The ‘Fat-Kid’ Mentality

Yeah, thats right.. I said it. The ‘F’ word.

In this article were going to discuss quite a ‘hard-to-swallow’ subject, that affects a lot of us (including myself). If at some point of your life you have been known as ‘The Fat Kid’ whether this was by other people telling you – or whether this was a vision you had of yourself, around your friends – then this article may relate quite well to you, and perhaps the way you’ve done things surrounding your food and exercise regime.

What happens when we finally decide that enough is enough “I’m going to do something about this“?
We decide to follow the famous ‘Eat Less, Move more’ quote that always seems to do the rounds, and while theres absolutely nothing wrong with that phrase, because effectively its correct – there IS a problem with the way most of us action the quote.

Until you understand where the actual problem lies, we should adjust the quote a little and add in one little word “OR” we should say ‘Eat Less OR Move More”

Why? Well theres a few reasons why.. but the main reason, in my opinion, is that by doing too much at once its just not sustainable, of course you’ll get results quickly your body has had a huge kick up the a$$ and has no other option but to respond – but down the line, you’ll plateau.

This is where the ‘FAT KID MENTALITY’ kicks in, and does far more harm than good.

When you’re killing yourself in the gym, and under-eating, obsessively looking at the scales and they’re just not budging..  our primary thought is “Its food! FOOD IS MAKING ME FAT” so we begin to start lowering our calories again, we create an irrational fear of food, we literally blame food for everything and start creating this yo-yo relationship with food.. under-eating all week, then leaving ourselves starved, drained and craving junk food, so the weekend comes and what do we do? BINGE EAT!

Again, the fat kid mentality creeps in and we blame ourselves for the junk food…
“How could I do this to myself” and “I’ll eat less and work twice as hard in the gym”
You see where this is going?

This is the exact reason I said the quote above should be “Eat less OR work more”.

What should I do?

* Start the gym (2-3 visits a week)
* Eat the same as you were
* Monitor your progress (Photos / Measurements)

If everything remains the same after 14 days.. remove a few grams of pasta from one of your meals or have half a weetabix less (whatever it is, you get the jist) the calories over the week soon add up and create your weekly deficit.

OR

Add in an extra gym session if you can manage it into your schedule, and continue to monitor your progress.

You’ll eventually see progress at a manageable speed, 1-2lb’s consistently a week is where you ideally want to be, but if its less.. don’t worry. Also, its very common to have a higher loss than that in your first couple of weeks, this is mainly water loss through a change of lifestyle and a few other factors.

If you haven’t already read it, this article links very closely to our other article ‘The under-eating viscous cycle“