‘Leave Your Ego At The Door’ | PT Reveals Pet Peeves In The Gym
As gym-natives, PTs have a wealth of knowledge. And they’ve seen it all from weird and wonderful ways of using machines, to ego lifting.
We caught up with Nerissa Shea, Myprotein PT, sport and exercise psychology consultant and qualified nutritionist to hear what she wishes her clients knew and her pet peeves in the gym.
“If you want a diet to work, it actually needs to become a way of life”
Diet culture can be awful, especially around the new year when the ‘New Year, new me’ brigade take over. Not seeing progress can be frustrating but cutting out whole food groups to see progress is usually both unrealistic and unhealthy.
A healthy calorie deficit is the tried and tested way to lose weight sustainably. And hitting the gym, lifting weights works wonders for your mind and body.
“Labelling food as good and bad is just not helpful”
We’re probably all guilty of it. ‘I feel so guilty, I ate so much chocolate’, or ‘McDonald’s is so bad for you’. This is no way to live. While things can be better or worse for you, that shouldn’t be all you think about when you eat them.
This is just a fast track to an unhealthy relationship with food. Rather than having a ‘cheat’ day, why not have a ‘treat’ day. Just changing small words can have a huge impact on your relationship with food. And after all, a huge slice of chocolate is not a cheat, it’s a treat.
On the subject of food. Meal plans are another red flag for Nerissa.
Although, it makes sense. How can 1,200 calories be right for everyone?
“You learn more from the bad weeks than you do from when everything goes perfectly”
Nerissa is all about mindset, exactly what you’d want from your PT.
Running a six-week training programme with some of her clients, Nerissa sees them smash all of their goals and workouts in the first six weeks, but often things can go downhill from there. Of course, they do. Life gets in the way, how could it not? But Nerissa’s on hand to pick them back up again.
“Ego lifting! It drives me so mad!”
We asked Nerissa about her gym pet peeve. And I'm sure she’s not alone in her response....
As a PT, Nerissa understands why you’d want to look stronger than you are, but in fact ego lifting does the opposite. The people around you can see your missed form and your inability to do that exercise with such a high weight.
Take Home Message
Our chat with Nerissa revealed some important topics. If you want to look big and strong at the gym, work for it. Ego lifting will only get you so far, in other words it will get you injured. And blanket diet plans are very unlikely to be sustainable. Other than that, we’re headed for a big old slice of treat cake.
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