The Week That Was
Sometimes you come back from a holiday more tired than you left. That was me after spending a few days in Canberra last week. But getting back into regular sleep patterns and training routine has got things back on track towards the end of the week.
I mentioned last week that my training was easing off for a week before heading into a new phase. That has commenced this week, and it’s off to a good start. I usually enjoy the first couple of weeks of a new training program when it’s novel and the body feels fresh.
But then after about three or four weeks in, I begin to learn which sessions are hard and there’s an increased frequency of trying to talk myself out of doing them. So this is where it goes back to being a bit of a chore, but that’s what training often is.
Most of the rewards of exercise come from after the sessions. Of course, it’s often not the most enjoyable thing and there are other things I’d prefer to be doing, but I know I feel better for having gotten the session done and it’s rewarding to see progress over time.
But for now, I’ll enjoy the novelty for another week or so - it’s a good distraction from the constant rain.
Article: The 20% Diet
The Pareto principle states that roughly 80% of consequences come from 20% of causes for many outcomes. It applies to sales, crime, car accidents and productivity.
While it’s not a hard and fast mathematical rule, it’s a helpful principle to help focus on what’s critical to the desired outcome.
Nutrition is often approached uniformly. For example, we want to eat 10% fewer calories, so we reduce every meal by 10%.
But there are often critical foods, meals, or days having a disproportionate impact on energy intake.
To go back to the Pareto principle, it’s not that these 20% meals are contributing 80% of the energy intake. So instead, if we focus on this 20% of meals, we can go a long way to changing energy balance.
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