As a female only Back pain specialist and fitness coach, I predominantly work with women who:
Have tried all the diets
Counted calories
Cut out food groups
Tried all the quick fixes
Now they’ve either decided nothing's going to work for them and sort of accepted that, or realised they need a different approach.
Enter me. Kirsty aka Kinetic Coaching & Nutrition.
The core of what I do is working on the foundations of your health and your lifestyle. The bricks that build up the daily decisions, habits and routines that become our lifestyle.
I'm going to look at the basics; the root causes behind your behaviours; rather than just treating a symptom or picking a behaviour and asking you to change it.
We're going to look at why it's there.
And I have found that often, this comes from diet culture. The pressure put upon us or to look, dress or be a certain way, shape or size.
If you grew up in the 90s, it could be the social, cultural norms set by celebrities like Kate Moss telling you nothing tastes as good as skinny feels! Or the constant comments to ensure you felt that your body shape and size determined your worth. It could be family traditions and routines around food that shaped your eating habits or led you to use food as a reward …there could be lots of different reasons.
Sometimes it's something that we're not really sure of, and that's absolutely fine. Recognising it’s time to change something is all we need to make a start.
So, rather than saying:
You don't do enough steps in the day so here’s a new target for you..
I’ll ask about your lifestyle and routines, priorities and responsibilities, and we’ll work out why you don't move much during the day. What else is going on that has created the current movement patterns that you have and where can we find room to change?
I'm not looking for perfect.
What I'm looking for is that you're taking action and moving in the right direction..
A big part of the process of dieting or fat loss is behaviour change.
We need to change the behaviours and we need to understand why we have those behaviours in the first place if we're going to change them.
We don’t need to be drastic, this is where a lot of people fail. Small changes are the ones we stick to, such as the way we look at foods.
Moving away from labelling them as good and bad; or as healthy and unhealthy, but as foods that have a place in a balanced diet; and you need to have more of certain things in your diet to feel your best, and less of others.
And that includes having some foods that help you feel your best mentally as well.
We also look at creating some type of routine and structure, but with flexibility built into it because life doesn’t always go to plan.
So, the structure might just be that you plan your breakfast and/or lunch for your working days.
For most of my clients, tea time is going to be with your family, or you might socialise at tea time so there would be more flexibility here..
I educate my clients around where the hidden or empty calories come from
For example, the difference between making a protein shake from powder with water at home or with milk versus buying one that's ready made in a shop.
There's quite a big difference in terms of things like sugar and additives as well as calories.
Same with if you're getting a coffee - I'm never going to tell someone they can't have a pumpkin latte.
But if you're having it every day and can't understand why you're not losing fat, do you know what's in it?
Are you looking at those kind of things that will add up quite simply?
Movement-wise, I keep it very simple.
If you're doing 5,000 steps a day when you come to me, I'm not going to give you a 10,000-step target.
10,000 steps does not apply to everybody and isn’t achievable or necessary for everyone.
It was a number that actually originated from marketing.
The whole point of a step target is just a way to measure your activity levels.
I have people who cycle, and they can cycle for five hours and not hit their steps.
It doesn't matter because they've been cycling.
So if you don't enjoy walking, but you love dancing, or you play sports, or you enjoy running, or doing sprints on a treadmill, whatever it is, we build your activity levels and goals around that.
And it's done gradually, because that is how you make it a lifestyle change.
Now, I do recommend all my clients do strength training.
However, that doesn't mean that on day one, you need to be in the gym lifting weights or at home lifting weights.
We are, from day one, building habits and routines, educating you on why it's important, and finding a way that works for you.
It might be that you love HIIT training, and we incorporate some weights into it, and build it up that way.
We need you to find the love of whatever sport or exercise you're doing, so that you're confident to do it, you enjoy doing it, and then you'll continue.
One of the common things that people do is say, right, I'm going to get up at 5am tomorrow, and I'm going to go to the gym, and I'm going to do that every day this week.
And then day one comes, and you snooze your alarm and you don't get up.
That's a promise you made to yourself that you didn't keep.
And that transfers away from just diet and exercise, that transfers to all sorts of things.
The way you talk to yourself, the promises you make to yourself, and the language you use when you talk to yourself are so important.
If you then snooze your alarm, don't do anything, tell yourself you're useless, you failed as usual, blah, blah, blah, that is going to put you in such a negative mindset and likely lead you to self sabotage the rest of the day.
And you're going to feel down, you're going to be less sluggish, you'll do less steps, you'll have less momentum to do anything.
Instead, the promise can still be kept to yourself.
You can still keep that promise to yourself by just doing something else.
Have a look at why you didn't get up at 5am.
Chances are it was just unrealistic, and there was no way you were going to do it.
So what can you do instead?
Well, instead, you can still get up at 6am or 7am, whatever works for you, or find some time later in your day and just do something.
Yes, you said you were going to go to the gym today.
That didn't happen.
What else can you do?
You can do a 10 minute bodyweight routine.
It's still exercise.
And the mental impact of the fact that you still did something, you still kept that promise to yourself, that you would do something to improve your fitness, to improve your mindset, and to improve yourself in some way.
The fact that you kept that promise, the benefit is huge, and you might not see it straight away, but it's happening, and you're reinforcing a belief that you can do something.
And at that point, you need to look at the goal you've set for yourself for the week.
Don't set yourself up for a fail again tomorrow.
Revisit, okay, actually, was there anyway I was ever going to get up at 5am today?
And if the answer is, yes, I just didn't commit to it, then great, try again the next day.
Work on what alarm tone you're using, how early are you setting the alarm?
Is it the right time?
Is it too early?
Is it not early enough to bring you out with your deep sleep, whatever works for you?
Or look at it and be like, do you know what?
Yeah, I'm not going to train at that time. I don't know why I decided I would.
Fine, set yourself an evening goal or a lunchtime goal.
How long are you asking yourself to give to this new habit?
If you've gone from not training to saying you're going to do five hours in the gym this week, that's unrealistic and not something you're going to go straight into.
If you've gone from not going at all, set yourself a target of once or twice.
Again, use a range - you don't have to be as specific when you first start.
You just need to realistically be able to achieve it, and then celebrate yourself for it, and then do it again the next week and go, do you know what?
One was quite easy to do, actually, I can definitely get two done this week.
A big mindset shift that I coach my clients towards - doing something is always better than doing nothing.
You need to lose the all-or-nothing mindset and lose the perfectionism trait that you may or may not have.
You need to recognize your achievements.
I have many of my clients at the end of every day, write down three positives from their day.
Even if you've had the worst day and you're going to bed thinking you've had the worst day, it's been crap for x, y, z reason, you can find three positives.
And they could be as small as the washing basket is empty, or you got through the school run with no tantrums, or everyone's beds are made.
They can be simple, but just the act of going through your day to find positives.
Generally, most people come up with more than three when they really start thinking about it, and it just means you then reflect more positively on your day before you go to bed.
“Your head is a space that you live in, and you need to keep on top of the housework”
If you had some pots to do, you wouldn't just leave them all week, because then it's a mammoth task.
You do them consistently, which is a small step every single day to prevent you from having a much bigger job to do at the end of the week.
You can apply this for your steps, as another example.
If you have a weekly target of, let's just say 70,000, which would be 10,000 a day.
And you only do 5,000 each day - That's a massive task left for you to do at the end of the week.
So just chipping away every single day, taking action in the right direction, massive game changer.
And it's the same in your head.
Keep your head as a positive place.
Don't let the thoughts and the negativity pile up, because that's going to be a much harder task to deal with.
Deal with it in little chunks.
Five minutes of meditation, 10 minutes of a bodyweight routine, a 10-minute walk outside.
They are little chunks that are going to add up to keeping your head a tidy space to live in.
Let’s look at measuring progress.
In general, I don't give my clients a scale weight target unless they particularly want one.
Now, this is very individual, but certainly for the six week Back to Bricks programme - no scales.
For some people it can feel quite scary when you have spent your life weighing yourself, putting your worth on whether that scale number has gone up and down, particularly if you've ever done Slimming World and been asked what you did wrong because you've gained two pounds one week.
You don't need to use scale weight.
If you have a lot of fat to lose, yes, the scales are going to be a good progress measure to begin with, but you need to understand the fluctuations and the things that can change it, because what the scales will do is impact your behaviours.
Let's say you've had a week of doing really great, making positive changes to your diet.
You've increased your activities, you've been to the gym, and then you step on the scales, and they're either the same or you've gained 2 pounds.
Your behaviours will massively be impacted by that in a negative way.
You'll feel that there was no point in all the work you've done, despite the fact that you feel so good, and you're moving better, and you're feeling better, and your clothes feel better.
That will all be gone in that moment when you see that scale number.
You'll just feel it's all been pointless, and you will not try as hard, you will not put the efforts in, because you put all your efforts.
We're relying on seeing a number on the scale, and suddenly all those positives that you'd seen and felt, gone.
So for me, get rid of the scales.
I'm not saying that nobody should ever weigh themselves ever.
I'm not saying it can't be part of your progress measures, but it needs to be used with other measures and with understanding of scale weight fluctuations.
And in Back to Bricks - we're focusing on behaviours.
We are focusing on mindset and other measurements that we can see, such as, like I just said, how you feel in your clothes, how well you can walk, did you used to struggle to get up a hill, and now you don't.
Can you go up the stairs without pain in your knees or your back?
We'll be looking at your energy levels.
We'll be looking at, are you able to run around with the kids or the grandkids?
Are you able to, if you're playing sports, how are you feeling better?
Are you managing to run for longer?
Are you recovering quicker?
How do you feel in your clothes?
How do you feel when you look in the mirror?
Those are the things that are more telling of improvements in your health and fitness than the scales.
And in six weeks, that will be a really big difference.
The positive mindset that you will get from the fact that you are working on your body.
And in all honesty, in six weeks, even without the weight training, you will see a difference, because you'll be moving more, you'll be eating better.
Another measurement we will do is body circumference measures.
So just using a fabric tape to do, generally, I would say your waist, your biceps, your thighs, your chest, your hips.
Some of these, so for example, if you take your hips, your hips are measured at the widest point, and if you are doing a lot of glute training, I'm not saying this would happen in six weeks, but with my clients that I work with for a long time, when they're glute training, that butt will lift.
So sometimes we actually see an increase across the hips, but the shape change visually, it's the body composition is much better.
So again, this is why you always need more than one way of measuring your progress.
And if you are doing your measurements at home yourself, if you're not one of my in-person clients, then you need to allow for the fact that you may measure in a slightly different place.
For example, your thigh.
I would always say to measure from the upper inside your leg down to your knee, and just use like a white eyeliner or a chalk or something to mark the halfway point, and that's where you're going to measure the circumference of your thigh.
So allow for the fact that you might just measure in a different place than you did last time.
We use progress pictures.
***I will not put pictures of you in your underwear on the internet***
I won't put any of your progress pictures on the internet for that matter because I wouldn't want to put mine on there either! And not only that, the picture isn't showcasing how you feel and what you've really achieved.
I also don't require you to do your pictures in your underwear.
It's entirely up to you.
Yes you can see more change if you're in your underwear. But honestly, if you've just got something like a sports bra or a sports top that you train in, like a vest top, that you can see your body shape, that's more than enough.
All we need is to be able to see the difference when you put that outfit back on in six to eight weeks, whatever the period between photos is.
It's important for me to get to know my clients, as there are lots of other different factors affecting your fat loss, mental state, habits and body composition (how your body is made up - muscle and fat)
HRT and medications, where are you at with your cycle, how are your stress levels, what are the reasons for you trying to improve yourself?
When I say that I coach holistically, that's what I mean. There is so much more to losing fat or improving your fitness than just what your step target and your calorie target is.
So I have condensed this into my Back to Bricks program, which is a six week process, which will take you from where you are now, whether you're feeling stuck, like you're trying everything and nothing is changing, you're unhappy with where you are, you don't know how to get started, you don't know which path to take next, but you are ready to take some action.
Bricks is for you.
There are no more than 30 spaces.
Although you are signing up to a group program, it is also individually tailored.
You'll have a weekly one-to-one review with me, where we will talk about your goals that we set at the start of the program.
We'll talk about how you're finding everything, anything you're overwhelmed with, what's going well, what do you need some encouragement with, what are you struggling with, all of those things.
And then we plan for the next week.
Anything you struggled with this week, we’ll look at:
What were the barriers?
How can we get past them?
What are we going to do differently?
Do we need to actually just stay the same and nail certain parts, keep the targets the same?
That's all one-to-one and private.
We also have two Zooms as a team.
So everyone on the programme together on one meeting, and we'll talk about common barriers.
You'll be able to put questions forward ahead of time so that they're anonymous if you don't want to ask in front of the group.
And we'll talk through them all, and that gives everyone a chance to say, oh, actually, I had that problem, and this is what worked for me.
Because as much as my coaching is what you're here for, the community that we can build is massive.
The team calls that we have where there's lots of things I can suggest you try, and then it might be that you go, actually, yeah, if I take what Kirsty said and do this, that really works for me.
And hearing from other people who have the same issues as you, A, confirms that you are not the only person in your position.
No matter how many times I tell you that as a coach, hearing it from other people who are where you are or have been where you are, it's really helpful to you.
And then to hear how they got through those issues is so helpful.
And my clients are, I mean, honestly, I attract great people.
They are so helpful, whether online or in person.
My in-person classes, I can have someone who's trained with me, with me and with other people for years, someone new comes in, and they are just like welcomed in.
My entire client base is like that, and the online team chats are the same.
Everyone wants to help each other, there's no gatekeeping.
And it's such a great community.
If you would like some more info on this, you can go to my website www.kineticcoach.co.uk/bricks to find the next intake date and join the waiting list if applicable.
I want you to be strong, confident, positive, not wasting time thinking about how you're going to repair the fact that you ate cake yesterday, or worrying that you can't go and play on the beach with your kids or your grandkids because of how you look in your outfit, or that you have a belly roll when you sit down.
All these things that realistically are very normal, but either we don't like them or we're made to feel that they're not normal.
If you're ready for support but not sure if Bricks is for you, you can complete an enquiry form and I will be in touch within 24 hours.
And for weekly 'female fat loss made simple' advice, follow my podcast The Kinetic Couch on Apple or Spotify.
Kirsty 💕
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