Thankfully, I'm back on the fitness wagon. I’m happy, yay… See, I have a tendency to chubb up in the mid-section if I don’t keep up the cardio so this is good news. Focusing on packing my gym bag the day before my next workout is a big key to success, it falls under the category of PREPARATION.
I push myself in the gym because working out not only gives me the physical strength I need to fight the good fight but also the mental stamina necessary to achieve my goals.
Really, I’ve just been jogging regularly for about a week now, and I’ve also been working on my diet. My girlfriend, and I do this food delivery service called Blue Apron, I’d recommend it. Blue Apron has taught me how to use foods that I’d never use on my own. I’m becoming a better cook and making healthier grocery lists, and keeping my kitchen cleaner by getting all this practice preparing all of these meals. And with their simple instructions I can make great meals for about $10 a piece, so why not? By the way, they’re great meals, I’m talking restaurant quality.
The food delivery service may seem like a little much to you but for me, if I can afford it, I’m about taking all the help I can get. I’ve had personal trainers, acting coaches, and life coaches before and I think they’re a valuable resource if you’ve got the money to swing it.
I do all this type of stuff because I’m trying to overcome my own humanity. Living well is a daily struggle against resistance.
You have daily chores that need to be taken care of everyday and if you neglect them things can unravel relatively quickly. For example, when you have to go to work but you haven't done laundry in weeks and everything you own is dirty. Or when you're starving but your dishwasher and your sink are full of dirty dishes. (Yo, I've went so long without washing my dishes that I had dirty dishes in my bathroom sink...THUG LIFE) The other bad thing about not doing my dishes was that it caused me to buy fast food and that was so much worse than what I would've made had I been keeping my kitchen clean and regularly going to the grocery store. DAMN IT!
I have a whole slew of bad habits, we all do, (Just me again?) and we all need “good habits”. These “good habits” must eventually be carved into us so deeply that we don't think about doing the “right things,” we just do the “right things,” automatically because our “good habits” have become instinctual.
When you've got a routine “dialed-in” good things begin to happen, difficult things get easier. I strive to keep my life, (i.e. my routine) “dialed-in,” because when everything is “dialed-in,” I know I'm doing the “right thing,” improving. Having your “good habits” all “dialed-in” is a very enviable situation to be in and part of living a successful lifestyle.
My goal is to improve a little bit each day. I'm not looking for leaps and bounds in improvement. I'm looking for consistent incremental increases that are sustainable over long periods of time.
You can become more healthy but it requires you to also become better at maintaining a lifestyle that is in line with and also serves your goal of being healthy. You need to replace all your bad habits with “good habits” get them “dialed-in” and keep them “dialed-in” until you achieve your goal.
Oh my God does that sound like a lot of work! Getting healthy is way more complex than just losing weight. You have to completely change your entire life in order to lose weight effectively. A lot of people don’t know this, or don’t get this (cognitively), or the most common reason, they can’t maintain it.
If you want followers then be worth following. You can't be a baller if you can't keep your own house together> You can't lead others if you can't even take care of yourself. You need to have your shit together before you can expect other people to follow you.
Start by keeping your body clean. Then your home, especially your kitchen, and bathroom. Keep your laundry on point. I’ve found that if you keep your clothes clean along with your kitchen and your bathroom the rest of the house pretty much takes care of itself.
There was always some sort of competition happening growing up in house with three other brothers. Who was strongest, who was fastest, who was smartest? (Definitely not me there) and the list goes on and on. No wonder we're all a little fixated on our appearance and have what a lot of liberals would call “body image issues”.
Worrying about my body and what everyone, especially my family, (who are always the worst to you about everything) thought of me twenty-four-hours-a-day-seven-days-a-week-three-hundred-and-sixty-five-days-a-year was a burden worse than Frodo’s in, The Lord of The Rings, and it sucked.
Speaking of competition, my other brother weighs his food on a scale to ensure he's taking in the amount of calories he thinks and not extra calories.
I was having a conversation with my younger brother and I was happy to see that he has been more focused on losing weight and taking care of himself. It's good my brother is taking better care of himself because taking care of yourself creates a positive feedback loop which is essential to success. Seeing my brother looking healthier was a very pleasant surprise and I think it was just the thing he needed because, like me, he also has a tendency to let himself go.
I told my brother keep up the good work. “You're doing well now, and that is good but what you really need to do is maintain the good work. It's one thing to do what you're supposed to do here and there, and it's a whole other thing to do what you're supposed to do everyday for a decade. Imagine how you would change if you did everything you were supposed to do everyday for ten years. You would be in such a different place if you completely stuck to your guns about maintaining your progress towards a single goal. The distance between you and your goal would have to have dwindled so much, or maybe you would've achieved your goal by then and begun working on a new goal... Who knows?” (Yes I said all that, trust me).
Remember: When you take care of yourself you feel better about yourself. When you feel better about yourself people treat you better, and you treat people better too.
Thanks,
-Tim