Don't Be a Wimp; Train Your Willpower
https://ift.tt/2O0xQSL Monday through Sunday, I’m up by 5, immediately jumping into a movement circuit and then whatever creative work I’ve prioritized for the day. To an outsider, it would appear I have discipline down. With few exceptions, I fit in my daily workout, eat well, and fend off procrastination. Still, a part of me is always trying to rebel. I finish breakfast and want to keep on eating- just for the sport of it. Its worse on those occasional trips for ice cream.
My wife and I will get a cone and by the end of it I’m thinking to myself, “I could have another.”
Similarly, I’ll set up a word document to begin writing and feel a pull to do anything but focus on creating a coherent message. I want to check email, write fitness programs, call colleagues, read articles, or find any other excuse to be busy while less productive.
When it is time for my workout, I often feel immense inertia trying to hold me still. Even biking to work sometimes invites the flood of wimp instinct. My commute is 10-minutes by car and 20 by bike. The time difference is negligible, yet my inner wimp still makes himself heard from time to time.
Without a doubt the most fulfilling pursuits of my life have been writing, learning, creating courses, and the pursuit of health and yet I’m still constantly tempted to skip these in favor of more passive entertainment.
Facing the Daily Assaults of ImpulsivenessDespite the immense fulfillment health and creative production have brought to my life, I still face the daily assaults of infantile impulsiveness. I’ve become very successful quelling these daily rebellions and am always amazed to find purpose, passion, and flow hiding on the other side. My workout leaves me energized all day, my writing excites and feeds my spirit, and by 5 pm my level of production leaves me gratified and capable of booting down.
I shudder to think what my life would have been had I made it a habit to give in. This is part of the secret to greater willpower: vivid clarity about how painful it would be to choose the opposite, easy path. Because you don’t do the opposite choice once. You do it and it becomes a habit. You skip that planned workout and subconsciously give yourself permission to do it again and again. Your inner wimp wins and you are tortured all day with regret. Your inability to fight for 15 minutes plagues you at the moment and defines you over a lifetime.
Willpower Is the Choice to Create Your LifeWillpower is the ability to do what you know you should. It is the ability to be the person you want to be, rather than an impulsive, whiny child. It is the power to create your life, rather than the entitlement for life to bend and acquiesce your immediate desires. Willpower goes by many names: grit, discipline, delayed gratification, self-mastery, tenacity, awesomeness. Regardless of what you call it, studies indicate that willpower is the primary determinant of happiness and success in life.
Photo by Bev Childress
The famed 1960’s Stanford Marshmallow test put hundreds of four and five-year-olds in a room with a single marshmallow. They could eat the marshmallow or wait the fifteen minutes it took researchers to return and be rewarded two marshmallows for waiting. Participants were tracked over the next four decades and those who waited fifteen minutes were healthier, happier, and more successful by every metric. Similarly, in the 1940’s, Harvard conducted a study1 to see how long individual college sophomores would stay on a steeply inclined treadmill traveling at high speeds.
Researchers believed test performance would indicate the “extent to which a subject is willing to push himself or has a tendency to quit before the punishment becomes too severe.”
Some jumped off after little more than a minute. The majority made it around four minutes. Scientists contacted all the study participants every two years over the next 60 to collect data and prompt a lifestyle questionnaire. Like the Stanford test, they found that those who persisted longer were more successful and better psychologically adjusted.
Regardless of luck or fortune, chaos repeatedly happens to us all. Those with willpower persist and practice the discipline necessary to weather life’s storms and continually grow. Most essentially, those with discipline will almost certainly practice better health practices, a tendency that makes them more capable and emotionally resilient to whatever life throws at them.
Willpower Is FiniteWillpower is like a muscle in that it fatigues when used consistently and can be strengthened over time. Unfortunately, this breakthrough realization has often been used to discount its utility. Rather than set out to grow stronger, most excuse the cookie binge because it is human nature to indulge at the end of a hard day. True, like our muscular endurance, willpower is finite.
It is highly unlikely that based on a momentary decision you will go from never working out to crushing CrossFit every day for the next 30 years. These things are a process. However, we should all be going to great lengths to train willpower. In this bizarre world where indulgence and instant gratification becomes evermore normal, we should make delayed gratification the foremost objective of our educational and parenting strategies, while creating daily discipline exercises for ourselves.
“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.”–Mark Twain
Normal May Not Make You HappyMost of society floods us with messages telling us that “snoozing is great.” “It is human.” “It is what everyone does.” “It is normal.” And they are right. It is normal. Just like its normal to eat predominately processed, sugar infused treats and fast food- just as its normal to rarely exercise- just as its normal to sit and scan your phone all day. I’d like to offer a different message. These things are the norm and will continue to be. However, they won’t make you happy.
You can feel better about yourself by hiding behind how normal your behavior is, but it will continue to limit your potential and impede your development. It will preclude your greatest impact, eliminate countless profound experiences, and leave you knowing you were capable of so much more. Then you, like all of us, will die. Time is all we really have and yours was spent rather than invested.
Combat Negative Cultural TrendsMost of my work focuses on combatting negative cultural trends by clarifying a better path and seeking the secrets of successful change. Yet all of my advice has been useless if we can’t accept personal responsibility and practice a degree of willpower. Learning about habits will only take you so far. Simplifying will only take you so far. Eliminating chips and soda from your home will only take you so far. Until you confront your own personal expectations and chase self-mastery, your efforts are futile.
Quit acting like you don’t know what you need to do. Quit acting like you are powerless to this craving. Quit telling yourself that discipline is easier for other people, or that you just have an impulsive personality. I don’t care if it is nature or nurture that brought you to this point in your life. My only concern is delivering a message that moves people in the right direction. It doesn’t matter if your parents fed you pop-tarts and let you play video games all day. What matters is you can change. You have the power and no one else is going to step in and do it for you.
As Tony Robbins says, “biography is not destiny.”
Solutions-Focused-Therapy has had tremendous success creating change in clients without obsessing on “biography.” Rather than dig through and overanalyze every negative experience of your childhood, these psychiatrists focus only on finding and replicating success. They only want the solutions. The rest they term, “true but useless.”
Create DisciplineMy point is not that you should work maniacally or live a monastic life of self-denial. Rather, you should create the discipline to be intentional with how you spend your life. You should work to create the discipline to be healthier so that you have more years and more life in those years.
You should have the willpower to train your emotions so that you treat people the way you wish you could. You should work to create the purpose and projects that honor your short time. Behaving in the way you want to behave starts with committing to training discipline. But how?
You could wake to movement, take a cold shower before work each day, create a meditation habit, or add any of billion small daily discipline exercises. Plan ahead, start small, adapt, and add more over time.
Whatever you decide, the most important part of building discipline is to never allow yourself to not follow through on a plan. If you plan to workout, you have to. Even if your boss was a jerk today. If you said you wouldn’t snooze the alarm, you can’t. Planned to not check email and social media until lunch each day? Then don’t. Too tired and grumpy for that cold shower? Shut up and get in. 99% is a wimp.
The Thousand Dollar TestSo often negative perceptions allow us to talk ourselves out of behaving like we’d like.
It is a simple way to reframe and reveal the lie behind your sense of powerlessness. What presented as a lack of ability is actually a lack of immediate purpose.
Train Your WillpowerWhile you can get started training discipline today, your efforts will eventually stagnate. Despite your immense power, the reality is that there will be times you fail. This is why it is so essential for you to make it a habit to learn and grow. This inclination promotes learning from failure and persisting past roadblocks. It opens your eyes to the benefit of other people’s experience.
For more help on your journey to train willpower, check out my new Willpower and Resiliency Course. For less than $10 you’ll gain a better capacity for willpower- the primary determinant of your ability to be the person you want to be.
Reference: 1. Catarina Lino, 'Is Grit the New It? Developing Your Passion and Practicing Perseverance." Positive Psychology Program. accessed July 24, 2018. Fitness via Breaking Muscle https://ift.tt/1GxgPEe July 31, 2018 at 05:05PM
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WWE 'Raw' Recap: Brock Lesnar Hits Kurt Angle with an F5, Puts Paul Heyman In a Chokehold
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Courtesy of WWE
For a universal champion, Brock Lesnar doesn't show up to WWE events very often. On Raw this week, Universal Championship contender Roman Reigns started the show by pointing out that Lesnar seems more interested in his upcoming UFC match than the WWE Universe. While Lesnar's “advocate” Paul Heyman arrived to belittle Reigns, Lesnar was suspiciously nowhere to be found. Heyman explained that while Lesnar was in the arena, he had no interest in going out into the ring. With Brock Lesnar advertised as the main event of this week's Raw, general manager Kurt Angle was fed up with Lesnar's stubbornness and gave Heyman an ultimatum: If Lesnar didn't show up in the ring Monday night, Heyman would be fired on the spot. Heyman tried his best to appeal to Lesnar, but it appeared to be completely ineffective. Despite their years-long partnership, Lesnar had zero interest in Heyman's pleas and made it abundantly clear that he just wanted to be left alone. As Monday's Raw came to a close, Lesnar was nowhere to be found and Angle was furious at Heyman for failing to follow through on his promises. Heyman could do nothing but try to explain to Angle that Lesnar can't be reasoned with. But when all hope seemed lost, Lesnar appeared—and he wasn't happy. First, Lesnar went face-to-face with Angle and delivered a devastating F5 to the general manager. But as Heyman chered him on, Lesnar grabbed Heyman and nearly choked him. It appears “The Beast” will be going into Summerslam without any allies. While Lesnar has defeated Roman Reigns before, his lack of recent in-ring experience may give Reigns the advantage he needs. Summerslam will air live from the Barclays Center in Brooklyn on August 19 only on the WWE Network.
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Fitness via Muscle & Fitness https://ift.tt/2zjtGBz July 31, 2018 at 03:34PM
4 Muscle-Building Salads to Add to Your Meal Plan
https://ift.tt/2OycP38 Fitness via Muscle & Fitness https://ift.tt/2zjtGBz July 31, 2018 at 03:12PM
Chicken Greek Salad
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Sam Kaplan
Chef's Tip: The more colorful your salad is, the more diverse its nutrient variety will be.
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Directions:
In a large bowl, add all ingredients except dressing and feta. Add dressing and toss. Top with feta.
Fitness via Muscle & Fitness https://ift.tt/2zjtGBz July 31, 2018 at 02:37PM
Spinach Cobb Salad
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Sam Kaplan
Chef's Tip: To make your own bacon bits, use kitchen shears to cut strips into 1⁄4-inch pieces. Add pepper, then fry over medium heat until brown.
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Directions:
In a large bowl, add all ingredients except dressing. Add dressing and toss.
Fitness via Muscle & Fitness https://ift.tt/2zjtGBz July 31, 2018 at 02:30PM
7 Moves You Should Avoid in Your Shoulder Workouts
https://ift.tt/2KaChZ6 Fitness via Muscle & Fitness https://ift.tt/2zjtGBz July 31, 2018 at 01:26PM
Women, Weightlifting, Nutrition and Metabolism
https://ift.tt/2vkYrT2 Everyone is always looking for quick fixes. No one wants to put in the work that creates lasting changes—which is what you really want in the long run. Right?
So why do we sell ourselves short? I preach about the importance of putting healthy foods into our bodies and the benefits of exercise, but do you really know and understand what causes those benefits inside of us?
I am going to target this article a bit more towards the ladies because they are the majority of my audience and some struggle to truly understand what regular weight training and eating healthy can do for you.
The Importance of Your MetabolismMetabolism is what we want to boost when trying to lose weight because it is the control center for everything chemical that happens in our bodies. Think of our hormones, the way we feel, how much energy we have, and where we hold onto most of our weight. The higher our metabolism is, the more calories we burn. But when we destroy it when we go on crash diets or we yo-yo diet (bouncing around from diet to diet) we do our bodies more harm than good.
Fortunately, there are a couple ways that work to get your metabolism back in sync.
Metabolism Booster #1: NutritionFood and our metabolism are connected through what is called the thermic effect of food (TEF), defined as the amount of energy required for the body to use and store food. Protein has the highest TEF, followed by carbohydrates, followed by fats. This makes having protein with every meal key to helping boost your metabolism.
When it comes to choosing your proteins, think of your lean sources of protein: chicken, lean beef, turkey, fish, and eggs. Eating more protein also helps you to feel more full because it takes the longest to digest, hence boosting your metabolism through digestion and absorption. Protein is what builds the foundation of our bodies. If you want a strong structure, protein will help you.
What happens if we don’t eat enough? Well, our bodies aren’t too happy. When we aren’t giving our bodies enough food to eat, everything I talked about above goes right out the door. Our bodies go into more of a survival mode and will store the food as fat instead of burning it for energy.
If you are someone who exercises consistently (specifically weight training), there is pretty much no reason you shouldn’t be fueling your body properly. Ladies, I am calling you out because working with you for over a decade on nutrition, I have really had to get creative in helping you to understand the importance of fueling for weight and fat loss.
Here is an example of what a one-day meal plan might look like for a client. Keep in mind this is a pretty basic meal plan to help get the point across.
Meal #1: Breakfast
Meal #2: Snack
Meal #3 Lunch
Meal #4: (pre-workout snack)
Meal #5: Post Workout
Meal #6 Dinner (Post-workout)
Each of these meals should have at least 25-40g of protein.
Metabolism Booster #2: WeightliftingAs a female weightlifter, I can assure you that lifting weights won’t make you blow up into the female version of The Hulk. Aside from my love of talking nutrition, my next favorite thing to discuss is muscle.
It is commonly known that muscle burns more calories than fat does. If you aren't convinced that adding muscle to your frame is for you, remember that a pound of muscle burns an average of 3-10 times more calories than a pound of fat.
Aside from the positive effects, weightlifting has on the metabolism, it also has many other positive benefits such as helping to make your bones stronger. Ladies, we are more likely to have osteoporosis than men. Please help yourself by picking up something heavy and putting it back down on a regular basis.
I add a variety of weight lifting into my group fitness class, Warrior Body, here in Morgantown, WV. One of the questions I am often asked about my class is if it is more cardio or weightlifting based. The truth is that it is a good mix of both, but my members will tell you that we do a lot of weightlifting. Some examples include:
Why is this type of training so successful? It's because this type of training adds load to your muscles and this loading is what creates more muscle mass. The more muscle mass you have, the quicker your metabolism will become—which equals more calories burned!
An example of a circuit in my Warrior Body class might look like this:
I typically have this type of workout in a timed circuit, but for this example, you can see that the first two exercises are strength training based and the last exercise is conditioning based. This is just a simple example of what a circuit might look like, but it has all the components of a metabolically effective workout.
The Takeaway for LadiesSo ladies, if you could take anything away from this article, it is this: rip away your old beliefs that food makes us fat and that lifting weights is for The Hulk. Instead, work on adding more protein to your nutrition plan and add more weights to a weekly fitness routine.
This video, above, shows the variety of ways that I implement weight training into my workouts. Think outside of the box and make it fun! If you are anywhere near Morgantown, West Virginia, come on by and join in with our Warrior Body classes, and if you're not, sign up to join us for our online fitness challenges.
Fitness via Breaking Muscle https://ift.tt/1hdUh1E July 31, 2018 at 12:34PM
Is Men's Physique the New Bodybuilding?
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Bill Comstock, Per Bernal
Did you hear that at last year’s Track & Field World Championships, just before the start of the 100-meter finals, Usain Bolt was told, “Your world record is 9.58 seconds—run any faster than that and you will be disqualified”? Did you hear about the baseball authorities recently proclaiming that any pitch over 90 mph will be deemed void? Did you hear about those two incidents? No, because neither happened. All sports follow the iconic “Faster, Higher, Stronger” dictum of Baron Pierre de Coubertin, creator of the modern Olympic Games, encouraging all athletes to constantly better previous performances. Only one sport seems to consistently grapple with putting limitations on human performance and is constantly immersed in discussing the issue of “How much is too much?” We’re talking about bodybuilding and fitness.
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