Fish finger sandwiches and half a block of butter

I made bread for the very first time at the weekend. It was, if I do say so myself, excellent. The loaf came out of the oven on Saturday afternoon and did not live to see the sun rise on Monday morning. The whole thing was gone in a day, along with half a block of Shirgar salted butter (the best butter going, if you ask me). About an hour after it was done, I had several slices, still warm, with generous slabs of butter on top. The next morning, I had a few thick pieces of toast, more butter, and a little jam. To top it all off, I had a whopping great big fish finger sandwich for lunch on Sunday.

All of these things were shared experiences. I baked the bread because we had friends coming over for dinner. We all shared thickly buttered slices as a sort of starter, and everyone was pleased with the results. I shared toast with my wife the following morning, remarking on how much better homemade is than shop-bought. Then my fish finger sandwich was shared with my daughter because she was hungry and fish fingers were all we had in for lunch, so fish finger sarnies it was!

I tell you all of this because, from a training point of view, that diet was not optimal. Too many carbs, too much fat, not enough protein. What’s more, I drank half a bottle of wine each night AND stayed up too late on Saturday, so I didn’t get my eight hours. Disaster, gains lost, my training for the week is already down the pan. Or that’s what I would say if I were a total loser with no personality or friends. The reality is different.

Despite the fact that I enjoy competing, I am not a competitive athlete. It is not my job to compete in and win weightlifting competitions. I’m not looking to go pro. The same is true for all of my clients, and I suspect the same is true of you, dear reader. The fact of the matter is that training is there to improve my life, not dominate it.

Don’t mistake me now: I have big goals, and training is still very important to me. I work hard in and out of the gym to make those things happen. I sleep as well as I can, I eat as well as I can, and I do my best to get the most out of my training to get me one step closer to my goals. But PR lifts are not the sum total of my life. I like to cook, to bake, to eat, to drink, and to share all of those things in abundance with friends and family. These things need to happen to make life, the life I’m training to improve, worth living.

If you spend any time on fitness social media, you’ll quickly run into one-dimensional nerds whose whole personality can be boiled down to “I go to the gym”. You’ll see awful videos of people eating cold meal prep at children’s birthday parties and drinking sparkling water at weddings because enjoying a sausage roll and a glass of bubbly would throw off their meticulously planned diet and training routine. These people are LOSERS.

First, to suggest that you couldn’t possibly train well after a bad day of eating, a bad night’s sleep, or even with a hangover is to display an embarrassing level of mental fragility. Some of the best training sessions I’ve ever had have been after a heavy night. Hell, the night before my last competition was spent drinking wine and smoking cigars until 2 o’clock in the morning. I walked into that meet fuelled by McMuffins and regret.

Second, the idea that your training must take precedence over all other relationships and events in your life is selfish and sad. Not fully participating in a shared celebration or feast with friends and family for the sake of your Hyrox time or qualifying total is a sure-fire way to guarantee you’ll stop getting invited to such events. It’s inhuman.

Cooking and eating great food, baking bread, drinking wine, staying up until the wee hours, and sharing all of these things with others are what make life worth living. That makes me want to train harder, to facilitate more active participation in all that life has to offer. It’s a feedback loop, one which gets even stronger when you have kids. I want to be as strong, fit, and capable as I can possibly be so that I can enjoy and give myself to all of these other things as fully and for as long as possible.

So don’t listen to these specky nerds with no friends who tell you, “This is just what it takes,” to get results. It’s not. Do you need to work hard? Yes. Do you need to eat well? Yes. Does that mean you should never drink, never stay up too late, and never demolish a fish finger sandwich with your kid? Absolutely not! Get to the gym, lift heavy, then live equally as heavily. That’s my philosophy, and I think it’s a pretty good one.