I’m going to breakdown what the LFP Test is, how I use it with my clients, how you can use it for yourself, as well as how you can improve your score if you’d like to…so let’s get into it!
The LFP Test is the looking, feeling and performing test and I love it as an assessment tool to figure out how effective (or not) the approach that’s being taken is and potentially what needs to be changed…so first let’s dig into the looking category!
If you were to score how satisfied you are with how you look right now out of 10, 1 being low and 10 being high, what would that number be?
This encompasses things like body fat, muscle mass, whether you’re bloated or not, the appearance of your eyes, skin, hair, teeth and nails…all the physical stuff and this stuff matters not just for vanity purposes, but also because all of these things are signals of how healthy or not that we are. For example…
If you look at my before and photos where I was 60 lbs heavier than I am right now or you look at any of my clients’ transformations on social media or HERE on the website, you can clearly see the massive differences in appearance and those differences reflect changes in health status. Folks that look healthy are usually healthy and folks that don’t look healthy, usually aren’t…
Our bodies are always giving us feedback and the coolest part is that they never lie!
Next up is feeling and it’s encompassed by things like your energy levels, joint pain, your clarity of thought, so brain fog for example…your emotional health as well as things like digestion, which is a huge input in terms of how we feel.
Sometimes this category isn’t quite as straight forward as the looking piece just because a lot of it isn’t as tangible, however you know you best and therefore you know where your energy is at most of the time. You know when you’re thinking more clearly and less so, you know where you are emotionally and you definitely know when your joints hurt or your digestion is on point vs. off.
So, how have you felt over the last week let’s say, from 1 – 10?
The third part of the LFP test is performing and it’s not just athletic or physical performance via your workouts, runs, bike rides or yoga sessions…it’s also things like memory, word recall, problem solving, patience, tendencies towards things like procrastination as well as how likely or often you are to experience things like ‘hanger’ or getting ‘hangry’…even libido falls under performance!
These markers impact how effective we are in our jobs, our friendships, as parents and the list goes on. It’s super cool because a lot of my clients have mentioned that they’re better parents, partners and friends after working with me…they find it far easier to bring the best version of themselves to their relationships and this makes perfect sense.
It’s the oxygen mask on a plane thing, if you’re struggling to breath yourself, you just can’t show up for your loved ones in the same way!
So, how would you score your performance in your day to day life? You could even break this down into categories like your sport related or physical score, your parental score, what you’re bringing to your friendships as well as your romantic relationship if you happen to be in one.
Once you have your 3 scores, you can tally them up for a total out of 30, so let’s say that you’re at a 7 across the board, that would be 21/30 or 70%, which if we’re going by school grades would be a C-. If you’re at 8’s in all 3 categories, that would land you at a 24/30 or 80% and that’s a B-.
If you’re happy with your assessment of how you’re looking, feeling and performing that’s awesome!! Just keep doing what you’re doing because it’s clearly working!!
On the other hand, if you’re unsatisfied with 1, 2 or all 3 of your digits…that’s great too because you now know where you’re at, you’re being honest with yourself about it and you know where you want to go…so at this point it’s simply a matter of taking action!
Also, one of the best things about this process is that when you improve 1 area, the other 2 areas essentially always improve as well, for example…
Let’s say that you’re not stoked on how you’re looking right now and so you dial in your nutrition because you want to lose some body fat. You’re going to feel and perform better as well because everything is inextricably linked!
Okay so speaking of action, where should you start?
The 4 N1 Fitness pillars…nutrition, movement, sleep and stress management and it’s worth noting that you don’t have to go all in on all 4 at once…you can choose to focus on any one of them if that feels more realistic and doable.
I will say that if you’re going to prioritize or focus on any one pillar, I would recommend making it nutrition because it’s without a doubt going to give you the most bang for your buck across all 3 categories! You might be thinking…’well of course you’re going to say that, you have a nutritional coaching business’ and my response would be…Exactly! That’s WHY I have a nutritional coaching business!
I actually used to do a lot more personal training in the gym with folks, but I changed that for a number of reasons, but the biggest one being that I learned via in the trenches experience working with tons of clients that nutrition is by far the most important pillar whether you want to look, feel or perform better!
There’s just no substitute for it…working out is great, I workout all the time, but it doesn’t even remotely have the same impact as nutrition does.
Sleep is incredible, I’d highly recommend getting plenty of it, but in and of itself it’s almost certainly not going to give you the results that you’re after.
Stress management strategies are all well and good, however it’s not nutrition either.
Sorting out your diet is the place to start because it has the biggest impact. If you eat better, you’re going to want to move more because you’re going to have more energy than you know what to do with. If you eat better, you’re going to sleep better because your blood sugar will be balanced and therefore spikes and dips won’t be waking you up constantly throughout the night. If you eat better you are going to be less stressed because your brain won’t be nutrient deficient and functioning poorly.
I don’t hammer on how important what we eat is just because it’s what I do, I don’t have the bandwidth to work with everyone that’s reading this right now…I emphasize nutrition because it’s the most important thing in regards to how you look, feel, perform and ultimately your health as a whole!
Now if your nutrition is already dialed in, incredible! Focus on movement, sleep or stress management instead…but if it’s not, double, triple and quadruple down!
Okay now let’s get more specific as far as what to do in terms of the pillars…
Step 1a and 1b is to reduce processed food intake and increase single ingredient whole food intake and you can make this easy on yourself by getting rid of all the junk food in your home, office and car and replacing it with single ingredient whole food. If you live with folks that want junk food around, simply focus on keeping lots of single ingredient whole foods at arm’s reach!
What are examples of single ingredient whole foods?
In the protein department we have meat, fish, seafood, eggs and dairy.
In the carb department we have things like potatoes, yams, squash, rice, beans, lentils, fruit and vegg.
In the fat department we’ve got things like butter, nuts, seeds, avocado, coconut oil or milk, tallow and ghee.
Essentially just about anything with one ingredient in it is fair game with one BIG caveat…thata you digest it well!
Also, fortunately with this approach you don’t have to be an expert label reader because most of these foods don’t need labels being that they just are what they are.
We need labels for processed foods like donuts, chips, cookies, muffins and microwave meals because we don’t know what’s really in them without the label being that they’re manufactured foods with tons of different ingredients…many of which are often hard to pronounce or use cryptic language…there are like 100 different words for sugar, it’s wild!
How much of eat category (protein, carbs and fat) should you eat?
I would recommend getting 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight or 1 gram of protein per pound of ideal body weight…meaning, use your current weight or what you want to weigh to gauge protein intake.
Then feel free to fill in your carb and fat quantities based on your personal preferences, so if you’d prefer to eat more carbs than fat have at it! If you’d rather eat more fat than carbs, enjoy…and if you want to split the middle that’s cool too!
That’s about as specific as I can get in an article in terms of calories and macros just because the total calories and the specific macronutrients or protein, carb and fat quantities are going to vary between individuals based on a whole bunch of factors and said factors are how I create my clients personalized programs.
I’d love to tell ya exactly how many grams of protein, carbs and fats that you should eat, but it’s going to depend on the person…all of my clients programs are tailored to their specific needs and so you’ll need to tailor your program to your specific needs.
Movement wise, I like to have my clients hit 10,000 steps per day or 70,000 over the course of the week as a whole. If they want to lift weights, do a spin class or whatever on top of that, even better, but…steps take priority!
On the sleep front, 7-9 hours nightly should do the trick based on personal sleep needs and in terms of stress management, this is also quite individually specific…this is something that I chat with my clients about in terms of what’s worked for them in the past, what they find doable and realistic now and the list goes on.
What I can say is that reducing alcohol intake is a no brainer if you’re stressed out and I realize that for a lot of folks drinking is an acutely stress reducing activity meaning, it reduces stress right now (temporarily)…however it makes things worse big picture just because what’s causing the stress to begin with never actually gets addressed!
Personally, I love journaling, I don’t love meditating but I do anyway and truth be told the biggest stress reducing activities that I carry out on a daily basis are actually just eating really well, moving lots and prioritizing sleep!
Tons of my of my clients have mentioned that they just don’t really get that stressed out when they’re on top of their nutrition, movement and sleep. I’ve noticed the same thing with myself and I definitely moments…but everything still feels doable and manageable, it’s really amazing!
Even if I have a full day with a lot of things on my plate, I think to myself…’I’ll get to them all and I’ll do them well.’
Having said that, if my nutrition, movement or sleep slips…I definitely get stressed! There is a massive difference and so in order to take advantage of the stress reducing impacts of eating, moving and sleeping well…they’ve gotta be implemented consistently!
So, the LFP Test…how satisfied are you on a scale of 1 – 10 with how you’re looking, feeling and performing!?
If you’re stoked, there’s no need to change a thing!
However, if you’re not so stoked and you’re keen on a different outcome, the next step is addressing the 4 pillars. Start with nutrition because it’s going to give you the best results and then look at movement, sleep and stress management.
Those are the 4 N1 Fitness fundamentals and man oh man do they ever work!
