I've just been in Las Vegas where I had the Fitness Info Blueprint Live with fitness industry heavyweights Craig Ballantyne and Bedros Keulian. Vegas was a blast (I saw Terry Fator who was insane!) and it was a great conference.  I'll probably be heading back over for a few more of these sorts of things in the near future.  Anyway now I am kinda stuck in transit sitting here in LAX International Airport waiting to see if I get on a plane back to Australia.  The waiting sucks but there is nothing I can do about it.  So why worry about it right?  Which brings me to the whole point of this post.

Things we cannot control are not worth worrying about.  Only concern yourself with what you control.

This was taught to me in my 3rd and 4th year Sport Psychology classes with Dr. Ken Hodge (who is a world renowned guru in the whole sport psychology field).  I must admit it took him awhile because as all good Otago University students, most of the time in lectures I was thinking of where I should drink that night or how I should get over the god awful hangover from the night before!  Anyway I actually aced his classes and this was one of biggest take him points I applied to my sporting career (minor that it was) and life full stop.

Let me first illustrate how an athlete would use this and then I will apply it to fat loss situation.

Almost all top level athletes today are taught to only "concentrate on the controllables".  For instance, athletes can not control how well their competition performs, the current weather conditions nor how a crowd will treat them.  So it is not worth worrying or stressing over these things and potentially ruining your performance.  What an athlete should concentrate on are is the tasks they can control; not the outcome.  For instance, in surfing a competitor would concentrate on paddling hard for every wave in the heat because this will improve their position at the start of wave.  In rugby league, an attacking player would be concerned with not letting the defence put him on his back in a tackle because this would slow the play the ball down.  In tennis, the player would concentrate on performing the same routine before every serve to make sure their serve is as error free as possible.

Now we get to fat loss.  To many people focus on the outcome here.  Although having an end goal and being able to compare your progress with others is important, it is far more important to focus on what you can control.  For example, you cannot really determine the rate that your body is going to genetically lose fat.  If anyone tells you that you will lose "x" amount of body fat in "x" days, I am afraid it is a bunch of B.S.  We are all designed differently (the genetic code right?) and react to different dietary, supplement and training protocols differently.  The key is figuring out what works for you best which is what we determine in our training at Coyne Conditioning.

What you should concentrate on with fat loss is making sure you do everything to make sure it happens as quick as possible FOR YOU.  Whether it be preparing meals for the next day, making sure you have purchased enough of the good foods you need during the week or getting to that 6am training session, these things you should pour your efforts into.  Not into worrying over how little or large your fat loss was over the last week. Or if you should be doing cyclic ketogenic dieting versus the Warrior Diet.  Or if the latest detox drink will really make you lose 21kg in 21 days.

JUST DO WHATEVER YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO FOR THE LENGTH OF TIME YOU ARE MEANT TO AND CONCENTRATE ON THINGS YOU CAN CONTROL.

If it works, stick with it.  If it does not, look at changing it with the advise of someone who knows his stuff.

Make sense right?

Well at least it does to me while I am sitting here in LAX.  As always, tell me what you think!!