Everyone makes excuses. It’s a natural thing, especially when
you’re surrounded by people that do the same thing. Limitations are only a
conditioning implemented upon us by family, friends, media, or those that we
find credible. This goes along with my statements I made in the foreword. In
this chapter, I am going to address a little on why people make excuses, some
ways to help improve your willpower in the matter, and a little on the
psychological insight of why we think this way. “Why are you telling me this in
a health and fitness book? Shouldn't you be explaining things to eat and types
of exercise?” Sure, I could give you those things initially, but without mental
willpower, without some kind of mental structure, you may lack adhering to a healthy lifestyle in the long term.
Why People Make Excuses
“I don’t
want to go. I’ll be busy that day.” “Gee that sounds nice, but I can't do that. I
don’t have any experience.” These are just a couple of the generic excuses you
might hear from many different people. Why is it that people make excuses
though? You may be able to answer me this one, but if not, when you think of an excuse, the other word that commonly compliments it is simply this: fear.
People
can deny that they’re not afraid, but usually it’s because they know they have
to initiate in something (Usually something they've never done before or rarely
ever do) and so they are afraid to fail (An example would be riding a kayak
even though you've never done it, and afraid you’ll fail, i.e. falling
in the water and humiliating yourself). Maybe it’s because you don’t want your friends to see you in a certain way (You and your friends are big
Steelers fans and you get offered tickets to the Packers), or maybe your
parents are strong in their spiritual beliefs and you dating a girl you really
like opposes those beliefs or is slightly different, you may hesitate to ask
her out (Let’s assume your parents are Christian and she is Buddhist or
something like that). My last example is more so personality dependent. People
who are knowledge loaders tend to do this same thing in certain situations (You
already have sufficient data on the subject, you just want ALL of it before you
take action).
These
excuses can come in all shape in sizes. If you want to live your life through
the rest of the world, go ahead, but understand one thing: Once you begin
making excuses, you will continue to make excuses for more and more things, and
like Vladimir Lenin stated it, “A lie told often enough becomes the truth.”
When your initial bad excuses become habitual, you begin to live these lies you
condition yourself to. Why would you ever want to be dishonest with yourself,
if anyone at all? It’s really counterproductive in the long-term.
In
the short term though, it’s a quick fix. We as humans want it now, with minimal
effort and no trying. You know if it were that simple, everyone would be
successful! (Or, in a real world, it’d probably be man killing himself off by
then). So, because there seems to be fear dependent on one thing in all these
examples, it would be social surroundings, particularly your social group (Sometimes
in the general population, but mostly influenced by those you care about). If
you decide to go on a diet and start exercising, regardless of how hard you
try, if you don’t surround yourself with people in the majority of advocating
this goal, then you will eventually conform to their standards and fall off
your diet (Or whatever else you’re attempting to strive in doing). If you want
to succeed in the long term, you have to hang around people that want to
succeed with you. If you don’t, you will find yourself in a line of something
we like to call stress.
Stress: The Other Nemesis to your Successes
So you just got out of a meeting
with your boss. Your sales are down, and your boss is stressed out because
sales are lacking, which may affect the future of his company. So he takes out
his anger on you because you were one of the few who actually had the integrity
to sufficiently report your record of sales. First thing he does is take his
anger out on you. You could get angry and yell at him back, or you could just
shut up and color. You decide the latter, and the meeting is only a brief ten
minutes. You finally get out what seems like hours, and for the rest of the day
you feel completely unmotivated and lack any appetite whatsoever.
After this long day, you get home to
your loving spouse, which you have minimal interest in any type of intimate
contact whatsoever. You decide not to do your run for the day, you go grab some
alcohol from the convenience store, grab a pizza, and watch some movie that,
you aren’t aware of, manifests negative unconscious emotions you developed another time you watched the movie. You pass out on the couch by the time you reach
your eighth shot of bourbon, wake up the next morning hungover, smelling
heavily of alcohol (And sweat), and you know you’ll be late if you decide to
shower, shave, brush your teeth, put makeup on, etc.
At this point, depending on your
importance to the company, and how consistent you are with this action,
multiple different things could potentially happen. I’ll let you get creative.
This is what I call the “Stress multiplier” or “The Red Button” (I just made up
random names).
One thing stresses you, and then
essentially that stress mitigates your goals and your stress exponentially
increase it over a short term time (Sometimes the long term, depending on how
critical it is). Rather than choosing a creative outlet of some kind (i.e.
Reading, meditation, running, replacing the oil on your vehicle, etc.) you
choose to indulge in the things that satisfy you in the short term.
You have essentially conditioned
yourself to do something after a bout of stress. For example, some people are
hypophagic (Don’t eat when they stress out), which is only about a third of the
population. Some people are hyperphagic (They eat abnormally or binge after a
moderate bout of stress), which is about two-thirds of the population. Most
people though, can be both.
I am going to get a little
scientific for a moment. Let’s say you’re in a gas station and someone at the
counter up front pulls a weapon out and points it at the cashier, yelling at
them for the money. At this point, unless you’re James Bond and ready for some
gunfire at anytime, you’re going to freak out. Your fight or flight response is
going to activate as epinephrine and norepinephrine levels increase, and your
sympathetic nervous system is activated, your heart rate increases, etc etc.
You may not note at this point (Most likely not, you’re probably running or
hiding) that any type of appetite you had before is completely gone. This is a
hormone secreted known as CRH, inhibiting your appetite. Hence, as the
scientists call it, hypophagy.
Afterwards however, hormones known
as glucocortocoids begin to secrete, telling your body to
recover from this stress by repairing what was lost. In other words, it’s an
abnormal increase in appetite which can result in overcompensation or binging.
It’s an instinctive response that’s been part of us for quite a while (Sapolsky,
Gurley, Demarest, & internationales Télé-Film, 2004).
This is perfectly applicable in a
real life situation, unfortunately, the lack of abundant food thousands of
years ago did not allow our ancestors to overeat as they had limited supply, so
the increased appetite had decreased to normal levels by the time it could
potentially happen.
Stress can wreak all kinds of havoc
on our systems if we don’t do something about it. Effects can include, but are
not limited to:
·
Impaired
cognitive ability
·
Increase blood
pressure
·
Decreased sex
drive
·
Depression or
Anxiety
·
Increased risk
of cardiovascular disease
·
Dwarfism
·
Decreased
immunity
·
Difficulty
sleeping
·
Substance Abuse
·
Increased aging
rate
·
Bulimia/Anorexia
How do we inhibit this response? We
could just inject ourselves with CRH, if we want to feel like a paranoid person
struck with anxiety constantly. Or… there’s always other options.
Mental Conditioning
This is the part where you expect me
to give you some way to completely overcome these mental barriers: Excuses and
Stress as a whole. Now, you can read through this part and just think about it
and not do it. You don’t have to after all, as the world is not depending on
you to change your life.
If you implement everything I give
you here though and do everything I tell you (Or even some of it), I guarantee
you your successes will multiply. If you’re mentally conditioned to organize
your workout schedule, log your food intake, write down your goals and such, it
may look silly on paper, but if you can push these boundaries, then I kid you
not, you will be prepared for anything
you want to do when it comes to this knowledge.
Think of this knowledge as the seed
to a tree (You have the knowledge). You can plant the tree (If you start something), but if you don’t water it,
give it sunlight or good dirt (If you don’t keep your commitment consistent,
accounted for, and supported), the tree will never be able to grow branches
(You will never learn to adapt), and the animals will never begin living on the
tree (Your friends who initially wouldn’t support you still wouldn’t support
you).
I know this sounds a little
metaphorical, but I was just trying to make a point. I did mention in Dieting Myths and Truths all about social support and keeping a journal so we’ll start with those.
So, before doing the below, you will
need a journal, a pen, and an open mind (And you can use highlighters and
sticky notes if you’re hardcore about it). I will be talking about social support,
keeping track in your journal, affirmations and goals, and lastly, ways to help relieve
stress.
Social
Support
As
I had said before, keeping a social group that will support you in the long run
will be of massive help to you, regardless if you are a strong-minded person or
not. In fact, there was a study conducted on this. 166 participants were
divided into either going on a weight loss diet alone, and the others went on a
weight loss diet with three other people (Family or friends) that supported
them and also participated. Unsurprisingly, only 76% of the group that went at
it alone completed the 4 month treatment, and out of those, only 25% of them
kept the weight off at the 10th month follow-up. If you look at the
ones with social support though, almost 70% of the 95% that completed the
treatment managed to keep the weight off. (R. R. Wing & Jeffery, 1999). Imagine that!
So, that’s what I’d like to talk
about here. I want you to sit down with your journal, and make a list. Make a section in it called “Social Support” or something similar. Make one column for “Supportive people”
and another for “Unsupportive people”, then maybe one for “Undecided”.
What is a supportive person? Well,
ask yourself this question: When you begin sharing a goal or passion you have
with someone you know very well (Strangers don’t care. They’ll kiss your ass
and say what you want to hear if they barely know you), that person is going to
respond in a certain way. Is it positively or negatively?
You may have already started your
journey, and may have already encountered resistance like this. Someone saying
“Oh that sounds too hard” or “Man I hate eating healthy!” or “Man I just
couldn’t give up my morning donut.” You’ve might’ve heard one of these
variations, and these are the people you do not want to hang around.
If you will notice, all of these
responses are conditioned by a point of influence we have, be it the media, our
parents, or any type of authoritative figure to us. “Too hard” implies they
were taught what their boundaries are (Or that there are any). “Healthy”, in the second example, was
conditioned by the mass population. Most of the population never associates
“Healthy” with “Good Times”. “Morning Donut” is another mental conditioning
situation where the person sees a donut as a positive part of their morning. All
of these things are influenced in you via environment, hence your friends and
family.
For example, you might remember as a
kid being told to clean your plate. Unfortunately, your family’s sense of
“portion size” was very rough and they weren’t including the 1200 extra
calories you intake between soda, vending machine snacks, and cookies from your
grandma down the road.
Many other examples could be
anything from religion, political views, cultural bias, or even the very job
you work can be compared to environmental influence. It may seem so vast, but
it’s really simple. You don’t want to be alone, so you conform with one crowd
to a set of “standards”. This all comes back to how people come together and
who deflect others.
So back to what I was saying, who
responds negatively when you try sharing that you’re going to lose weight or
that you’re going to begin lifting weights or running? Alright, so you have
your list of people. Good. Now what are you supposed to do with them? There are
two options: 1. you can ignore their negativity, or 2. you can weed them out.
You think I’m kidding. If these
people are just dragging your motivations and aspirations on the ground like a
dead swine, you need to get rid of them. Tell them the situation and point out
their lack of advocacy. The only reason these people put you down is because
they’re insecure you’re changing and growing in aspects they have not yet.
There is no justification in a negative mindset. Don’t have them waste your
energy. Tell them the situation, let them know what’s up, and if they don’t go
along with it, move on. You’ll be surprised how many of these friends will come
back and want to join once you make some development in your feats.
What happens if you don’t weed them
out? Well, like everyone else, you’re going to be influenced by your primary
environmental stimuli, hence your friends or family (Yes I included family
too). You’ll beginning acting negatively on your actions and lose track of your
goals. Don’t be another one of those statistics.
Now let’s assume that you have no
choice but to be around people like this. What do you do then? There is a
method for that, but it can be harder than you think, especially since I know
man as a whole loves to speak of their successes (Or bragging, depending on personality).
Let’s assume it is the people you work with as an example. Some of them will
support you, some of them won’t. For the ones that won’t support, don’t speak
of it to them, if only briefly and whenever they want to talk, divert the
conversation towards something about them personally. This will give connection
between you two, without you giving anything away, and by the time you are on
the road to success, they will feel a little more inclined to support you, as
you’re not putting this info in their face without walking the walk first.
As
for the ones that will support you, and this is key, pick their brains about
their approach, what they do for exercise, any special method of eating (i.e.
paleo, low-carb, etc), and listen to them. It is a key in keeping a positive connection with these people. If
you expect to get support, they are going to expect the same reciprocation,
without them knowing or not. Don’t rant about how they could improve their
diet. Keep an open mind about it and sound legitimately interested. These are
the people that will be supporting you in your journey after all. If they want some
kind of tips for how they will improve, they will ask.
I know, for many people, this may sound a little difficult, as we want
to tell everyone about our success, but a lot of people can be selfish and insensitive
these days (I’m not talking about sarcasm. This is a healthy part of every social
group). If you want to succeed, you have to start with yourself, and then add on
to the people who have those similar aspirations. This is more than just applicable
with health and fitness. Business, travel, cooking, sports… hell, even stargazing
are all applicable with social support. I don’t judge, half of the time.
Keeping
a Journal
So
you have determined who is worth keeping and who is not. Now you move onto the rest
of the journal essentially. What should you keep in this journal? Because I believe
this book can be more than just an aid for nutrition and fitness, I am going to
list everything that can potentially go into this journal. I’ll show you what I
mean. Here’s my recommended list:
·
Goals, short-term
and long-term (Any type of goals)
·
Affirmations
·
Diet schedule: Macronutrient
ratio/Caloric intake (For at least 12-16 weeks)
·
Diet compliance chart
and recorded macros/calories
·
A diet plan for after
those 12-16 weeks (Or at least a potential brainstorm)
·
Grocery List
·
List of exercises
(Mainly for weight training and circuits. Cardio is almost a no-brainer)
·
Workout Schedule
·
Workout Record Sheet/Compliance
·
Meal Plans
·
List of your current
Supplements
·
A list of common
foods you eat with macros and calories
·
A record of hours
of sleep you got (This one’s a little nitpicky, but I like my sleep)
·
A weekly record of
your Bodyweight and Waist size (Bodyfat size if you want. If you’re trying to get
bigger, or are nitpicking, you can also measure chest, thighs, forearms, neck, etc)
·
For someone who wants
to get financially organized, make a list of priorities and things you usually get
and you’ll realize how much you overspend and can potentially save.
This
is not the limits to this list. You can always add on other things i.e. appointments
find my phone appropriate for that, but other people might have a different preference),
school notes, dream journal, wizard spells, whatever floats your boat.
Now you might be wondering: “Where am
I going to accumulate all this information from? There is so much stuff on this
list!” That is one reason I am here to help you. Otherwise, you wouldn’t need my
help and you wouldn’t be reading this (Unless someone made you read this for class.
Then you may not care what I have to say). The first and second one I will give
you below.
Developing
beliefs, consciously and unconsciously
I
want you to take a minute and imagine back to the time when you were in grade
school, when you had red rover at recess, played jeopardy for your upcoming
history test, and traded cards with your friends (Or action figures or played
marbles. Maybe you were the social outcast and just wrote in your journal
quietly in the corner of the playground. Everyone had their interests).
So you’re sitting in class one day,
bored listening to the teacher, so you take one of your wide ruled pieces of
paper and make some random paper airplane design out of it and throw it across
the room. The first time you throw one, it was just for fun. Your teacher is
writing on the board and doesn’t notice. The second one you throw, she gives
you a warning and you barely think about it. The third time though, you write a
note to your buddy right before you throw it to him. She catches you as he/she
begins unraveling the origami, and makes you stay after class.
After class, she sits you down and
gives you a piece of paper that says “I will not throw paper airplanes in
class.” She tells you that you have to write this down on the board 500 times
(Or maybe 100 if she’s nice or in a hurry to the break room). At this point,
you either listen to what the teacher said and just do it, irritated, or you
begin arguing before she takes you to the principal or school counselor because
she doesn’t want to deal with it.
Let’s assume you listen and begin
writing this. After that day, I’m pretty sure you have never thrown a paper
plane again (At least in class), and if you did, it’s because your school
didn’t care enough and/or had bad discipline methods. Where am I going with
this, you ask?
Repetition is the primary method to
reprogramming your mind, if you want to believe it or not. Thomas pain once
quoted “A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial
appearance of being right.” Essentially, if you want to control what you
believe is “wrong” and “right”, if you want to control what is “possible” and
what is “impossible”, then you’re going
to get nowhere in life. You may think this is some cheesy fairy tale
philosophy, but you need to know that there are limitations. For example, if
you run 50 miles a week and include weight training three times a week into
that, you’re going to end up in the hospital relatively quick.
I have made a few lists of how you
set goals (mostly goals), and writing what you aspire out on paper is much more
effective than you would think, as long as you refer to it consistently. Where
can goal setting help you in life? Here is my personal list:
·
Career
o
Where do you want to be in your
career in the future, and how far do you want to go?
·
Financial
o
How much do you want to earn
after X amount of years? Including outside of work? When do you plan to retire?
·
Education
o
What education level do you think
is required to attain your other goals? BS? MS? PHD?
·
Family
o
Do you plan on having kids in the
future? Do you plan on adopting? How will you thrive as a parent?
·
Personality
o
How do you want to change
yourself? How do you change your attitude to benefit you in achieving your
goals?
·
Physical
o
Do you want to look thin or fit?
Do you want to live your senior age as a drug addict, or as a marathon runner?
·
Leisure
o
What kind of hobbies do you have
currently? How do you want to further this interest to enjoy yourself?
·
Influence
o
How do you want to change the
world?
I know this is a pretty large list, but we will just stick to the physical aspect for now and you can tailor yourself to the other ones you need later. Now, some of you may have heard of the SMART acronym when it comes to goal setting. It stands for Specific (What is my goal in explicit detail?), Measurable (How will I reach my goal and can it be measured?), Attainable (Is this goal not completely over the top and impossible to reach?), Relevant (Are these goals relevant to your current life situations, and are they narrowed to this situation?), and Time-Framed (Do you have a timeline allocated to when you will complete this goal?).
Now as you take that in, this is the
best information I could possibly give you to write down your goals. Now, for
you people who need an outline, I will give you one momentarily. Firstly, you
must be thinking in your head: “Get to the nutrition and fitness stuff
already!” Without a proper mindset, it’s going to be difficult without
structure. Some people can do it, but very few.
For an example of a generalized
goal, you would say something like “I want to lose weight.” Now, when we apply
the principles above, it will sound something more like: “By July, six months
from now, I want to have lost 20 lbs of fat, while maintaining or increasing my
muscle so I can look good going on this vacation to Myrtle Beach.” Now that is a goal. After that, you would
write a set of sub-goals of how you would get there. You need a timeline
though, so I will give you one. Normally, as a career goal for example, your
longest term goal would be 5 years, but in this situation it is only six
months. Let’s say you go a step further and want to get a six pack in two years
(You’re about 75 pounds overweight and have close or over 30% bodyfat). This is
what a timeline might look like:
-1 week: Begin eliminating sugary
foods out of your house and eating more whole foods. No calorie deficit is set,
but you are changing things up.
-1 month: You begin to cut out more
thinks such as less drinking, eating out only four or five times a week now. You
join a gym and begin walking, along with picking up the weights for the first
time. You have lost about 15 pounds in a month. Unfortunately, about 10 lbs of
it was water weight)
-6 months: At this point you have
lost around 20-25 lbs of fat and have cut your eating out to 1-2 times a week,
limited to drinking only on the weekends, and have vastly improved your
knowledge of health and fitness. You now workout three times a week, with all
days consisting of weights and a little cardio. Looks like that Myrtle Beach
trip ain’t going to be too bad after all…
-1 year: You have lost nearly 50 pounds in this year
long journey. You begin to get a little lazy and gain a couple of pounds back
after the year mark, but you bounce back quickly as you have set your goals,
kept your journal current, and gotten this far. You have more social support
than ever. Who’s stopping you now?
-2 year: This is it: The moment
you’ve been waiting for: Six pack abs baby! Time for a trip to the beach this
summer! You’ve become a coach, you now have a wife/husband with similar
aspirations, and your successful fitness endeavors have encouraged you to
better yourself in every other aspect of life.
“2 years? 2 years? Are you kidding me? You’ve got to be kidding? That is
ridiculous!” You probably are saying right now. Ask yourself this question:
What was the last thing you’ve done in a week that’s changed your life? In a
month? How significant was it? Like everything else, this takes time, and if
you don’t want to “waste” your time, then stop reading this right now and go
off with your life.
Goals are what make successful
people. They’re what make successful marriages. They’re what make successful
parents. They’re what make successful businessmen. They’re what make successful
leaders, and, they’re surely what make successful
people. If you want to succeed, you need structure. Dismissing writing out
(Keyword writing, not typing) then your direction will be questionable. After
structure for a long enough period, it becomes intuitive, and you make it a
habit. For now though, structure into things initially is essential to success.
Before continuing, write down your
goals in explicit detail. I want you
to be selfish about it. If the people around you can’t handle it and don’t want
to change with you, then they can go do their own thing while you find your
supporters. Once you write these goals, write below them what accomplishing this
goal will do for you. For example, if you say “In six months, I want to lose 20
lbs of fat to get my beach body ready for Myrtle beach.” how will this make you
a better person? What will it do for you? “I will have lost weight and look
healthier.” “My blood pressure levels will look a lot better.” “I will feel better about myself.” “I will be
able to breathe easier when running.” These are just a few examples.
This may take some time. That’s ok.
When you have it, go back through those and write them out in a statement form,
and put this statement in a present tense. “Why do I have to do this?” You ask.
If you tell yourself often enough, you eventually will become what you say (if
you say it often enough), but if you write it in the future tense, it’s only
assuming you will be a certain way,
and you’ll state it as “You are”.
I’ll give you a couple of examples of this whole process:
·
The goal
o
Lose 20 pounds
of weight by July to prepare myself for beach season.
·
How will this
improve me as a person?
o
I will look
better
o
I will feel
better about myself
o
I will have a
lower blood pressure
o
I will be able
to run easier
·
The Affirmation
o
I am so glad
that is of July of this year I have lost over 20 pounds to prepare for the
beach. I feel so much better and it is so much easier to run than it used to
be!
Easy enough right? Good. Now, once
you have these, make sure to look over them every day. You will be surprised
how much it helps. However, to make this works, you have to believe these affirmations when making
them, so to maximize effectiveness, write it down multiple times if necessary,
and say it to yourself rather than just reading it off the paper. What
initially will be a conscious habit will be an unconscious habit over time.
Methods
of coping with stress
I’ll
be brief on this. There are a few I will mention, but everyone has their own
creative outlet. Here is a few that I recommend for the average Joe:
-Exercise: Self Explanatory.
Exercise is like an anti-depressant. Running, weight training, or both, you’ll
feel tired and satisfied afterwards
-Meditation: Some people may have
heard of this one before. If you can, try getting away from all noise for 20-30
minutes a day, and just close your eyes and imagine a positive world of your
own. Deep breathing can definitely help. There are audio programs for this type
of thing. One last thing is they also have self-hypnosis and neurolinguistic
books on this stuff. Check it out if need be.
-Active Hobbies: When I say active hobbies, I mean something that
actually involves you in action i.e. writing, sports, four wheeling, shooting,
cooking, etc. Things like collecting coins or possessing an inanimate object
just to say you have it is not an active hobby.
-Sleep: This is a little obligatory,
and I’ve already made my explanation on sleep. Just make sure not to oversleep
as this may throw off your sleep schedule a little bit.
-Conversation: As long as it is an
intelligent conversation rather than a strand of arguments. Arguments only lead
to more negativity. If you can have someone to vent to about your day, or your
aspirations, etc, that connection you develop will calm you down real quick.
I explained to you why we make
excuses, a little about stress, what it can do to us and what we can do to
mitigate it. I also explained to you how to account for your goals, set them,
and create new beliefs, and implement them in your everyday life. Now if you
actually did these exercises rather than skipping this chapter like many of you
will the first time you read this (Before you realize how important this is),
you are set for all the information I will be giving you in the next sessions
to come. If this is all you needed from this book, I wish you well in your
future endeavors.
