), and manage your caffeine intake (no more than 2 a day)
• Same awake and sleep time everyday (at least within an 30-60 minutes) 
• Minimise digestive distress by avoiding “trigger foods” or overeating
• Meditate/breathing drills (Headspace or Calm app are really good for these)

 

Is it worth the risk of a growth mindset? ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

​

Growth mindset being the ability to see that your skills and aptitude in a certain area aren’t fixed and that you can grow 

 

You exhibit a growth mindset when you take a foreign language class and learn how to speak Spanish ​​​​

 

Fixed mindset is the belief that ​you are the way you are because of things outside of your control, like genetics

 

A lot of people think they’re genetically incapable of being good at maths​

 

Everyone has a mixture of growth and fixed mindsets in different areas of life

​ 

Y​ou might know you can get better at your job​ as a sales consultant, and also think that you will never know how to use the sales system software because “you’re just no good with technology”

 

Deep down, you know that if you applied the same effort you did when learning sales you could also learn how to use new software, however you don’t really want to

 

This knowledge is power

 

Anything that a human has done, and that has been taught to other humans, you can also do, if you decide to put enough resources to learning

 

You just need to decide on the language

 

Every time you say you can’t do something, catch yourself, and replace can’t with won’t

 

​Of course, not everything is important enough to you to change to a growth mindset, and that’s okay

 

You can do anything in life, you just can’t do everything

 

Health and fitness, a lot like maths, is an area people commonly have fixed mindsets

 

“I’ve tried everything, I just can’t lose weight”

 

More likely you’ve tried the same thing 100x for the same results

 

You probably did one of these:

 

1. a) ​​You exercised heaps more without paying any attention to food​​ or;

 

1. b) You ​​exercised more and tried to stick to a strict meal plan 100% of time

 

A fixed mindset keeps you going back to the same, safe plan, that will give you a predictable result

 

EVEN if that result isn’t what you say you wanted

 

However, a growth mindset accepts the risk of failure and goes for it anyway

 

It’s scary, it’s new, it’s change

 

And don’t kid yourself, good change or bad change, it’s both scary and fraught with danger

 

But do it anyway ​

 

There’s a better way for those who want to bet on themselves

 

It’s worked for others, and it’s been taught to many

 

Quick results, that are also sustainable results

 

Just decide, is it worth the risk of a growth mindset? ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

​​​

​Is there someone you care about that you think would benefit from this? Pass it on, and consider it a good deed done for the day

 

And, you’ll be doing something good to help someone, and they’ll get a reminder that you care​​​​

 

For more posts on improving your life outside of the gym follow our instagram at https://www.instagram.com/blinco_built/

If you’re ready to take the first step in your fitness and health journey then contact us at:  http://blincobuilt.com.au/

There are no secrets to weight loss, however there is often an over supply of advice from conflicting sources

 

This makes it incredibly confusing! It doesn’t need to be

 

I’ve compiled the best 5 tips for losing and maintaining weight loss:

 

1) Calories are King!

 

If you eat more calories than you use, you put on weight, and vice versa

 

With this equation you either need to decrease calories in, or increase calories out, it’s best to do a combination of both

 

“You can’t out train a bad diet” rings true here, it’s obviously very easy to eat (or drink) 3,000 calories in a day​, however it’s really hard (if not impossible) to burn that many

 

That’s why training to “burn calories” is often a bad avenue, as it never actually works in the long term, if you don’t pay attention to your food it slowly creeps up until your back where you started

 

2) Quality over quantity

 

There is an often over looked but important part to this

 

I​t’s quite possible to eat 1,000 calories at a Chinese restaurant and still walk out hungry, whereas if you eat 1,000 calories of steak and roast vegetables… 

 

Let’s be honest, you probably can’t eat that much steak and vegetables, you’d be full half way through

 

​Choose higher volume, nutrient dense foods (in other words unprocessed foods), like vegetables, fruit, and meat or nuts

 

At least more often than you eat processed versions, like pasta, bread and processed meat substitutes

 

3) Build Slack into your Nutrition

 

Remember when I said sustainable?

 

It’s not sustainable to be 100% perfect all the time, include meals out with friends, events, takeaways into your plan

 

If you build these things into the plan with intent you’re much less likely to end up mindlessly overeating when they do come around

 

What an incredibly freeing idea to know you can still have a busy social life and eat well, it’s possible

 

​4) Plan in Advance

 

I’m not talking about meal prepping for 134 hours on a Sunday, if you want to do that, fine

 

But! It’s not necessary, instead just write out what you’ll have for breakfast, lunch and dinner each day for the week

 

This one step makes you 4 times more likely to stick to the plan

 

4 times!! That’s such a huge gain for a really simple step

 

It gives you a plan for meals, and shopping and takes away the danger of trying to decide what to eat after a 10 hour day when you’re exhausted and your will power is gone

 

Make sure your plan includes events and meals out, if you include them in the plan you’ll be more likely to not blow all your hard work

 

You aren’t cheating on your nutrition when you eat out because it’s a part of your nutrition!

 

4) Build Slack into your Nutrition

 

This links well into the last point

 

​​Remember when I said sustainable?

 

It’s not sustainable to be 100% perfect all the time, include meals out with friends, events, takeaways into your plan

 

If you build these things into the plan with intent you’re much less likely to end up mindlessly overeating when they do come around

 

What an incredibly freeing idea to know you can still have a busy social life and eat well, it’s possible

 

5) Eat Slowly

 

This is by far the thing most people find the hardest

 

It’s also incredibly important

 

There is a 10 minute gap between when your belly is full and the message is relayed to your brain

 

That means if you finish your meal in 5 minutes and go fill up your plate again and eat that in 5 minutes, the message has only just reached your brain that you’ve had enough

 

And you feel terrible, because you’ve eaten WAY too much

 

Ever had that feeling?

 

A fun little challenge is to set the timer on your phone to 15 minutes and see if you can make your dinner last that long

 

Do it with friends and family, you’re going to need someone to chat to in between bites!

 

Pro tip: put your knife and fork down in between bites and finish chewing your food before you pick them back up again

 

If you did nothing else but follow those 5 tips you​’ll be better off in 4 weeks time and I guarantee if you stick with them you’ll be even better off in 4 years time

 

Quick results, that will last ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

For more posts on improving your life outside of the gym follow our instagram at: https://www.instagram.com/blinco_built/

If you’re ready to take the first step in your fitness and health journey contact us at: http://blincobuilt.com.au/