Want success more than you want to sleep

I find myself reciting the article title a fair bit. There is a tonne of motivational videos on the internet which is where this line comes from. Whilst some have switched off from the day long ago I am writing this article not for me, but to help you. On the other hand, there are some who will work long into the night more than me and these people want success more then they want to sleep. Arnold Schwarzenegger talks about sleeping faster in one of his videos. I found this really funny, but he also talks about working your butt off in that same video.

It doesn’t matter what it is you want to achieve at some point you will have to roll up your sleeves and do some hard work. If it is fitness related most likely it will take more work than you think. But it isn’t the end result where you learn the most and get the benefits. It seems to be the journey where you learn what you can do and endure not the destination. Often you will hear advice given that habits make us what we are or that we are our habits. I think this is largely true. So if you are new to fitness maybe you should focus on creating the habit of exercise. I have talked about goal setting in the past, here. Behavioral goals are very often overlooked, but this is a powerful, subtle goal to set. Setting a behavioral goal to create a habit could see you on the journey to success without you realizing it.

Something you should do is set up behavioral goals to create habits. This will help you become successful easier. You will become your habits. If your habits are exercising, eating healthy and working your butt off for success more than you want to sleep, then the journey will be hard and tiresome but worth it.

The silly season is upon us.

It is the Christmas crunch and health and fitness gurus are writing articles on how to survive the silly season. I don't want to write an article about how you should do it, I do want to write about things I do, have done, that work for me. You may take some ideas from here and you could apply it to your silly season.

I keep a food diary and I have talked about this in the past in articles. I am sure some of you still don't keep a food diary and have no desire to start. That is your prerogative but I have found that keeping one allows me to not only track my energy needs and intake but educate myself about what foods I eat. You may argue that good quality food choices are enough but what if you think something is good when in truth it isn't. For example a food diary can help you understand that a granola bar is really a sugar bar with oats. If you prerecord your meal you are also more likely to stick to it. Further more alcohol can loosen our appetite morals and we begin to just eat whatever. A food diary I have found makes me more disciplined.

I use the food diary to see how my energy bank account is looking for the day and something looked at even less the week. Off course sometimes I go over my calories during the season, I can't preempt everything I will consume. I don't get pedantic about that and if I take note of the week I remain under overall. I still however try to get 5 serves of vegetables and 2 serves of fruit a day this will aid in my training quality.

I do apply a rule to myself if I find myself asking if I need or want to eat something I just say "meh" shrug my shoulders and don't eat it or say "no thanks". If I have to ask I probably have had enough. If I get someone pushing me to have more I always ask if they are having more this helps me redirect away from me eating and puts that person on the spot. The big one is booze, alcohol, poison I will try to have 1-2 glasses of water before and after drinking this helps keeps me hydrated and avoid a hangover. It also keeps me quite full and reminds me to drink a little less as often people can get carried away in the silly season. I like to drink in moderation and bear in mind that it does have limited value nutritionally to me. Yes there are benefits of moderate alcohol consumption but moderate can quickly become a bender.I also plan ahead I will not drink and drive as it is just stupid really.

I keep to a plan for training as well. I don't try to train away poor food choices because I do put conscious effort into making good food choices. I do write my training plan for six weeks to incorporate more caloric usage in my training which allows me to chase longer harder sessions as I do have more time due to holidays and more available energy.

More importantly this season I will take the time to let go and relax. I do have a plan for training and eating but if I miss a session on a day due to other commitments I don't get worried. I have seen people get anxiety about it ,hell I've been one of those people but more importantly I take the time to be thankful for what I have. I stop and just observe and listen, I feed my well being. Commonly I hear that we should appreciate things and people everyday but I live in the real world and it is not everyday I appreciate and grasp what I have around me. The final thing is I appreciate what I give more then what I get and this is from a material point of view. My partner and I enjoy giving good gifts and we strive to find things that will add value and meaning to those we give. If we don't get something material it doesn't matter what matters is we gave. Enjoy the silly season take a moment stop and breathe it in and appreciate it and those around you.

Success leaves clues

Strangely I hear that term a lot and I often find myself pondering its meaning. Seriously “success leaves clues”, what could that possibly mean? It could be interpreted in a million different ways so I decided to try to find out what exactly it means by looking for clues to success. Honestly I believe people don’t seem to look for clues to success. Instead they choose to believe that someone success comes from luck, excessive money or something else. Whilst it couldn’t hurt to be lucky or rich it doesn’t seem to be the primary reason someone is successful. Now I could talk about the clues I have found in various endeavour’s that make someone successful but I’d rather give an example of someone that has found success.

Recently my brother has discovered movement and healthy eating kind of like how someone finds religion. Off course what I mean is that his new outlook has literally changed his life. I know because I have seen this happen many times before. Some of you that have read my previous blogs may say that your brother had you to help him. Perhaps he does but in the end he has to do the work himself, I can’t do it for him. So how did he flip the switch? Well the first clue to success is access. Successful people often have access to resources, people and helpful information. In my brothers case the organisation he works for has a gym that employees were free to use. For my brother not having to pay was enough to get him motivated. The second clue is support, and yep seems obvious but a little bit of support goes along way. You are 50% more likely to achieve a goal if someone close to you does it with you. My brother’s partner who also enjoys fitness was always trying to get him into eating better and working out and once he was receptive to hearing the message they both managed to support each other. Goals are the third clue, my brother set himself a goal. He always wanted to be muscly but never really tried to achieve it. I watched a TV show called Muscle TV on local access and if I recall right I got him onto it. On that show they had a fitness challenge and his partner said she was going to do it. Off course then my brother also said he would do it. I don’t think anyone in my family is capable of saying no to a challenge. This challenge in particular provided a framework for competitors to use including diet, exercise and accountability. Accountability often is associated with consequences and bad stuff but it is not always about that. Often being accountable for yourself is the most important thing if you have made a real commitment. Commitment is a big clue to success. My brother’s commitment was and is still strong.

While all this led to him getting into shape it is the deeper success I have seen that seems to really matter. He has literally changed himself for the better. This is the biggest clue I find in people no matter what they are successful in. It’s the positivity they feel from changing themselves, physically and mentally. Mindset off course is always the biggest clue to success. Never underestimate the power of positive thinking. My brother’s success has seen him change from an angry, introverted and low self-esteemed person into an outgoing, happy, confident person in the space of 6 months. Physically he is able to bench 120kg (264lbs) at 72kg (158lbs), run 5km (3.1miles) no stress and just has tonnes of energy. Sure I was there to offer advice and instruction but it was up to him to do it and become successful at it. If you think you could use some advice and instruction I can help you with Exercise Physiology services. If you want success you now have some clues so stop wasting time and go out there and use them.

Get on your success path now!

Sit on it.

                Sit on it or maybe don’t. The media has been lately talking up “new” research showing that sitting is the new smoking. Personally I do not like smoking and that is for so many reasons. Like most people however I don’t mind a good sit. So as a result I try to stay involved in the research stating sitting too much is bad for us. Now I have written an article about squatting or as some call it the paleo chair in the past. Right now as I write this article I am standing (curveball not squatting) instead of sitting in a chair. In Kids will be kids I wrote about the issue of opportunity for movement. It is important to remember whilst standing is not the opposite of sitting, movement is. I should also add that standing is another alternative to sitting in a chair.

                So why am I writing this? Well I usually take Wednesday off mid-week from training and sure I might do some mobility/recovery stuff but it is mainly to give my body a break from the previous sessions. So I woke up this Wednesday tight and sore especially in my lower back, not injured but fatigued. It was understandable since I spent a great deal of Tuesday sitting and working on various things. I am still working on acquiring a standing desk. I find sitting is a habit hard to break for most people. Whether it is working at a desk or spending time with the family a lot of us spent most of our days sitting.  This made me think about sitting in depth, recently I read that Kelly Starret said people that sit a lot should every 15 minutes or so reset how they sit. Whilst in theory I agree with it, I think if someone like me who loves to move or is a natural fidgeter struggles to undertake such an act every 15 minutes how on earth will the average office worker achieve it day in day out. Now I am sure there’s an app out there for that and if not, patent pending. 

By now some of you read this and said oh why can’t you fix your sitting technique and a plethora of other things. Well simply put I’m not perfect, though I am going to try to make it more of a priority. So what are the other solutions, standing desks are one and so are apps but is there a bigger fix, maybe office overhaul as it were. Now this is probably where much groovier and smarter people take over from me and I am sure there is research surrounding changing our environment to effect the way we do things, sitting being just one. Maybe it is time we have a societal shift. We are frequently looking at the past and taking things used or techniques and updating them to today’s world. Maybe we should have a room with no furniture in it (lounge room, just a suggestion) that would make us get on the ground if we want to sit, there are a lot of options we could utilise.  Can you of you think of ways we could get around sitting in chairs? 

               

Kids will be kids.

                Recently within fitness there is a return to our roots so to speak. Things like MovNat and Primal Flow have become very popular. In general these methods go deeper than just exercise the philosophy it is about getting about to nature, to our roots.  Ido Portal to paraphrase once said that exercise is just a small part of movement. All of these have in common, movement the way the body was intended to move and often doing things we did as a child. 

                Do you remember what you used to do as a child? Though the answers will be different common themes emerge. Playing outside, climbing things in different ways, crawling, getting off the ground, throwing and catching, riding bikes and running around. What about cartwheels, rolling carrying friends and stuff. 

                There is no doubt we are largely movement opportunity deprived as adults. Movement is an opportunity, this mindset alone could change your life. Getting back to basics proved to be great for my programming and getting people back to a healthier body and mind. Things like get ups and crawling has really improved many peoples quality of life. Yes I have some client’s dislike it because crawling requires us to get a little bit uncomfortable and get ups requires people to get creative as I like them to try different methods to get off the ground. The best part is even those that at first don’t like it get the benefits. Having clients tell me I hated doing those but the other day I had to get down and pick up my phone from under the bed which in the past was hard makes it all worthwhile. 

                Getting up from the ground can be hard for those that don’t do it but what about kids? Easy? Seems like it but recently a school locally banned cartwheels and other potential activities that a child could be hurt. My theory is that if we can get kids and the elderly moving well and enjoying it those in the middle of those ages will follow suit. You see if our elders lead by example it is more likely others will follow. This could prove to be infectious for kids and if kids enjoy movement it may get adults involved. It is a cycle but in order for that cycle to grow opportunities need to be offered. Let me make this clear opportunities come with risk, yes a kid could hurt themselves doing a cartwheel or fall out of a tree and break a bone. If we have a narrowing amount of opportunities as adults to move and we limit kids movement opportunities what will their future outlook be? 

                The world is full of risks and rewards, movement is one of them and to be frank if we limit the kids of the world the future risks will be even greater then a broken bone or a scraped knee. The risk we take as the generations before them is that kids may not have the quality of life or lifespan for that matter when they get into our position. What would your life be like if you weren’t active as a child? Did you have someone older then you instil a passion to move into you? What would/is life like without movement as a child?

You don`t have time for you?

Currently I am preparing to open my own practice for Exercise Physiology and allied health. Off course this has taken me a lot of time as I am undertaking a small business course while  working. I am hoping to have a bricks and mortar practice open soon but I also hope to do some online programming. If anyone out there is interested please contact me. Now this brings me to my next point which is health and fitness goals are similar to business goals.

I know a lot of you out there a skeptical but the one thing connecting both business and our health goals is time. Society as a whole is becoming more time poor each and every day. We are all struggling with  work long hours, having families and sometimes it seems hard just to keep our heads above the preverbal water.  Which leads me to my next point, by far the biggest excuse I hear from people is, “I just don`t have the time to exercise”. This is often followed up with,” I don’t have time to eat healthy I just grab whatever”. Sometimes in life this can be true. I am sure you all expected me to get on my high horse but life can get in the way of our goals. What I am truly worried about is do people really know what is taking up their time? 

             Even while being time poor there a many options for those trying to improve health. The first option is as simple as keeping a food dairy. Often when people ask me about food dairies I ask “do you check your bank account?” Almost always  yes is the answer. So off course then I ask why don’t you track your food? This may lead to various excuses many which fall into apathy and lack of knowledge. For me it is simple, if you track your bank account why don`t you track your food. Aren’t both these aspects equally important to you? For well and truly over a year now I have been keeping a food diary. With all the advances in technology it has become a lot easier than most people think. If you have enough time to  watch TV at  night then you have enough time to do this. 

And to those few who say I don’t even have a few minutes each day to keep a food dairy, I say start a time dairy. Built of the same premise as a food dairy a time dairy can help expose the everyday activities that is sucking up your time and stopping you from reaching your goals. TV is just one example of a time thief you may discover if you keep a time diary. I am interested to know what things come up for you. You may even find you have great time usage, or that certain things can be increased. Like in business “if you can’t measure it you can’t manage it”. Our time is precious if we can achieve our goals and dreams by using our time better shouldn’t we? Post in the comments below your biggest time thief.