Earthquakes in the fitness world. Joe Wicks, fitness guru and beacon of all things health, has released a new video in which he says he is “not exercising, blowing out every day, eating loads of junk food and feeling a bit naff”.
Yes, the man who brought us the Lean in 15 plan has fallen off the fitness wagon. Wicks admitted to binging on chocolate, fizzy drinks and hobnobs in a post on Facebook, saying, “I went to Miami with the boys for my birthday, I went to Vegas. I’m now in LA. I basically need to get back in the game mentally. I’ve just been lazy.”
“When there’s a burger on the menu I’m getting it, when there’s dessert I’m getting it. I’m having ice creams every day, I’m drinking loads of fizzy drinks.” And who can blame him? As the clocks fall back and sunset draws nearer to 3pm than 9pm, it can feel like there’s no reason to look good (adiós, swimwear). Why bother with the gym when you can just go home, eat chocolate, and then fall asleep to unmemorable evening TV?
Whilst it’s easy to beat yourself up about buying your lunches instead of cooking them or putting that 10km run on the ‘to do at some point’ priority list, it’s also reliving to hear that fitness bloggers like Wicks suffer from the same shortcomings. It turns out that sacking it all off for a beer and a pizza is a very natural, human instinct.
Mike Chapman, 26, owner of the F45 Tottenham Court Road gym, says that according to Kelly McGonigal’s The Willpower Instinct, having the odd week or day off isn’t always a bad thing and that the conversation around ‘falling off the wagon’ needs to change.
“McGonigal talks about how people who put themselves down during a minor slip up are more likely to freak out and binge, which becomes a habitual process,” he tells me. “You put yourself down so you feel rubbish and then you binge and feel even worse for it. It kind of snowballs.”
This was true for fitness blogger Katie Groome, 32, a self proclaimed yo-yo dieter who, six years ago, decided to lose weight, hitting her goal of shedding four stone. “I’d eat 1000-1200 calories a day and was exercising six times a week.” Her fitness regime, she says, was completely unsustainable and led to her slipping up and binging.
