Do It Anyway

Yesterday was a bad day for training.  I was up too late the night before, so my sleep was cut short.  I really don't like it when I don't get enough sleep.  I didn't eat enough the day before.  You can't blame anyone but yourself for those problems.  I've been working more and later and earlier and I'm a little tired.  So is everyone.  So after that set up, here's how the day went.

Alarm went off early AM.  I didn't want to get up, had time to sleep in.  Did it anyway.

I was hungry, but didn't feel like making breakfast before I went to train.  Did it anyway.

Low energy, not feeling very motivated to even drive to the gym.  Did it anyway.

Wanted to cut the warm up short because I just wasn't into it.  Did it anyway.

My training partner showed up, he was feeling pretty beat up and didn't want to work that hard.  Did it anyway.

Finished our main lift for the day and didn't feel like doing our assistance work.  Did it anyway.

What did I learn from all of this?  That it doesn't matter that much how you feel.  It's what you decide to do that matters.  No one on the platform, the field, the court, or the office cares that much how you feel today.  They care what you do.  At the beginning of college football season in the US there are zero fans who care how their team's head coach feels about the game this weekend.  If their team isn't winning, they want him fired.  If players don't produce, it doesn't matter to the fans and coaches that they didn't sleep well last night or eat enough to support training and playing.

What can you take away from my bad day?  That you aren't going to have the best training session of your life every time you enter the gym, and that doesn't really matter.  Some days are going to be really bad, and that doesn't matter.  What matters is that you do the work.  Consistently.  Day-in, day-out you show up and work hard.  You're tired?  So is everyone else.  You don't feel like it today?  Quit tomorrow.  Never let what you want right now get in the way of what you really want.  Don't be ruled by the tyranny of desire.

I'll see you at the gym.

23 Hour Rule: You Can't Outwork a Bad Diet (Part 1)

In the last installment of the 23 Hour Rule, I introduced the idea that what you do outside of the gym matters for your progress in the gym and in competition.  Since many training programs call for about 3 hours of work per week in the gym, we found that the ratio of time outside of the gym to time in the gym is about 56 to 1.  What that means to the average gym goer is that your training is just a drop in the bucket of life.  While you can accomplish a lot, and I do mean a lot, in just 3 hours a week of training, you cannot undo 165 horrible hours in that short of a time.  So where are we going with that idea today?  Your diet.

When people say diet, what they usually mean is some fad they've adopted for weight loss.  As I've mentioned before, I think weight loss by itself is a terrible goal because it's too short sighted.  What do I do once the weight is off?  Generally, I go back to the habits that resulted in me being overweight enough to make radical changes in lifestyle.  That doesn't do anyone any favors.

What I mean when I say diet is the habits you have around food consumption.  Most Americans eat a diet of convenience, meaning they eat what is easy.  That results in most people being overweight or obese.  (That's not hyperbole, click the link.)  The idea seems to be that, I work so hard and I'm so busy that the only way to get the 3 meals a day that I NEED, is to hit the drive through for a couple of them and then microwave something out of a box when I get home.  How else can I possibly survive?

Before we go any further, I need to challenge 2 ideas mentioned above.  The first is that eating should be easy.  That is entirely dependent upon what you mean when you say it.  If easy means carrying around a 3rd grader worth of body fat and using the CPAP when you sleep, then that doesn't feel very easy to me.  It sounds like making an already full life more difficult.  If it means you can generally attempt to shake off any and all personal responsibility for what goes into your body, then I don't see how that will end well.  What about having sustained energy to get you through your busy day?  What about being healthy and looking healthy?  That sounds a lot easier when I start to think in the long term.

And what about the people who depend on you?  Many of my readers are parents.  Is it going to be easier to teach your children to eat by your example and see them thrive, or to feed them from drive-through windows and watch them join the ranks of the overweight and obese?  I understand that you're very busy, but are there things that could be trimmed out for a healthier lifestyle?  This is in no way an attack on already very busy, tired, and overworked parents... I am one, and we only have 1 kid in our house.  Instead, it's a call to evaluate your habits, and look for ways to make better habits, both for your benefit and for those who depend on you.

The second idea I want to challenge is that you absolutely must eat at least 3 meals per day, every day, for the rest of your life to survive.  Humans are survival machines.  No matter what belief you subscribe to, we've been around for a long time.  There were long periods of scarcity throughout human history where people lived off of less food than some people eat in a week for long periods of time.  If you don't have 3 meals a day, you will not die.  If you do not eat for the next week, you will be just fine.  This means that if your option for a meal is low quality food or don't eat, you certainly have the option to not eat until a better choice comes available.  Life in the first world means that a better choice will come available in about as much time as it takes to drive to the nearest grocery store.

Start evaluating how you are eating.  In my experience, people tend to thoughtlessly form their dietary habits.  Give it a little thought, and stay tuned because in the next part we'll talk a little more about what to eat to support your training and your healthy lifestyle.  Following that post there will be some thoughts on how to make healthy eating a little more convenient for you.  

If you need a little help with your diet sooner than the next post, you can reach me through the comments or my email disruptivefitness@gmail.com.  Further, there are other goal oriented trainees and trainers hanging out at our facebook group who would love to get you know you and help you out.  As always, thanks for reading and supporting this blog!