Shari Hanily

“Cheat meals” seem to be a hot topic in my question box lately, so let’s talk about them!

Let me start by saying that I hate the term “cheat meal” or “cheat day”.

When you use these terms, you’re implying that you’re doing something wrong or breaking some sort of rule. And by extension, you’re implying that whatever food you’re eating is also inherently bad.

This then leads you to believe that you’re failing or ruining all of your progress…

And once you’ve convinced yourself that you’ve ruined it, you decide that you might as well keep going…

This often looks like eating beyond the point of comfort, because during this process, you’ve also told yourself that this will be the last time you’ll eat this food. You convince yourself that after this, you’re going to “get back on track” and never touch these “bad foods” again.

So… you really go for it.

And then you feel guilty.

This often leads you to go too far the other way, becoming overly strict with your nutrition. You’re frustrated at your “lack of willpower” so you starve yourself to try and balance things out to make up for the “cheating”.

This might be ok for a short while, but as predicted, you can only tolerate this for so long before you start feeling deprived, hungry, tired… etc

Eventually, because you’ve been “so good”, you decide you deserve a cheat meal…
Which turns into a cheat day…
Which makes you feel guilty and disgusting…
And so the cycle continues.

Is this familiar to you?

Two things for you to try:

1. Stop calling them cheat meals. Stop thinking food as good and bad. Stop assigning moral value to food! Once you understand that everything is ok in moderation, food becomes your friend and something enjoy, not something to fear.

2. Stop depriving yourself for days or weeks and telling yourself that this is successful dieting. It’s not! A successful diet is one you can sustain long-term. Not one you need to restart every 8-12 weeks when you “fall off the wagon”.

You’ve heard me say it 1000 times: if the methods you use to get your results are not sustainable, then the results won’t be sustainable.

If CBF had a face, this would be it 👆🏾🤪

I hate training at this end of the day, and I’ve often been guilty of using that as an excuse not to get it done. More often than not though, my performance is just as good in the afternoon as it is at any other time of day, and I definitely feel just as great when it’s done.

Why am I telling you this?

Because the stories we tell ourselves have a huge impact on our consistency and therefore our outcomes. If your endeavours to make positive, healthful changes are met with narratives that categorically undermine your ability to succeed, then you’re unlikely to make much progress.

How many of these statements sound familiar?

“I can’t exercise in the mornings”

“I can’t exercise at night”

“I can never stick to anything”

“I don’t have time”

“Nothing works for me”

“I get bored too easily”

You keep these narratives alive by continuing to give them your attention, but ultimately all you’re really doing is unconsciously giving yourself permission not to try. (And I mean REALLY try. Consistently. Over a period of time).

It’s human nature to want to stay comfortable and to avoid the hard path, but are you really making things easier for yourself long term, or are you just avoiding doing the work?

What are some of the narratives keeping you stuck?? Let’s chat 👇🏾

A HEALTH BEHAVIOUR IS ONLY AS HEALTHY AS YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH IT

👉🏾 Training 3-5 times per week is super healthy; but not if you’re doing it from a place of punishment or loathing.

👉🏾 Eating a diet rich in whole foods is incredibly healthy; but not if you can’t comfortably enjoy soul food from time to time without guilt or anxiety.

👉🏾 Getting a high step count each day is fantastic for our health; but not if your step counter rules your life & causes you stress.

Prioritising health behaviours should never come at the cost of your mood or mental state. If this is something you struggle with, try to remember this:

The ability to move and to choose what we put into our bodies is a privilege, not a punishment. Focus on how you FEEL when you make positive choices.

That’s where the magic is 🤎

The thing about self-improvement (or change) is that the initial changes are easy - relatively speaking anyway.

You’re fuelled by hope and desire at first. You’re so excited by the idea of the “new you” that you manage to power through those initial sticking-points and tests of resolve.

But here’s the thing:
A body at rest wants to stay at rest, and that applies to your state of being as much as it does to your potential.

Even if you’re not happy with who or how you currently are or used to be; at least it was comfortable. It was familiar. It was the devil you knew.

Now you’re entering a whole new space with new rules and new normals, and it doesn’t feel as natural or comfortable to you as your previous world did.

And that’s ok. In fact; it’s normal.

But this is what makes it all too easy to regress back to old behaviours - even behaviours that you know aren’t serving you or your goals.

We know repetition is important when it comes to improving our fitness or skills, or even in forming a new habit. It’s just as important when we’re trying to create new thought patterns and behaviours.

Are you getting your reps in? 🫶🏽

Whether the goal is performance, fat loss, muscle growth or otherwise; you need to stop treating your results like a one-time event.

The goal should always be longevity.

Before you embark on your next quick “challenge” or the latest trending diet, ponder this for me:

How can you get to where you want to be in a way that is sustainable, healthy & still allows you to live your life?

If you’re struggling to get results — and this is relevant in the context of many goals, but ESPECIALLY fat loss goals — then you might need to start paying attention to this (significant) part of your week.

I’m not telling you to stop living your life.

If you know me or if you’ve followed me for a while, then you know I’m very much against locking yourself away from social outings or cutting entire food groups for the sake of getting to the end goal quicker. This approach teaches you nothing other than how to stay in the pointless cycle of on-again off-again with your health habits.

HOWEVER..

If you’re losing almost half of your week to behaviours that take your further from your goal, then maybe it’s time to adjust your expectations. Or, perhaps you need to practice being a little more considered with your weekend choices.

Food for thought 🤍

Chances are you already know how to lose fat:

Sleep well.
Eat better.
Move more.
Create an energy deficit.

The principal is pretty simple. But that’s not the hard part.

❌ Having the perfect calorie target isn’t going to fix your emotional eating

❌ Hitting your protein goal won’t fix your all-or-nothing mentality around food & healthy lifestyle habits

❌ Cutting out entire food groups or skipping social events with your friends for fear of “falling off the wagon” teaches you nothing about fostering a balanced lifestyle

Yes; nutrition plays a key role in fat loss. But until you understand and address your behaviours around food, no amount of calorie counting and clean eating is likely to work long term.

This is why I really dislike & strongly discourage extreme diets with my clients. Will it work? Sure - in the short term at least.

But it’s a bandaid solution over a much bigger problem, and 9 times out of 10 we end up back where we started, having the same conversation 3, 6 or 12 months later.

If you’re *truly* ready for long term change, you can’t keep allowing yourself to be seduced by the easiest or fastest route. Put in the work now and thank yourself in 12 months time.

As always, reach out if I can help 🤎

I often get asked how to improve motivation. But the (annoying) truth is this: Motivation is an unreliable beast.

It is rooted in emotion.
It’s fleeting.
It’s unstable.

The difference between people who get results and those who don’t has little to do with motivation and everything to do with discipline.

How inspired you feel on any given day can be influenced by multiple factors, many of which can be out of your control.

Discipline, however, is a choice.

While you should never ignore your bodies signals for rest & recovery, it’s important to learn how to tell the difference between your body *truly* needing to stop, and your mind simply trying to stay comfortable.

How do you that?

You’ve got to practice showing up and getting uncomfortable in exercise situations.

It’s not always easy, fam. I get it. But how often do you leave a workout wishing you chose to stay home?

Fuel for thought. Much love xx

Just a quick reminder that the gym (or wherever you train) is not the place to repent your dietary ‘sins’ or your weekend shenanigans 🍹
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Why?⁣
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1. There is no such thing as a dietary ‘sin’. Dichotomous thinking around food - like suggesting something is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ - can (and often does) lead to a poor relationship with food and disordered eating habits.

2. Honestly, it would take a WILD amount of time and effort to *truly* work off a big, delicious, hyper-palatable, hedonic meal. It’s a really sh*tty reason to workout. There are 99 reasons to move, but food guilt aint one!

3. It sounds cheesy, but the gym/your workout space is a place to celebrate what your body can do - it shouldn’t be a place to punish it. Training is your time to tend to the one vessel that will carry you through this incredible life. ⁣It isn’t always easy - but it’s the ultimate form of self respect.

You know the things you should be doing most of the time if your health is a priority. But don’t forget to give yourself permission to enjoy yourself along the way 🤎
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Please excuse the very unrelated photo, but 1) We don’t need another shameless selfie on the grid this soon, and 2) How cute is 🤍

Anyway; this popped into my question box last night, and I think it deserves a permanent spot on the grid for anyone else who’s feeling the same.

Let me ask you some questions:

What if we started thinking about ‘transformations’ in terms of YEARS rather than weeks? How might that change your expectations around your physical endeavours? Would it help prevent a few disappointments?
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As an industry I think we’ve been misleading you.

Placing a shredded athletic body on the cover of a program titled “4 WEEK SHRED” - even when we know that person has been training all their life - causes you to associate THAT body with the 4 week time frame. And when we don’t achieve that SAME look in 4 weeks, we assume that either the program to is blame, or worse, that we are flawed.
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The knock-on effect is often that you find yourself hopping from program to program without maintaining the consistency or structure that is required to achieve results. OR, you just end up feeling deflated and giving up altogether.

Short term challenges have their place. 8-12 weeks is still a great amount of time to implement progressive overload and see some nice improvements in your performance and physique along the way. But SIGNIFICANT and SUSTAINABLE body transformations?

Let’s stop putting unrealistic expectations on our bodies and start thinking about that as a more long-term process…

How often have you convinced yourself that you're just waiting for the right time to make a change?

“I’ll start doing ____ when I have more time / when I feel more motivated / when work settles down…”

Life is busy and we only have so many hours in a day. I get it. But I would also argue that how we choose to spend our time is a reflection of our priorities…

Think about the last time you were in a good groove with your health habits. Did the time spent prioritising those habits take away from your other commitments, or did the rest of your day become more productive as a result of your overall vitality?

Life is messy and hectic sometimes, but the one constant we have is our ability to choose how we treat our body.

The conditions will never be perfect and you won't win everyday, but one thing is certain:

You can't grow without change.

So what are you willing to change? It might be uncomfortable at first, but just start somewhere 🤎

If you’re having trouble sticking to a healthy routine, chances are there’s more going on than a simple lack of willpower.

How are you sleeping?
What does your work-life balance look like?
Are you stressed?
Have you taken on too much?
Is your relationship struggling?
Are you a parent of young children?

There are a million reasons why you might be having trouble prioritising healthy behaviours, but here’s the uncomfortable truth:

Doing the work is hard. Change is hard. Consistency is hard. But guess what’s harder? Staying stuck in the same place, wishing for better outcomes.

Choose your hard… 🖤

Sundays spent scrolling though old photos & missing my people 💛 It’s HARDDD work finding a groove right now. I know. But don’t let that be an excuse to do nothing.

I’m seeing a lot of people get so caught up waiting for motivation to strike that they’re forgetting the most important part - STARTING.

It DOESN’T have to be complicated.

You can walk an extra 10 minutes each day.

You can drink more water.

You can eat more veggies.

You can always do SOMETHING.

And doing something will always be better than doing nothing.

And as long as you do that something consistently enough - you WILL see progress.

Don’t let the illusion of complexity fool you into thinking that you’re not ready.

You are.

Just start somewhere 💛💛💛

5 THINGS TO REMEMBER TODAY:

1. Small steps are still progress.
2. It’s ok to have a bad day.
3. Asking for help isn’t giving up. It’s refusing to give up!
4. Consistency > Perfection.
5. It’s rarely as dire as you think it is. Breeaattthhe!

🤍🤍🤍

It is HUGELY ignorant to suggest that eating less and moving more simply comes down to willpower.

Obviously willpower plays a part. No one is arguing that.

But there are literally hundreds of biological, psychological and socio-cultural contributors to binge eating. Energy balance is simple in theory, but our emotions are complex - that’s where a lot of people come unstuck.

So please be kinder to yourself.

If you’re having a tough time with your nutrition, step away from overly restrictive or advanced tools for now, and just try keeping it simple while you work on your mindset.

✅ Drink more water.
✅ Eat real food at least 80% of the time.
✅ Prioritise sleep.
✅ Move your body everyday.

And most importantly - stay consistent! As the saying goes: Rome wasn’t built in a day. Be patient xx

Movement is so much more than “calories burned”

It can improve the way you feel about yourself and your ability to handle challenges.

It gives us an opportunity to focus on our weaknesses so we can turn them in to strengths.

It teaches us to get comfortable feeling uncomfortable.

There is SO much more to training than calories burned or weight on the bar. Numbers and data are an incredible way to measure your physical progress, but don’t forget the immeasurable impact that movement has on your mental health, your resilience, and the overall way you FEEL. That’s where the real magic is 🤍🤍🤍

Striving for aesthetic goals without prioritising good sleeping habits is a bit like trying to walk up the downward escalator.

It’s possible - of course! But it’s going to take WAY more effort and it probably isn’t sustainable over time.

👉🏾 Make your room as cool and dark as possible.
👉🏾 Invest in a good pillow.
👉🏾 Try to keep consistent sleep/wake times where you can.
👉🏾 Take a quality Magnesium supplement, daily.
👉🏾 Turn the screens off 30min before bed & reading a book or try meditating instead.

Sleep is king! Sleep tight, friends 🤍

Struggling to get your vege in? Here’s a couple of my fave broccoli hacks:

1. Pop it in the food processor and add it to your breaky scramble or omelette. So easy and you don’t even taste it!

2. Steam up your broc, then add some butter and garlic and pop it in the processor until you’ve for a smooth, yummy mash!

You’re welcome 😉🥦

If you cannot sustain the methods then you cannot sustain the outcome. If you cannot sustain the outcome then what exactly was the point?

Food for thought 🖤

CONSISTENCY > PERFECTION

No one should expect to have the perfect workout every day.
No one should expect to get the perfect amount of sleep each night.
No one should expect to perfectly hit their calories every day.

That’s just not how life goes.

You WILL make mistakes.
You WILL have off days.
You WILL lose motivation from time to time.

It’s all a normal part of the process, guys! It’s called being human.

The road to long-term success starts with recognising that following a good plan consistently will always be far more effective than following a perfect plan inconsistently.

Remind yourself of this next time you get impatient and want to use unsustainable tactics to get faster results. There are many methods that work, but they only work for as long as you can sustain them. And if the plan isn’t sustainable, then neither are your results...

No shade on aesthetic goals here - we’ve all got them or at least we’ve had them at some point.

Just make sure you’re also protecting your health & energy in the pursuit of a slimmer waistline.

Contrary to popular belief, you CAN have your cake and eat it too 😉