Oh no…I slipped up! 
Free Fitness Blog-Posted by Personal Trainer Mike Evans – www.mefit.com.au

Hi YouFitMEFIT’s,
Happy Monday to you’ll…I found this week’s seminar notes very interesting in just the why we slip up, but when we continually slip up with diet and exercise and how can we help ourselves stop and deal with the oh…I slipped up AGAIN & AGAIN especially now that we are in the last 4 weeks of MEFIT’s Sutherland Shire Gyms, 8wk Body Transformation. Bringing it home my YouFitMEFIT’s. He he

Let’s not forget the long term goal, maintaining our results…dealing with continual relapses. (not good for the mental state of mind, yo-yoing scales)
Lets a take a further look into what exactly is a lapse and relapse when talking about our weight loss/toning up journey for this spring summer! Remembering, this is a very normal part of the whole weight loss/ toning up journey.
‘one’s best success comes after his greatest disappointments’
-Henry Ward Beeche
Single episodes of deviating from your weight loss, exercise plans are known as lapses; these are a normal and expected part of the process of change and provide you with an opportunity to learn about the things that trigger unhealthy behaviour. Lapses are not a problem in themselves. They only become a problem because they tend to lead to other lapses. A series of lapses can often come about as a result of just one lapse and this is called a relapse; it’s pretty much when we use one lapse as an excuse to give up completely or ‘start again on Monday’.
In other words one lapse is just one individual ‘failure or slip up’ and a relapse happens when you go back to your old ways altogether.
When psychologists help people to recover from lapses, they use the idea of ‘retracing your footsteps’

Psychologists believe that lapses don’t ‘just happen’. Something will have led up to it. One way of understanding a problem really well is by concentrating on a single episode rather than the whole problem area.
Thinking back in detail about a particular episode is like re-tracing your footsteps. First, you need to be clear about what happened during the episode. Then you have to think about what happened before and after, including what thoughts and feelings you had before and after the event.
Unhelpful thoughts, which we have spoken about a couple of times, are often an important factor in whether a lapse becomes a relapse. Let’s have a look at some examples of both helpful and unhelpful ways of thinking about a lapse from your weight loss plans.
Perhaps the most important thing you can do if you find yourself in the middle of a lapse is to stop what you are doing and give yourself time to think about what you want to do next. Try the following ‘emergency plan’ for getting yourself back on track.
What to do if you have a lapse
STOP doing what you are doing and remove yourself from the situation
RECOGNISE that one lapse is not the end of the world and don’t trap yourself with negative thinking
LEARN by thinking about what was happening around you, and inside you
PLAN what to do to stop your slip becoming a fall and put your plan into action now
BE POSITIVE and carry on!!!!
But wait there is more...(Dealing with peer pressure) to be continued!

Ciao ciao!
New to Mike’s fitness blog & MEFIT personal training Sutherland Shire?
Become a YouFitMEFITTER today & get in the best shape of your life!
Did you like this post? Well…make a comment on this Blog let us know your thoughts! Like it, Tweet it and help us create a social network buzz online.  It so encouraging and a bit of fun for fellow youfitmefitter’s to hear and read how and what others are doing at MEFIT Gyms Sutherland Shire!  

What’s your BIG MAC attack trigger?
Free Fitness Blog-Posted by Personal Trainer Mike Evans – www.mefit.com.au

Hi YouFitMEFIT’s,
What’s your BIG MAC attack trigger? Mine is…running around in car with the hungers and no planned healthy options with me. Big Mac attack or quick option take away to do the trick. In doing so, blowing out my calorie intake for day! DOH
This Fitness blog post will highlight our internal & external triggers in relation to staying on track with our MEFIT Gym Sutherland shire, diet and exercise goals.
Most people find it easy to make one or two changes when starting on a weight loss program. The difficult part can often be when you are trying to keep those changes going after the first rush of enthusiasm wears off.
What I am going to look at today are the techniques that psychologists use to keep people motivated to achieve their goals; by helping you to focus on making changes to your behaviour that will lead to weight loss/toning. But this technique goes one step further than just telling you what you can do to lose weight; it also teaches you how to work out what has happened when things go wrong, how to deal with it and how you can make sure that you are on track in the future.
So, the things that can ‘trigger’ unhealthy behaviours of overeating or not being
active enough.
• Some triggers come from within the person; they can include the way that you think and feel, as well as physical states such as hunger and thirst. These are called Internal Triggers.
• Other triggers to unhealthy behaviour come from outside the person; these are called External Triggers and can include things like the sight and smell of tempting, but unhealthy, food.
Triggers are what are usually at the cause of any ‘slip ups’ you might have, or what we often call ‘falling off the wagon’; those times when you stray away from your eating plan or your activity plan and we will look at how to manage that a little later.
So once you are aware of your external triggers, you need to know how to deal with them…so here are three strategies to help you:
1. Avoid the trigger (stimulus control)
One of the most effective ways to beat a trigger is to avoid it completely.
2. Do something else instead (response substitution)
Society and advertising encourage people to eat as a way of comforting or rewarding themselves.
3. Learn to resist (resistance training)
It’s not possible to avoid all the triggers which lead you to overeat, so it may be helpful to teach yourself how to resist in the presence of temptation.(this one takes time) Detoxing helps! 
Strategies to help you with internal triggers
Some triggers to overeating are not so obvious because they are ‘inside’ the person. They may include the way you feel about things or the way you think about thinks, but they can also include physical stage of your body such as hunger or thirst.
There four most common types of internal triggers that can make it difficult for people to stick to their weight loss plans are:
-Hunger
-Cravings
-Unhelpful thoughts
-Emotions
Dealing with Hunger and Cravings
A regular eating pattern is the best way to keep overeating because of hunger at bay. However, many people experience a strong desire to eat even when they can’t possibly be hungry. For example, they might have a strong desire for a pudding at the end of a very filling meal. These intense desires – usually for a specific food type – are known as cravings. It can be difficult to distinguish between hunger and craving, and many people don’t know the difference between the two. Because of this, they often eat when they don’t need to and the excess calories can undo the rest of the day’s hard work.
However, there are some basic facts about cravings that should help you to resist temptation.
Surfing the urge

You might have thought that you are the least likely person to outlast an urge to eat. Most people believe that the urge will get worse and worse so that eventually they will have to cave in. However, psychologists who have studied people who think they are addicted to a whole range of things, such as smoking, have found that this is not the case.
Urges and cravings can be seen as a wave that comes upon you. The wave builds up more and more as if it can engulf you. You feel overwhelmed, and relieve these feelings by eating. However, like the wave, your craving can’t stay high forever – it has to subside. Sometimes it helps to think of just such an image, perhaps of yourself as a surfer riding up and then down the wave. As you
do that, remind yourself that these strong feelings will always subside within 15-30 minutes, even with no intervention. But there are things you can do to counter the feelings as well:
- Wait 20 minutes first
- Distract yourself by doing something else that you enjoy. 
Enjoy, and Surf the Urge for a BIG MAC attack! He he

Ciao ciao!
New to Mike’s fitness blog & MEFIT personal training Sutherland Shire gym?
Become a YouFitMEFITTER today & get in the best shape of your life!
Did you like this post? Well…make a comment on this Blog let us know your thoughts! Like it, Tweet it and help us create a social network buzz online.  It so encouraging and a bit of fun for fellow youfitmefitter’s to hear and read how and what others are doing at MEFIT Sutherland Gym!