The Change Room with Prolific Fitness

Break Downward Spirals: The C A T C H Method for Instant Momentum 
Ep.03 - 25 min

Get in touch:

Bad weeks snowball fast. Luke breaks down the mechanics of negative spirals, runs a personal audit you can do in real-time, and unveils the C A T C H framework that turns “I blew it” into “I bounce back”.

⏱️   Timestamps
00:00 | Hook & mission – why spirals make or break results
00:48 | Downward vs upward spirals explained
02:14 | Client shout-out (Jared’s 10 kg win)
03:05 | Spiral mechanics: trigger → state → mood → decision
06:49 | Identity labels: how “I’m a stress-eater” locks the loop
10:17 | Self-audit: body/mind, habit, environment cues
13:12 | C A T C H framework intro
16:08 | Tiny wins, celebrate them, hook identity
21:56 | Set realistic bars (80 % rule) to keep winning
24:39 | Full recap, listener challenge, next-ep tease & outro

At Prolific Fitness, we engineer life-changing body transformations - one tiny win at a time.

(Educational content only; not medical advice.)

Creators and Guests

Host
Luke Eiserman
Founder @ Prolific Fitness

What is The Change Room with Prolific Fitness?

Grab a locker and strap in. The Change Room is Prolific Fitness’ no-BS antidote for anyone who’s sick of yo-yo results and wellness waffle. Host Luke Eiserman and crew dish up irreverent, evidence-based training, nutrition, and mindset tactics that turn “I’ve tried everything” into sustainable, life-changing body transformations. New episodes every week - zero fluff, all progress.

Luke:

Hit the change room. We're about to level up. Hello, and welcome to the change room. Now here at Prolific Fitness, our goal is to help people create life changing body transformations, and the change room is an extension of that. It allows us to get information into the hands of people who want the answers, who need the answers.

Luke:

And today, I'm actually really excited about this topic. This topic is one that affects pretty much everyone in some capacity, small or large, but it is the idea of habits and spirals. Okay? Now, you may not recognize them as spirals, but so many people, actually almost every single person I chat to that comes to us with help with transformation has allowed some sort of spiral to take place short term and ultimately in the long term in a negative sense. Now, the question is, in terms of a negative spiral, how do you catch that?

Luke:

I mean, one thing goes wrong and it leads to another and it leads to another and suddenly you're months down the track in the wrong direction. And same with positive spirals. How do you manufacture positive spirals? That's what we're gonna be talking about today. Okay?

Luke:

Now this is a tale as old as time. Okay? I mean, we all know what it's like to have back to back meetings. You're tired. Things go wrong in your day, you're stressed, and then suddenly the idea of making that good food decision goes out the window.

Luke:

Okay? So suddenly you're you're you're grabbing a a snack from the vending machine, you know you shouldn't, a chocolate bar, something like that. Now what happens is your blood sugar levels spike, your decision making is affected, and because of that, it actually affects the next decisions that you make in your day. Suddenly, you don't feel as motivated to go to the gym, and so you skip the gym that day and you go, you know what, it's fine, it doesn't matter too much if I skip a day. Then what happens is you start skipping a couple days and you start labeling yourself as a stress eater.

Luke:

And I just do this and I have this habit and I'm lazy and then suddenly it's, you know, you feel guilty and you skip your workouts and suddenly you've lost momentum. And that's how it happens. People will go on vacation. People will, you know, you you know, sick. Things like that get in people's ways and completely tank the progress that they're making and the momentum that they have.

Luke:

So how do we get on top of this? Well, I think the first thing is figuring out what is actually going here in a spiral. Now, actually, before we get into that, one thing I do wanna do is I wanna give it a quick shout out. Okay? And this is something that will probably work into these episodes, but I wanna give a client shout out to Jared.

Luke:

Now Jared came on board with us just over ten weeks ago to get on top of his weight loss. His goal was to lose 10 kilos in ten weeks, and he actually he surpassed that. He actually ended up losing over 10 kilos before the ten weeks passed, and he went off to Fiji this week. So he's in over there enjoying the sunshine, So good for him. But but I just wanted to give a a quick client shout out.

Luke:

And it's possible. If you if you commit yourself to these things, it is possible to get on top of them and to win, and that's the whole point of what we're trying to do here. Okay? So I just wanted to give him a quick a quick nudge, you know, a quick shout out for the awesome work that he did. Okay.

Luke:

But let's get back into this. What is actually happening in the mechanics of when you fall off track? Okay. Now the first thing to realize is that every habit, every decision, every action, positive or negative, has a trigger. There is a trigger that's getting in the way.

Luke:

Now it's any internal or external cue that can cause you to take an action. So some external examples would be a deadline's approaching, your kid's sick, an email, a bad night's sleep, even the smell of biscuits. Those are all external triggers. Okay? Things outside.

Luke:

There are then internal triggers, are also relevant too. Cravings, thoughts, emotions, things like that. Hormone levels changing. Those are all the examples of internal triggers that can cause a chain reaction decisions. Okay?

Luke:

And this so is the cool part is we have to figure out first is a trigger. Number two is that your state is affected. Now what is state? State essentially is how your brain and your body is affected. I always want you to just think brain and body.

Luke:

Okay? Now the first thing is like your your brain rereads it. A lot of these things as is it a threat, is it an opportunity? So your brain actually goes through a chain reaction to try to figure out if this thing is a negative or a positive. Okay?

Luke:

There's a bunch of chemicals that can be released. I mean, include cortisol, dopamine, adrenaline pumping, your heart rate elevates. There are physical changes in your body that take place as a result to many of these triggers. Then you feel these. Feel You exhausted, you might feel on edge.

Luke:

You might feel anxious. And that's actually the physical manifestation of what's or the feeling of what's going on. Now, it's important to realise that there's always that trigger. That trigger always affects the state of your brain and body physically, and then there's a mood that follows. So it's always that order.

Luke:

And then the mood essentially is how you interpret or how you feel about that state that you are experiencing. Are you calm? Are you anxious? You know, are you on edge? I think that's a really important thing.

Luke:

And the mood, think of it like some tinted glasses, that everything that you then interpret or see is a result of that. So for example, the physical reaction of getting a text message that makes you nervous might elevate your heart rate. That elevated heart rate, you then interpret, oh my gosh, I'm anxious, I'm nervous, I'm afraid, whatever it might be, which is a very real, a very valid, I should say, and real interpretation of that because that's what you your brain goes, oh, I'm I'm anxious. And then as a result, you see everything through those tinted glasses. Okay?

Luke:

So that's the mood. Now then what happens is you from that mood and that tint that you are now looking at the world through, you then make a decision. And that decision could be a good one, it could be a bad one. And I think it's really important to understand that your prefrontal cortex, the part of your brain that is responsible for decision making, is often very affected by these changes in state. For example, if your heart rate elevates and your blood's pumping adrenaline and you're constantly in this state of anxiousness and nervousness, your prefrontal cortex isn't actually operating properly.

Luke:

So your ability to make good decisions is totally affected. So I think that's important to realize is and if you even just pay attention to the fact that I'm nervous and I'm probably going to make bad decisions, even the awareness of knowing that that's going on gives you is empowering. It allows you to actually be able to make smarter decisions because you know, hey, this is probably just my body's reaction and actually demystifies why you're feeling like this. Okay. So then you make a decision.

Luke:

Now that decision, if made repeatedly, can cause a habit. Right? So it's important to realize that this loop takes place on a short term time frame if you make a decision one time. And if you take make the decision a bunch of times, that causes a habit. Regardless, what happens is you make that decision, that reaction to the mood, which is obviously affected by the state, which is affected by the trigger.

Luke:

Okay? So you've gone through this whole process. Now when you make a decision, subconsciously, you are casting a vote for the kind of person that you are. And people don't realize this. This is all through Atomic Habits, in terms of the idea of identity based decision making and identity based habits.

Luke:

But every time you make a decision, you cast a vote for the kind of person that you are, your brain actually starts picking up on that. So if you start taking good decisions or you start gyming regularly, your brain will see yourself as the kind of person who gyms regularly. Or if you miss a few meals and you interpret that as a negative thing, your brain will start labeling yourself as the kind of person who misses that. And that's actually really important to realize because the final step in terms of the identity is how you interpret the kind of person you are off the back of this. The reason that this is important is because when this trigger starts the next time, the identity is a huge part of how you interpret that trigger again.

Luke:

So for example, if you are the kind of person who encounters a stressful day and you stress eat, You call yourself a stress eater because you've done it a bunch of times and built a habit around it. You're not a stress eater. You've built a habit of stress eating, important distinction. Then essentially when that stress comes up again, I am a stress eater, so obviously I'm going to stress eat now. And you've just essentially created a self fulfilling prophecy because of the identity of the kind of person that you are.

Luke:

I think a really cool example of this is the fact that and this is yeah. I mean, if you look listen to any kind of elite elite athletics in or in terms of sports, In terms of the mindset side, it's such a huge part of sports and people don't quite realize this a lot of the time. One of the biggest things is reframing anxiety or nervousness as excitement because they actually manifest the exact same in the body. I mean, your heart rate elevates, adrenaline's pumping, blood flow goes away from the digestive organs to extremities to allow you to move and perform faster. It's the exact same pattern or it's a very similar pattern in the body.

Luke:

And actually one thing that athletes work a lot on is actually reframing anxiety as excitement. And what happens is if you start being the person that gets anxious and nervous and starts going, you know what, I'm excited about this challenge, I'm excited. What happens is that the next time that they encounter these high stress or high pressure situations, they go, you know, I'm the kind of person who thrives in this. And that's exactly what I want you to start doing. I know for a lot of people, this might be really out your comfort zone to start reinterpreting, you know, how you feel, how your body's feelings is and are rather, and how you interpret those.

Luke:

But I think it's a really important thing and I want to start challenging you to start leaning in towards that. How can, if I make a mistake, how can I just, instead of being the kind of person who makes a mistake, I can be, you know what, like I made a mistake, I'm but the kind of person who learns how to get on top of this? So I'm gonna do that right now and I'm learn. Okay? So that's actually how this all unfolds.

Luke:

Alright? And then in the long term, those habits stack. And then you also if you if you see yourself falling off enough weeks in a row and feeling guilty for it and interpreting yourself as not good enough, mean, if we play that last example out of of, you know, missing a few because of the, you know, the the busy day, I mean, you binge through the weekends because you feel guilty about it. You you avoid the gym because you feel embarrassed. You then you call yourself an all or nothing person long term.

Luke:

I'm an all or nothing person who always falls off. You know, I always fall off. I start something and then I quit. And I'm all or nothing. And so I like know, and and these kind of labels get I hear them all the time, get thrown around.

Luke:

And then what happens is your weight creeps up and you get overwhelmed and even the idea of starting again becomes a mammoth task. So obviously, don't want to get you into that state. So the biggest thing I want you to the first thing, and this is a little bit of an audit. You can you can run this now to see if you but you may not be aware of what actually happens in the moment. I want you to pay attention to what the trigger is.

Luke:

And this is like, where does the spiral start for you? What is the the initiation of that? Remember, if we go through the the steps, there's always a trigger that affects your state, which affects your mood, which is that rose tinted or rose the tinted glasses of how you interpret everything. Then you make decisions and habits based on those. And off the back of the decisions and habits that you have, you start identifying as the kind of person who can do XYZ or who does XYZ, and that's how that downward spiral starts.

Luke:

Essentially, you're that kind of person that you do that action and then you're that kind of person and it just ingrains it deeper and deeper. And the longer you leave it, the worse that becomes because your brain is actually neuroplastic, which means essentially it rewires. So if you allow it to wire for long enough, that becomes and trenches a really strong neural pathway and it's actually much harder the longer you leave it. And if you have left it for ages, you can still get on top of it. It is just going to be more work.

Luke:

So don't think that something's wrong if you've had bad habits for thirty years, forty years, and you're finding it hard to unravel a lot of this. Nothing's wrong with you if you find this harder. It's going to be harder because you have decades of built up neural pathways. Understand it's going to be harder for you than someone who's been in bad habits for two months. But that's okay.

Luke:

It's okay. Sometimes life's not fair in that scenario and circumstance is a massive factor. That's one of these circumstances that you just have to understand because it takes the pressure off yourself in terms of beating yourself up because I'm not good enough and I haven't done this quickly enough. It's a process. And there are things that I've been working on for a decade trying to unravel in terms of my decision making and the way that my brain works.

Luke:

It can take a while. Okay? So here's the audit. Okay? There are more than just this, but actually I want I've put them into big buckets because it actually makes it simple to kind of think about.

Luke:

But those triggers can be body or mind. Is it my is it something in my mind? Is it a thought? Is it a is it a hormone change? Is it something like that?

Luke:

Is it habit? Is it an automated habit that I just don't I do something without even realizing I do it? Do I just grab something and then only realize later that I've done that? Or is it an environment thing? Is it because that I I am out with friends that I wanna eat?

Luke:

Is it because, you know, the stuff's in the house that I go for? Or is it at work because they just keep things there or I get peer pressured into it? What is it? Because it's usually bucketed into those ones. Is it your body or your mind that's setting a trigger?

Luke:

That's like nervousness, anxiousness, hunger, things like that. Is it habit autopilot or is it an environmental cue? You can think about when you fall off the most now, and just have a think about when do I fall off and what kind of causes that. But also, when you run into this again, think about that. When you are in the process of going everything's falling apart, try to figure out the cue.

Luke:

Is it a is or the trigger. Is it a body and mind thing? Is it a an autopilot habit thing? Or is it an environmental thing? Because that'll allow you to kind of really get on top of that, going forward.

Luke:

So here's the methodology. Actually, we've given it the acronym CATCH. First one is cue. You need to spot the cue, whatever it is. Like we just mentioned, spot the cue.

Luke:

A is a rest. So the idea is you want to get on top of that. Now, a lot of the time, what that means is that your body is going through a reaction. Like we said, there's always the trigger that causes the state of the body and mind to adjust. Now, this case, you need to catch that.

Luke:

Now, for example, it might be if you have a stressful day. Right. Everything's piling up. You're overwhelmed and anxious. Now, if you don't arrest that, what's going to happen?

Luke:

Well, your cortisol levels rise, adrenaline pumps, prefrontal your cortex is affected, you go for a bad piece of food that you know you shouldn't have, you feel guilty, your energy spikes and dumps, now you don't feel energetic enough to go to the gym, you skip that and then suddenly you're off to the races and we're headed in that downward spiral. We started that process. So before we can even let that happen, we have to arrest that next step, the state. Now there's a bunch of ways you can do this. If I mean, a good example is breathing exercises.

Luke:

They're quick and you can and you can't have something that's gonna take three hours when you are in the process of this. I love saunas, but there's no saunas close to where we are. So I think it's important to realize I can't just sauna in the middle of the day. I can't just go for a three hour hike because it de stresses me when this habit comes up. So what are you going to do?

Luke:

Now, you can do breath work. One that I love and I've recommended to clients all the time is the Wim Hof breathing method. If you type in W I M H O F, Wim Hof, and go guided breathing and go on YouTube, click on one of the first guided breathing ones. If you do five minutes of that, I guarantee you'll feel you have to do it seated because your body feels it, but it's an amazing way to just de stress and get out of your sympathetic nervous system, your fight or flight. But even here's a peel back version of this.

Luke:

Even if you take a double inhale, so the idea of taking a double inhale and a long exhale is a version of a breathing exercise that even if you do two or three of these, scientifically it has been shown to actually reduce cortisol spikes adrenaline spikes in people. What that looks like is just take a big breath in and then a nice long exhale. It seems goofy, but it's something that you will actually notice animals do. Dogs will actually naturally do this when they're trying to catch a breath, and you'll actually notice that this is a normal breathing pattern when you are frantic and trying to catch a breath. Will be a very natural double rise of the breath and then an exhale.

Luke:

You're trying to fill up the lungs, give it more of a breath, breathe out, do a few of those, and it will take you a minute and suddenly you can change the state. There are and there's a couple of other examples. I'll stay on this one for a second just because it's super important. This is the part that actually makes or breaks is the arresting of the state. But again, for me, I know if I get up and go for a walk, I I feel so much better.

Luke:

I can I can get outside, get some sun in on your face? You know? I think the other things you could do is play music that you really like. Play it really loud in the car. Maybe that works for you.

Luke:

You know? It might be journaling. It might be whatever it is. It doesn't really matter as long as you can get to it quickly and it can drop the central nervous system state, essentially just allowing you to rest or just be present and at ease. So for a lot of people, exercises, quick ones, or going for a walk or getting outside or playing music, it stops that that escalation.

Luke:

Okay? So that's a big one there. Okay? So whatever it is, get figure out what that trigger is and arrest that. Then we need a tiny win.

Luke:

So that's c a. So c is q, a is arrest, t is tiny win. You need to make a decision in the right direction for what we wanna do. So we've already arrested it. Going for the walk is the tiny win.

Luke:

Perfect. We've just done that. Okay? It might be that through the day, the cue might be that your hunger levels start coming up and you ignore them. Instead of ignoring them, I mean you going for a protein bar or going to a healthy option versus a bad option.

Luke:

That tiny win is you making a weird decision in the right direction. It might be, I mean, it might be one of plenty of things. There's so many examples of this, but I mean, stress and convenience and even the idea of not prepping, you know, when that moment comes to prep, that decision, and you go, I can't be bothered. Even arresting that and going, no, I need to actually make a tiny win, a small win. Maybe I'm just going to, you know, get my breakfast ready for next week, or maybe I'm just gonna cook twice the portion today for tomorrow.

Luke:

I think that's a big thing there is just see if you can do a tiny win. The smaller the win, the better. Going for a walk, doing some breath work, making a decision, even like booking in your calendar that, you know, the intention of going to this place for lunch instead of here will pre decide, and that pre decision makes the decision much easier. Okay? Celebrate.

Luke:

Give yourself the props for that. I think that's a really important part, is you have to give yourself the props. So many people feel goofy about celebrating wins, but the issue with that is it's a reinforcing cycle. So if you do something good and then you pat yourself on the back for it or you acknowledge, hey, you know what? Good job.

Luke:

You actually got on top of that. Then guess what? You are reinforcing that positive loop for that decision next time. So if you go, you know what? You did a great job.

Luke:

You feel proud about it. Now, if you feel proud about it's satisfying. And if a habit is satisfying or an action is satisfying, you're to do it again. So always when you make good decisions, always give yourself a pat on the back. And I see so many people like make good decisions, be unhappy, like just, you know, be idealistic about it should have been like this and then beat themselves up because it was supposed to be like this, but they still did a great job.

Luke:

And now essentially, they're negatively wiring their good efforts. I did it. I mean, I gave a good effort and I should have been here and I was just a little bit less than that. So now it's all falling apart. And that's a huge mistake because suddenly you're putting negative emotions to something positive that you've done.

Luke:

And so in this case, we need to make sure that we go, you know what? Like, I I was anxious and instead of letting it pile up and then skipping the gym, I actually decided, you know, I'm gonna go for a walk, de stress, you know, and then and suddenly I can make good decisions now. I'm good work. Like, you're the type of person that gets on top of that. The next one is so that's the c, the celebrate, and h is hook.

Luke:

Now I want you to hook your identity to this. Okay? So this is actually you've done the celebration, but I also want you to say, and it may feel goofy, but even if you just say in your head that I'm the type of person that does this, you need to hook your identity to the celebration of the win that you just had. So you have the tiny win, which is the t, then you have the celebration, and then you hook your identity to that. So you go, you know what, like good work, Luke, we're becoming the kind of person that can do this.

Luke:

I'm the kind of person that can stay on top of these goals. Because essentially what we're trying to do is we're trying to figure out what the trigger is. As soon as we notice that we've started going down that path, arresting it, okay, then we're going to create a tiny win. We're going to celebrate that tiny win, which is the C and then the H, which is the hook. You're going to hook it to your identity.

Luke:

So essentially that I am the kind of person who can do this and stay on track. And that essentially creates this reinforcing cycle. The next time you hit that trigger, guess what? I'm the kind of person that can manage this. It's not a big deal.

Luke:

Okay. So that's that is the the flow. And obviously, I mean, don't have to play out how this works on the positive, but this is exactly how if you stack wins long enough, you are away. I mean, like in this case, in the short term, you decide, you know what? I know I need to do my meal prep.

Luke:

So my decision now is I'm gonna actually block out time for my meal prep. So because I've blocked time on my calendar and I took that little step in the right direction, instead of being anxious, went for a walk and then I blocked my meal prep. Now I feel good about the fact that I'm proactive and I actually do it. And now my energy is better because I'm actually eating what I know I need to eat. And because I feel good about that, I'm going stick to my training.

Luke:

And now because I've sticked to my training, I've built muscle, I feel strong, I feel confident. Long term, this becomes an upward spiral too. An upward spiral is just winning consistently and then interpreting those wins as a positive identity. I'm the kind of person who can do this. I'm this.

Luke:

I've become the kind of person I think that's a really big thing too, is that when you win, make sure you celebrate that win. Long term, you become the kind of person that can do that, and then you essentially will find it easy because obviously if you're that kind of person, you're going to keep doing that kind of win. So I think that's how that plays out. One thing I will say also is that for trying to win because this at the end of the day, this is a game of how do we make sure you can win more often and win consistently and tie that to your identity. That's the whole game.

Luke:

Set the bar realistic enough. If your nutrition or your training action steps for the week are too hard, you're not going to do them. Okay? You're just not going to do them. You should be setting your nutrition and training expectations on yourself to a level that you are 80% likely to execute on that in the coming week.

Luke:

If you set your targets on, I'm going to prep 42 meals, which is what is that? Six meals a day for the next week, and they're all going to be measured to the gram. And you know, and that's your goal. But realistically, you're not going to be able to do that. You're going to crash and burn.

Luke:

You're going to fail. Because if you're not 80% likely to be able to go, yeah, I can do that, then you're not going to. Now if you can do that, great. Do it. But if you do that three weeks in a row and you fail and fail and fail, guess what?

Luke:

You're going to think you're failing. I'm going to interpret this as too hard. I can't do it. I'm not the kind of person that can do this. And then suddenly you're off track again.

Luke:

So set the bar correctly. Set any training or nutrition to something that is realistic enough that you are 80% likely to do it, and then just do it and then win at it. And if you win at it consistently enough, become the kind of person that that can win and essentially then ramp it up from there. But let yourself build the identity first before going zero to a 100. And that's actually where the zero to a 100 trap is so toxic.

Luke:

Life happens, you fall off track, suddenly you interpret it as a negative thing and I can't do this and I'm this kind of person, and then that identity feeds the negative action. That's exactly how people spiral right out when they're on momentum. Okay? Cool. I think the biggest thing as a as a closing because I could go over it more, but I'm not going to.

Luke:

I'm gonna leave it there. Okay? Anymore is probably overdoing it. Just remember that any kind of trigger, there's always the way it works. Just to recap, there's always a trigger.

Luke:

Okay. An external cue that leads to a state, which is the way that your body and brain physically reacts, which leads to the mood, which kind of how you interpret everything. Then you're going to make a decision or a habit based on that, and based on that, you subconsciously are telling your identity who you are. Right? And that's kind of how that whole thing works.

Luke:

The way we're going to get on top of these negative kind of decisions if if we kind of come across them, First one is c, which essentially is cue. We recognize the cue. Okay. A is arrest, so we physically change our state so that the state doesn't get out of control. Okay.

Luke:

T is we force a tiny win. We do a little step. It might be booking a session. It might be, you know, time blocking a meal prep. It might be, you know, going for a walk, whatever it is.

Luke:

Okay? T. C is we have to celebrate ourselves for that. And H is we have to hook our identity to that. Hey.

Luke:

I'm the kind of you know what? I did that good work, Luke. I'm the kind of person who can actually stick to this stuff after all. Okay? That is how we get on top of this stuff.

Luke:

I would love to hear your thoughts on this. If you have any questions on this, absolutely fire them our way. You can always flick us any questions at, on Instagram at prolificfitness.co. We'd love to hear your input on this one. Yeah, and then we'll leave it there.

Luke:

I think in this case, we will dive into more around the mindset and the psychology and the mental aspect because it's such a big thing that people struggle with, I really wanna lean into that a little bit more. We'll do more episodes on that. But as for now, we will leave it there. I'm keen to hear how you guys go. Please let us know how this this, you know, episode has worked for you and if you have been able to apply it.

Luke:

Until then, look, this has been The Change Room. Thank you for sticking around. We love having you. As always, we're on a mission to to create life changing body transformations with people, and this is how we're gonna do that. I will see you on the next episode.

Luke:

Take care. Hit the change room. We're about to level up.