WHAT DO YOU have in common with a professional boxer, a Premier League footballer and an Olympic sprinter? Not a lot, you might initially assume – but think again. What do you hope to achieve with your Energy Plan? Your goals might not be a million miles away from those of the performers I work with:
Their goals may be very specific, but in broad terms they stand for the same as many of our own: we might, like the footballer, want to improve general fitness, no matter what our starting point is; or, like the boxer, we might want to lose body fat; or we might be more the sprinter type, looking to improve strength and power.
And the broader goal for each of them, of course, is to have the energy to perform at their peak. For the boxer, there’s little point making the weight category if they’re going to get knocked out in the first round.
In order to view nutrition through the right lens, whether you’re a top performer or simply someone becoming alive to the idea of living a less sedentary lifestyle, it’s important to start with your goal. Think how much easier your day at work is with a to-do list or a trip to the supermarket is with a shopping list. The goal could be to reduce body fat, to maintain energy levels during a nightmare week at work or to improve your strength in the gym. Once you have your goal you can begin to tailor your activity and your nutrition towards it, instead of, as it were, blindly wandering the aisles.
When I work with any team or individual, the first thing I do is establish the goal; then I can put in place a process to help them get there. And through establishing your own goal you can make your first steps to cutting out some of the noise surrounding nutrition, and begin your Energy Plan in earnest.
Getting started with an exercise routine can be difficult, as can tailoring your current exercise routine into something with greater purpose. And even once you take the first step, it’s easy to fall into the trap of going for that same old run around the block – not too fast or too slow – on autopilot, or wandering around the gym with the anxiety that comes from wondering, Which machines should I go on today?
Even if you have your exercise sorted, thank you very much, then there’s your nutrition. There are thousands of foods that contain positive health benefits for you. Things like manuka honey, turmeric, cherry juice… or whatever else the self-appointed ‘wellness guru’ at work is waxing lyrical about. The food industry is seemingly set up to maintain this conveyer belt of elixirs for our body and mind. But should you be consuming these? After all, a dollop of coconut oil here, some nuts there and maybe a tasty flavoured kombucha drink to wash it all down can add a substantial number of calories to your intake – and might actually be sabotaging your progress.
These elements might all form part of an approach in which your goal is to ‘exercise more and eat better’. But I’ve got some bad news for you: you haven’t established a goal at all.
The language we use is paramount. ‘Exercise more and eat better’ is too grey, too fluffy – what would meeting this so-called goal even look like? What would it feel like? Why would it matter to you?
The Energy Plan isn’t a diet; it’s a journey. My hope is that you will adopt some, many, or all of the approaches within these pages and that you will still be using them not just over the next few weeks, as you might with a diet, but over the next few years and beyond. With my clients and performers, I work to upskill them about their body and to answer all the challenges they will face – fat loss, muscle gain, recovery, immunity, sleep – so that they then have the tools to problem-solve for themselves. You’ll be able to do the same with your Energy Plan. I regularly have clients coming to me who say:
●‘I want to feel more energised.’
●‘I need to lose weight.’
●‘I want to run faster.’
Naturally, I want to know why? In my experience, just wanting to have more energy or lose weight isn’t enough. They’re not meaningful enough.
●‘I’ve just landed my dream job but I need to be able to maintain my energy levels as I’ll be working longer hours.’
●‘I want to reduce my body fat, as I’m getting a bit older and have a young family now and I want to be as healthy as I can be.’
●‘I want to run a personal best at the London Marathon.’
All of a sudden these goals have come to life and I can understand the deeper reasons and motivations behind them. The language is so important, and, even though it might take a bit of deeper digging to get there, it’s worth doing it so you can set out something serious and with greater intent.
Can you identify your ‘why am I doing this?’? It’s vital that the hook is meaningful enough to you. Will it get you out of bed on a cold November morning?
Away from elite sport, many of the people I work with fall into two categories:
If you’re in the latter camp, if you’re at the beginning of wanting to become more physically active and eat better, or you’re trapped in a bit of an exercise rut, perhaps it’s time to meet one of my clients:
Simon is a music producer. He travels all over the world, meeting and working with some of the brightest talents all the hours he can to maintain his position in the industry. And if there’s one thing his job does not offer, it’s a balanced lifestyle around exercise, travel, sleep and personal time.
Simon isn’t in the best shape of his life, and when he’s not spiked by caffeine, he feels tired and sluggish. He likes the idea of doing something about it, and occasionally makes it to the gym for some scattergun sessions on the treadmill and weights, but the language he uses when we meet is telling:
‘I should do more exercise.’
‘Managing nutrition on the road is tricky.’
As the conversation evolves, the roadblocks mount up in front of him. And, once we finish our coffees and say our goodbyes, I don’t hear from him again. I don’t expect to. He isn’t ready to make a change.
Fast-forward two years, and I receive a text: James, can we meet this week? Simon.
When we meet, Simon looks no different – but everything has changed. He’s recently become a father for the first time, and if he thought he didn’t have enough energy before…
He’s struggling with balancing the new demands at home with work, and the sleepless nights and pinched time have got him into some eating habits he feels he needs to kick. He badly wants to have enough energy to be an engaged dad and partner. He wants to be around long enough to see his daughter grow up.
When Simon came to me a second time, he had intent. He was serious about beginning the Energy Plan, and whether you’re a finely tuned fitness lover, someone who’s beginning to think about dusting off their gym kit or anywhere in-between, as long as there’s a desire to engage with being more physically active, then the Energy Plan can work for you.
For those at the beginning of the journey, stepping on to the first rung of the Energy Plan ladder can be as simple as boosting physical activity with incidental activity (see Part I), being physically active and moving the body more each day. If you’re currently a sedentary person wanting to make a change, this is where it all starts for you.
As you step further up towards the middle of the ladder, you move on to exercise. This involves revving your engine in the form of some aerobic or resistance exercise, and is a good and necessary progression from basic physical activity. But it’s also the stage many find themselves plateauing in, doing some exercise but not getting the maximum out of it.
At the top of the ladder is training. Targeting goals that are specific and meaningful to you as part of your Energy Plan demands that you step up from your mindset of ‘doing some exercise’ to one of training to meet your goals. If you are planning to increase strength and muscle mass, then prioritise resistance training sessions in your training week. If you are aiming to reduce body fat, ensure there are sufficient aerobic sessions. There is more intent here. Professional athletes aren’t ‘doing exercise’; they’re training to meet their individual and team goals, and there is no reason why you should not be taking your goals just as seriously. You’d be amazed at just how powerful a slight change in language and mindset can be. Ask yourself:
As soon as there is a goal you can write down, all of your training and nutrition can be aligned to meeting it. And if you already have a strong goal and exercise regime, now might be the time for you to move on to the next chapter, Performance Plates, which will be the main part of your nutrition strategy as part of the Energy Plan. For those still struggling with exercise, read on:
There are still large swathes of the population who don’t engage with exercise – and a lot of people who would like to, but can’t find an approach that works for them, whether that’s because of time constraints or just feeling that they don’t know where to start. It can be daunting, and a big part of that stems from the fact that a lot of people don’t like exercising. They don’t like training or the gym. And I would say to them, that’s perfectly normal!
It’s quite easy to be put off by people in the gym with incredible physiques taking selfies while they look like they’re having the time of their lives. For most of us this isn’t a reality, and even with the athletes I’ve worked with it isn’t necessarily the case. I’ve worked with professional footballers and track-and-field stars who absolutely hate the gym. They love the sport they perform in, and being at their absolute physical peak is part of the job, but they just loathe the work in the gym. It’s not for everyone – and I’d include myself in that.
I’ve tried countless types of gym and training programmes, and found I never liked spending hours on them. It’s a conflict because while, thanks to my work in sport, I understand better than many people the importance of resistance-training programmes, I just don’t enjoy lifting weights in a gym to do it. However, when I tuned in to some of the language used in my work with professional footballers I began to see training work in a new light:
The strength and conditioning coaches at Arsenal would ask, ‘What is the minimal dose of resistance training required to keep strength and power levels at their peak?’ We call this the minimal effective dose (MED), and it was a game-changer for me. Instead of spending over an hour in the gym, the coaches worked out that gym work could be reduced to 20 minutes after the players had finished training on the practice pitches, working on the core exercises to keep the players strong. The result was more productive sessions and a happier bunch of players – although the key (or catch) here is that if you are in the gym for a shorter period, you need to be prepared to push yourself harder while you are there. For example, taking your muscles to fatigue at the end of a set of repetitions.
Healthcare professionals are starting to prescribe exercise as medication, certainly in the case of those conditions that can be treated through more physical activity, and in this sense using terms associated with medication like ‘minimum dose’ fits perfectly. The idea of a minimum dose of exercise lowers the barrier to entry. It’s the difference between thinking you haven’t got an hour free to go to the gym before work and deciding that, actually, you can make time for a 20-minute session. It will help reduce your stress levels and give you more energy (indeed, recent research has highlighted that this can be done in just 13 minutes).1 If there’s a shorter way to achieve what you need, why would you not use it? Just as with your nutrition, there’s no point doing a little of every kind of exercise you think is good for you if it’s not helping you reach your goal. I know that when I go to the gym now, it’s for a 30-minute session and then I’m out the door, and I feel much better about it. If I’m in there anywhere near an hour something’s gone wrong somewhere.
Finding your dose can take time. It might involve getting some help from a personal trainer or a friend or colleague. Or it might mean finding something sociable, like a fitness class, running or cycling group (you can get your dose from aerobic exercise as well as from resistance work), that makes you feel like exercising isn’t something separate from your life that you have to do reluctantly. In Chapter 8, Moving the Needle: Monitoring Your Progress, we will look at how to measure the progress you are making in your Energy Plan. By experimenting with various kinds of exercise, you’ll be able to see which is delivering the best results – without leaving feeling that you HATE this! Because you’re not going to carry on doing something you loathe that much for ever.
One piece of advice from my strength-and-conditioning colleagues rings true: build your base. This applies whether we’re talking about a runner building aerobic fitness before increasing pace and adding higher-intensity sessions, or going to the gym and learning how to move and use the correct technique before adding resistance or weight. In the rush to reach your goals it can be tempting to jump into the hard stuff, but this can often lead to hitting a brick wall. Remember, the Energy Plan is a long-term strategy, so putting in the foundations at the start will allow you to enjoy its benefits more fully for longer.
With a goal established and our training planned, we can now look at bringing it together with fuelling yourself to meet these demands – your Energy Plan. Over the course of this part of the book we will look at how to build your nutrition plan, starting one plate and then one day at a time and building up to a week. We’ll look at the drinks at your disposal, from fuel injections like caffeine to potential gremlins to the system like too much alcohol. We will look at how to manage your environment and stock your cupboards, instilling the winning behaviours that will give you every chance to meet your goals. We will introduce the tools to monitor your progress, the checkpoints to see where any bumps in the road may lie and the impetus to help you adjust to meet these challenges, avoiding giving up at the first sign of difficulty.
And if you’ve been guilty of consuming too many healthy foods as part of an ‘exercise more and eat better’ approach, then a useful mantra to remember through this part of the book is: If it’s not helping you reach your goal, what is its role?
So, let’s get started on the fuel of your Energy Plan – building your Performance Plates.