Category Archives: Motivation

He Lost 55 Lbs. in 5 Months.

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Joel Comm is an internet entrepreneur, and has been this way for a while. We internet people tend to have sedentary jobs and don’t usually get too much exercise. On top of all of that, it’s easy to snack and be lazy. I was one of those people and here is someone else with almost the same exact story.

I’m a little different in that around November of last year, I started trying to GAIN weight by doing weight training and increasing my strength, but Joel should still be commended for his efforts.

Below is a quick video that he made chronicling his story and telling you exactly what he did to lose the weight. Get this – it’s simple too. Yeah, that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.

This is extremely motivational for me and I hope it is for you as well. Kudos to Joel, and hopefully he keeps it off and takes his fitness goals even farther!

Tighten the hell up.

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You’re making progress in your quest to become more fit. Maybe that means building muscle or losing weight (fat), but whatever you’re doing is working. There will come a day when you start to see less off a gain (or loss, depending on how you want to look at it). This happens to everyone. You can only be so fit, so strong, or so light. There are physical limitations to what a human being can be composed like.

I was at a conference called The Audience Conference recently and one of the speakers, Dan Patterson, made a very insightful point: tighten the hell up. You can think you’re crushing it, but in the bigger scheme of things you’re sloppy and could do way better. Don’t just settle for what you think is awesome. Be awesome. Do that or you’ll fail.

When you reach your goal or ‘the plateau’ you’ll regress into your old habits. Maybe you’ll start eating out more, or when you’re eating out, eating less healthy foods. This is because you made it to where you need to be. Unfortunately if you continue on that course in that mindset, you’re going to fall back to where you were.

This is when, most of all you need to tighten the hell up. Buckle down and stick your face to the grindstone. It’s time to push your goals out beyond where you think you can attain them and kick it up a notch. What you’ve been doing so far to see such significant gains will only maintain you now.

Cheat meals and missing exercise dates will work to a point as long as your overall fitness plan is sound and you’re sticking with it, but at some point you’re going to need to buck up and lose your cheat meals and never miss an exercise date. You might even need to start exercising more.

That’s the problem I have with ‘diets.’ People that ‘diet’ usually stop at some point and then lose all of their progress. What you need to really do is change your diet for life, not ‘go on a diet’ and you’ll make permanent changes that last forever. If you can change your habits, you’ll succeed in your fitness goals and go way beyond. It’s all about changes to the unconscious decisions you make in your life.

I’m writing about all of this, because I’ve begun to plateau in my own efforts. The amount of weight I can lift isn’t accelerating like it used to, and I’ve been floating just under 200 lbs for about three weeks. I understand that a lot of that weight has been muscle traded for fat, because I can see it in my physique, but none the less, it’s de-motivating when I’m still 20 lbs away from my goal of 180 lbs.

As a result of that de-motivation, I’ve managed to slip in my diet and gym visits, which in turn showed an upward tic in my weight on the scales – and I suspect that wasn’t adding muscle. I’m publicly telling myself right now that I need to tighten the hell up and push harder. Can I reach that goal by the end of the year? We’ll see.

Acheive Personal Records Every Day

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In the weight lifting world you’ll hear the acronym PR all the time. PR is of course: “Personal Record”. I’ve really come to embrace PRs, not just in my weight lifting and exercise, but my overall life. I love to set Micro-PRs for things like shortest time to do a certain task in my job. Overall it makes me better and more efficient, and I can push those out over time and get progressively better in my career.

I also try to keep an eye on my negative PRs. I like to keep a lid on my longest time between gym visits, or the longest time before visiting my parents or other family. I’m also not great at billing my customers, so I keep an eye on that too. Constantly improving your positive personal records and keeping negative ones in check will consistently improve your life.

PR Every Day

Adam Glass came up with the Twitter hashtag #PREveryDay. Basically you can tweet your personal record that you set for that day and keep a record of your constant improvement.  There is even a twitter bot that you can follow that will tweet out everyones PRs based on that hashtag. It’s very motivational to follow that account, because you can see the ways in which others are making perpetual progress.

Officially Weigh in Once a Week Maximum

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Weighing yourself on a weekly basis can give you a good idea of the progress you’re making.  It will help motivate you if you’re making gains or motivate you even more if you didn’t make your mark that week.  Weight also fluctuates naturally over time, so you’ll want to maintain a consistent schedule. Remember too, that you won’t see the results of today’s diet and workout until 4-24 hours later, so if you weigh in ever day, it’s most likely you won’t see today’s results until tomorrow.

Weight Fluctuates Greatly Over Time

Weight can fluctuate throughout the day or week.  Depending on your current weight, it might fluctuate up to five pounds or more.  Things like bowel movements, hydration, and food intake can all affect your overall weight. It can be off-putting to work hard and eat right, only to gain 2 lbs. because you’re more hydrated and feel better than you were last time you weighed in.

Weighing yourself at the same time on the same day each week will remove a lot of the variables mentioned above.  I prefer to weigh myself on Wednesday mornings before my morning shower.  This is before I’ve eaten, but after I’ve gone to the bathroom.  This mean’s I’ll be the lightest I can be, only weighing my natural body weight. I also avoid the unpredictable nature of weekend meals.

By all means, weigh yourself on Sunday evening after you’ve eaten. It’s all about consistency. If you weigh yourself at the same relative time, you’ll be able to get accurate relative results. When selecting the time you weigh yourself try to select the time of week with the least variability in your diet and water intake.  You won’t be doing yourself any favors if you weigh yourself today when you’re lightest and then tomorrow after a big dinner.

Results from Today’s Exercise Won’t be Visible Right Away

Whether you’re trying to gain muscle or lose fat, it doesn’t hop on or jump off as you’re exercising.  Sure it might look like you lose weight after an exercise because you didn’t drink any water and sweated out 3 pounds, but that isn’t real.  It can play the opposite way too.  Maybe you sweat out 1 pound and drink 2.  That means you just gained a pound that won’t stick around.

As your body synthesizes protein during muscle repair and burns fat for energy your weight will change.  That doesn’t happen during the workout for the most part. It happens in the 4-24 hours afterward when you go to the bathroom.  You’ll also want to give your body some time to normalize it’s water balance after a workout. If you’re anything like me, you’ll drink upwards of 60 ounces of water during your routine.

Stay Motivated with Consistent Returns

If you don’t know where your weight really is it’s hard to know if you’re gaining or losing.  Giving yourself consistency during weigh-ins gives you a really good idea of if you’re gaining or losing ground in your efforts.

If you don’t know where you are, it’s hard to feel good about the results.  If you don’t feel good about your results, there is a good chance you’ll slip. When you meet your goals, celebrate in a healthy way, and when you don’t, try harder for next week.  You only have seven days to meet your mark.

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Aerobic Stamina is Key to Your Success

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Stamina is really just a combination of energy, physical endurance, and mental tolerance. Having a large amount of stamina will allow you to work out longer, more often.  If you can exercise more, you’ll see better gains in your fitness – especially as you start to see the diminishing returns losing weight and gaining muscle.

It really plays a large part in most aerobic exercise.  The single biggest muscle in your body that affects stamina is your heart. Have a healthy heart, and you’ll see tremendous gains and feel amazing too. You’ll also be protecting yourself from illnesses like heart disease and high blood pressure.

Energy

Consuming energy producing nutrients in the few hours before exercise will boost your energy. Consume foods high in electrolytes and carbohydrates.  A turkey sandwich on whole wheat bread with veggies on the side. Have a nice tall glass of milk with that too.  I prefer skim milk myself.

The best place for electrolytes is not a drink by the way.  Get some real vegetables or something that has a lot of flour in it. Don’t get conned into the Gatoraid thing – although that is also a decent place to get them, it’s not the ONLY place.

Physical Endurance

Your physical endurance is affected things like the health of your heart and muscles. It also includes things like injuries or physical condition. What do I mean by physical condition? Fore example: are you dehydrated? If you’re low on water, you’ll perform miserably and probably quit early.

The only way to improve your physical endurance is to challenge yourself daily and increase the health of your heart and muscles. Observe good habits that keep your body feeling good too, like a healthy diet.

Don’t overdo the physical challenge. If something is just beyond your reach, dial your routine back a bit. If you’re running, run slow (don’t run less, just run slower). If you’re walking at an incline, shallow it out a bit. You will have good days and bad days.  Listen to your body and perform at your maximum for that day.

Mental Tolerance

When exercising, there are two mental roadblocks that rear their head.  They are: boredom and the pain of real gains. The only way to truly overcome them is to attack them head on and use willpower to get through.

You can help stave off boredom a little bit by watching TV or listening to music while you work out, but ultimately that just distracts you and will affect your performance. You know when you’re driving and don’t really remember the last few minutes even though you know you were awake? Go for that kind of autonomy during an aerobic workout.  You might not want to check out during strength training though.

Bringing it Together

Actively work towards increasing the performance of those three facets of your stamina and you’ll see gains.  When you increase your stamina overall, you’ll see an acceleration in your overall fitness gains. Be careful you don’t overdo it and be safe while you’re training. Are there other ways you work to increase your stamina? Let me know in the comments.

Getting into a Fit Mindset

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Ok, so 90% of getting into shape is motivation.  There are a few different points of motivation where people tend to stumble.  You need to go to the gym, push yourself, and then go home and still have the willpower to eat healthy and stay away from food that is going to drag you down.  If you can’t get motivated to do all three of those things, there is a good chance you will fail.

I don’t want to start this post off by immediately saying you’ll fail, but I don’t want to feed you a bunch of high flying ideas that will get you motivated and then blow up in your face.  Being fit is hard work, and it doesn’t stop.  You need to be committed for life.  This isn’t a diet.  It’s a way of life.

Here are some techniques for overcoming those stumbling blocks at each of those milestones during each day:

Getting to the Gym

This is the one I have the hardest time with.  It’s really easy to get sucked into a project or just feel lazy and not go.  You need to commit to going to the gym on a regular basis and commit to it like it’s the most important thing in your life – because it is.  If you’re not already going to the gym or working out at home, just committing an hour one day a week is better than what you were doing.  I personally go to the gym for an hour and a half 3 to 4 days a week.  I don’t change the appointment for anything.

Pushing Yourself While Working Out

The next easiest thing to fall short on is pushing yourself while working out.  It’s really easy to knock the speed down on the treadmill or stop a few reps short because it’s difficult.  Get over it by focusing on micro-goals.  Keep an eye on the clock while you’re running and don’t stop until you make it to the end of the minute.  Once you make it to the end of that minute, take some pause for thought and go fifteen seconds more if you think you can handle it.  Give yourself rewards for setting personal records.  Try to set a personal record every day.

Eating Healthy

This is a double edged motivational hurdle.  You need to do two things: eat well and not eat crap food.  That means have salad and don’t have a sundae afterward.  I personally love food, so this is the hardest for me.  I love chicken wings, so what I do is go all week eating well and then have ten chicken wings on Friday night with some friends.  If you can go all week eating well, you can indulge a little bit, but the real kicker is making sure it’s only a little bit.

Conclusion

Remember: any improvement in your fitness over what you were doing is a positive gain.  Everyone should have a fitness goal, whether it’s to lose weight or gain muscle.  If you don’t have a goal, it is really easy to cheat.  When you cheat, you start to lean towards failure.  How do you stay motivated?