A few weeks ago I wrote about Paul Cheks’ 6 Primal Movements as metaphors for your best fat blasting mindset.

Movement ‘7’ deserves a post of it’s own:

How to escape self imposed limitations and use GAIT to ensure fat loss success.

To quote Chek “walking, jogging and sprinting are all variations of what is technically called gait.”

So it’s the pattern of movement of our limbs over a solid surface.

We select which gait we use based on these criteria:

=> Speed.

=> Terrain.

=> The need to Manoeuvre.

=> Energy Efficiency.

And this is where the self imposed limitations can creep in.  

1. Speed.

Our hunter gatherer ancestors walked to gather food, jogged to relay important messages and sprinted to either hunt or escape being hunted.

Today, one speed is all too easy to slip into.  It’s meandering through your day, and your life… the classic and depressing cycle:

Wake up – go to work – watch t.v. – go to bed – wake up – go to work.

It’s trance-like and numbing.

Perhaps there is ‘busyness’ however not necessarily results.

RESULTS v BUSY.

‘Busy’ can work 12 hours a day, reactively responding to other peoples priorities via email and phone.  Never finishing the ‘to do’ list (yet still chasing the notion that all those boxes can be ticked).

‘Results’ recognises You Will Never Get It All Done and subsequently is diligent at deciding and then prioritising what is most important… and is disciplined at attacking that most important task first.

2. Terrain.

An ability to traverse varied and changing terrain kept our ancestors alive. 

Today, your ability to traverse the changing terrain of your life will determine your success and happiness.

Yes, that is a big call.  You may have heard that success is determined by your ability to handle uncertainty. If you acknowledge that change and uncertainty are a given… then seeking to avoid them will only bring you pain and unhappiness.

It’s the FIXED MINDSET v GROWTH MINDSET.

The fixed mindset is stubborn and sets a limit on what can be achieved.  It holds tight to certainty and to status quo.

A growth mindset is open minded, embraces the use of imagination to find solutions to challenges and sees no limit to opportunities.

3. The need to Manoeuvre.

You’ve heard that a high performance race car is easy to manoeuvre at high speed? 

In the same way that an aeroplane takes a huge amount of fuel when it’s racing down the run-way for take off, yet when it’s flying it’s cruising?

Weight loss is the same.

The energy and effort initially can seem huge.  Daunting.  Endless.

It can be overwhelming to think “Do I have to continue like this for the rest of my life?”

Thankfully the variables that you may find so all-consuming in the ‘run-way’ phase of weight loss are so much easier to maintain and manipulate once you’re ‘cruising’.

=> You know what works FOR YOU… and what does not.

=> You’re just looking to maintain the momentum you’ve already built… and with that momentum changing course is relatively simple.

=> You have faith in the actions you need to take and certainty in yourself… because you’ve already achieved the results, so you know you can do it.

4. Energy Efficiency.

As early humans diverged from apes we developed the ability to walk on two legs.  Bipedalism.  

The primary reason for this evolution is that walking upright saved energy.  It’s vastly more energy efficient than walking on all fours and that meant more energy became available to fuel our increasingly powerful brain.

Today we have become far too efficient at conserving energy. Both via our obsessively sedentary lifestyle and also via all the processed foods we eat.  

The problem with processed food is two part:

Firstly, the less natural a food, generally the lower the thermic effect of that food.  Low thermic effect foods require minimal work for our body to process… that’s great if you’re energy out-put is super high and you just need energy now (without delving into those fat stores).

It’s not so good if your energy out-put is low and the excess of that easily converted fuel is just going to be kept in store, AS FAT.

Secondly, the less natural a food, the less micro-nutrients it’s going to have.  It’s of less value to your body… and if that’s what you’re feeding your body you can bet it’s going to have less energy to power through (or even start) your work-outs.

Let’s make this implementable with an action for each category.  There’s no need to tackle all four straight away – I recommend you choose the action that is most relevant to your situation.

Before you check out the actions here’s a filter I use when I’m stalling on implementing something new in my life.  These questions work well to kick me into action, I hope they do for you too:

A. Is there value in doing this?

B. Will delaying make it any easier?

C. Do I need any help to make a start?

D. What is the one next step?

=> If your answer to C) is YES then your answer to D) will be get in contact with the person that can help you.

=> If your answer to C) is NO then your answer to D) will be to jump to it with the next step I’ve detailed for you here…

1. Speed: If you recognise that working on your health goal has previously been more about BUSY than about RESULTS then decide today on one major thing you can do first thing each day that will make the biggest difference on your ability to achieve your goal.

2. Terrain: If you tend towards a FIXED rather than GROWTH mindset then decide today on that one thing you’ve been avoiding because it’s slightly uncomfortable (perhaps it involves learning a new skill, meeting new people or just getting uncomfortably huffy and puffy) and commit to it.

3. Manoeuvre: If you have more of an awareness of what you’ve still got to achieve, to learn, to get through… rather than all the progress you’ve already made then start today a journal, computer folder or simple nightly written note to document your reference points for success.  The learnings.  The wins.  The obstacles you’ve already powered through.

4. Energy Efficiency: If processed foods factor heavily in your day to day nutrition (for this exercise lets say you consume 3 servings or more of any of the following or their counterparts daily): cereal, bread, muesli/energy/choc bars, biscuit and other baked and packaged UNgoods, noodles, pasta, sauces, diet yoghurt… heck ‘Diet’ or ‘Lite’ anything – hey let’s just make it easy – 3 servings of anything with an ingredient your grandma couldn’t recognise then switch just one item at each main meal for a more natural (one ingredient) alternative.

=> cereal might swap to oats.

=> a salad sandwich might swap to a hearty salad with tahini and hemp seeds.

=> pasta might swap to julienned zucchini instead of that gluten rich processed pasta with a creamy spirulina spiked avocado sauce and cashew parmesan.

Need help to make a start? 

Your easy next step is simply to share which action is most relevant to you and ask me for a little ‘jump to it’ accountability and support in the comments below.