Identify a Great “Why”

I’ve definitely been there…many times. You’ve got to ask yourself, “Why do I train?” Why is it important to you? You may have answers like, “It’s part of my weight loss plan,” or “It’s part of the culture with my circle of friends.” You may answer, “I want to be as strong as I can possibly be,” or “I want to show off my abs on vacation.” At the core though, your training has to have deeper meaning. It’s about making you the most optimal You possible. It is important to be strong, and exercise is a valuable component of healthy living and overall fitness. However, there is more. Your dedication, increasing strength, growing self-confidence, and mental toughness resulting from gym time have carryover to the rest of your life. All your sessions, whether you’re hitting PR’s or struggling over a plateau, accumulate to you being more awesome. I know, it’s a cheap word, but it’s true. Whether through progress or taking on adversity, the experiences promote growth just as trials and adversity in other areas of life refine us. Therefore, your relationship with the barbell must be given appropriate attention and care. It must be built into the life schedule with diligence and little compromise. Place the training stimulus on your body so that it responds with adaptation. It’s about pushing yourself to new

limits, keeping yourself at the leading edge. Find your breaking point and succumb to it. Then find it again and push it out further. I have found that the joy is in the journey and in the progress. You can’t experience that joy if you don’t allow time and commitment to the progress.

Schedule Will Power Out of the Day

Look at your schedule. Where does workout time fit best? Not perfectly, best. Stick to it. If 8:00 at night is when you have to train, that’s okay. Just plan your day accordingly. Look forward to it. Don’t sit on the couch at 7:30 and start scrolling through your social media accounts. Will power sounds nice, but I don’t want to rely on it. I am all too familiar with my own weakness. The allure of instant gratification is often overwhelming and overpowering. Whether it is with food, or with what I do with my time, I am bent toward weakness. Proper systems help me avoid the pitfalls. My personal preference is to get my workout done earlier in the day, at least my first workout anyway. This is for multiple reasons. First, it takes away the excuse of, “I’ve had a long day, and now I’m too tired.” For hardworking, busy people, this is an understandable and very real situation. I want to eliminate this excuse, so training time moves up. A second reason I like to work out earlier is because of the way I feel when I have finished. It makes me feel strong, accomplished, and confident. I like to ride that wave throughout my day. It makes me better at everything else. Right now, I am hitting the gym at 5:30 am. It allows me to get a good amount of strength training in before the day gets busy. Most days I’ll get a second workout in that focuses on metabolic conditioning. I know not everyone can or even wants to spend that much time training, but that is what turns my crank. You’ve got to find what works for you.

Routines and Habits Win the Day

I am not a morning person at all, but because it is important to me, at one point I forced myself out of bed for a couple of weeks. Now a habit has formed. I am still tired every morning when the alarm starts buzzing, but I wake up thinking about my workout for the day. Once my mind is activated, and I start thinking about my goals and progress, it’s up and at ’em. My morning is very routine so I can be maximally efficient without much struggle or frustration. The routine actually begins before I go to bed. I set out my gym clothes, set up the coffee maker, and if I am going to shower at the gym, I pack a bag with my work clothes, towel, etc. I know right where my coffee mug, blender bottle, headphones, and car keys are. In the morning, when I am groggy, but trying to get out the door, I don’t want to have to think and pack. I also don’t want to wake up the rest of my family so early. As I am yawning and wiping the sleepiness from my eyes, I get my

coffee going and change my clothes. Then I’m on my way. From the time my feet hit the floor to pulling out of the driveway is about 10 minutes. The routine is there to make it easier for me to get going on my morning priority, my workout. It’s kind of like the game Chutes and Ladders. Without the morning routine, I would often fall into a chute that would take me back to my pillow. Or I may stumble my way through and get to the gym in a frenzied, chaotic state without maximum time to get my work in. However, the routines are like ladders that allow me to efficiently fly to the top and get going.

Maybe it’s not in the cards for you to work up a good lather before the sun rises. No big deal. Just make sure you structure routines into your day, especially around the time your set for your workout. Make the transition into that time easy and seamless. Then kill it with intensity.

Obstacles come up each day that are unexpected that we have to deal with. Some are important priorities, some are not. Many things are daily, reoccurring priorities, such as eating, sleeping, taking care of your family needs, and doing your job. Add your time to sweat to that list. No more drawing the curtains on your day with the weight of a training void. Place your workout in the top tier, and get it done!

Get it Done | Prioritize You Workouts High was originally published in DrinkPinkandMove on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

For the last several months I have been on the “eat what you want, when you want” nutrition plan. It has not been solely for lack of discipline, though the longer it has gone on, the less will power I can employ. Late last June, I began specifically focusing on gaining strength and muscle mass. The E.W.Y.W.W.Y.W. diet is certainly not the perfect diet for these goals, but it can work, and it is certainly one I can stick to. I have had a high emphasis on protein and fat, but I haven’t been afraid to pound some carbs too. After losing 45 pounds 2 years ago, I have put on 15 since last summer. I’m not freaking out and crying in front of the mirror because the extra weight is a predictable byproduct of the program. To a certain degree, it has been the goal. That being said, I am now beginning to train my cardio vascular system and improve my aerobic capacity. Currently my goal is being able to run far and fast for my next Spartan Race, which is coming up in July. I know that I am a much better runner at 190 pounds than I am at 205 pounds. Knowing this, I have been thinking about how my eating strategy should change. Since it is on my mind, and this is where I let my muse spill over, I thought I would share my opinion on the absolute most effective nutrition strategy for losing weight. Given my success from 2 years ago, I am confident in my approach. My goals are slightly different now than they were then so the plan will be slightly altered for me. However, the one key factor will still be in place.

What is the #1 weight loss nutrition plan? It is the one that we will consistently adhere to. There are a million and one different methods to reach weight loss goals, but unless we can stick to one, we will fail. Saying you are eating Paleo to lose weight but snacking on Paleo cookies every night while watching House of Cards will not get you to your goal. However, if you an ice cream fanatic, as I am, don’t start a plan that is completely carbohydrate prohibitive. You, as would I, will break. Often when we fail, especially when it comes to food, it leads us to a dark path of rationalizing, surrender, and ultimately guilt. Many times I’ve said to myself, “Well I’ve already screwed up today. I’ll start fresh tomorrow.” Then I proceed to shovel in more garbage that pushes me away from my goals. Rather, I try to utilize a plan that allows for food vices that are appropriately timed and enjoyed in moderation. The vices should be planned for and enjoyed without guilt. My personal plan for cutting weight is simple. Ingest fewer calories than I burn throughout the day. I use a food log, such as My Fitness Pal, rather than guessing. Everything should be logged without cheating. It is a little time intensive for the first couple of weeks, but most people eat the same foods quite often, and they are faster to log once they are in the database. If you start by just taking in fewer calories, you will lose weight. However, if you want to accelerate the progress and feel better in the process, focus on the source of your calories. I am not a dietitian, but my understanding is that all calories are not equal and do not function the same in the body. Carbohydrates certainly have their place and are not to be avoided altogether, but carbs that are not used as energy go to the liver and eventually get added to fat stores. Cells have a limited amount of storage space for carbohydrate energy, glycogen. Now we are in the weeds, but I’ll make the point. This storage is only depleted through high intensity movement. Therefore, if you are not fully depleting your glycogen but then refilling on carbs, they will become fat. Side note, if carb intake is reduced, AND glycogen stores are depleted through high intensity exercise, the body will pull from stored fat to use as energy…Bonus! Sometime I’ll write about exercising to facilitate fat loss.

Avoid obsession, though. Unless you are wired for it or are a driven bodybuilder, obsessing over food and especially slip-ups can steal the satisfaction from the progress. Just as extraordinary results from get rich quick schemes are atypical, so too are lasting results from silver bullet diet plans. A good plan well executed is far superior to a great plan without lasting follow through. The bottom line is that life is lived as a journey. Slowly and steadily develop good habits that you can live with and sustain long term. Get some results, and build momentum. Now, I‘ve got to go…Cupcake Wars is on.

The Most Successful Diet Plan, Ever! was originally published in Red Beard Ramble on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I have been writing consistently on various platforms for about 8 months now. I am pouring my time into it because I love it. It has proven to be both therapeutic and enlightening so I will continue. My style and voice need to be honed for certain, though. It is my feeling that I need readership and feedback to properly develop my craft. My voice is my voice, I guess, but it would be beneficial, however, to get a bounceback of opinion about what resonates, and what doesn’t. My wife tells me I’m great, but let’s be honest, she is biased. She shares life with the entirety of me, not just what I write. She has more context than any other reader.

I am not really begging for readers and feedback here. I just write what is on my mind, and this is what I have been pondering today. It is my deep desire to become an impactful writer. Not famous or wealthy, that’s what my teacher career is for (haha), just impactful. Reading and writing are two of my passions alongside eating ice cream and drinking whiskey, though not at the same time. That is disgusting. I do dream of one day having, “go to work,” mean sitting by the ocean somewhere with a pen and paper and writing. That would be the ultimate collision of two things I love, the ocean and writing. I fell in love with the ocean the first time I ever saw it in about 6th grade. What is crazy is that I contracted Meningitis and was hospitalized for nearly all of the time we spent on that vacation. Even so, I was hooked on the Salt Life. I have plotted and schemed to move to Florida multiple times in my life, only to have other circumstances put their foot down and redirect me. Someday maybe. Is it a problem that this is how I write sometimes? Here I began this post about how much I love writing and want people to love reading it, and now I am daydreaming about how I want to move near the beach.

Anyway, maybe I’ll switch gears a bit and get back to focus. As I have pursued my writing voice, here are some lessons that I have learned.

1. Write. Seriously, all the time, just write. Even when my head feels void of thought, rational or otherwise, when I just start moving the pen, thought is provoked. Speaking of the pen, I like to write in a spiral bound notebook. It makes me feel cool, like an old time philosopher or poet. That’s probably weird of me.

2. Read books and other publications to spark creativity. Rehashing other people’s work is not really fun, but often just reading will jumpstart thought and opinion. It certainly helps to keep the brain waves active. Active and intelligent brains make for better writing. No study to cite on that one, but it sure makes sense to me.

3. Get your butt out of bed. I have found that getting up before anyone else in the house, and before most people in general, gives me a strange psychological advantage. It makes me feel like I am gaining some sort of productive advantage. That said, I know there are people that are vastly more accomplished than me that probably stay up late and sleep until noon. The early morning routine, just seems to work for me.

4. Exercise intensely and frequently. I have found that when my body has been stimulated through activity, I feel better, more alert, and more positive about life. Some people may be great at writing from a dark place, but so far my best writing, as I see it anyway, comes out when I am feeling joyful and optimistic.

I have never done this before, but my mind is churning oddly today. I am going to restate this blog in a short poem. This is probably the first poem I have written since I was required to do so I high school. Bear with me here.

As my journey unfolds, and as my story grows,

I will expose my soul however the new wind blows.

I will love and pursue and write and share

I will continue this passion and leave my thoughts laid bare.

I hope my dream is fulfilled, and by the ocean I will stay,

But I may continue watching the seasons change, and that too will be okay.

As I ramble on and refine my craft,

I will apply my lessons learned to each new draft.

Thank you for reading.

Read This, Somebody, Anybody! was originally published in Red Beard Ramble on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I did it! It’s Friday! I made it through the week to another weekend. Ahh, the weekend. The time when we can make believe that we lead a life free from arbitrary norms and cultural expectations. The time where we can throw off some of our confounding responsibilities and pursue our passions. I’ve paid a high cost this week to get here. I’ve sacrificed time with my wife and kids. I’ve used my limited bandwidth doing what I am “supposed to do” all week. This weekend, I’ll try to make up for lost time. I’ll do some things I love. I’ll be intentional about being present, in the moment, with my family. I will make every effort to soak it up, to fill my belly to carry me through next week. But I know what’s coming, especially Sunday evening. Monday. It’s just around the corner. It’s churning below the surface like a riptide waiting to suck me back out to the deep water. Where it is all I can do to keep my head above water. Where I’m in no position to be present and enjoy the scenery. There may be gulls over my head, sail boats to my left and a pod of dolphins to my right. It’s truly beautiful and amazing, but I cannot see them. They may as well not be there because I am kicking with all my might just to stay at the surface. I’m too distracted.

I hate Monday’s! They are the transition point that takes me from my beach chair, so to speak, enjoying a sea breeze to the deep, choppy water. If I feel this way, are my kids riding a wave of joy and satisfaction through the week? My wife? No way! My kids go to school each day to a place where the mission is to pass tests. With that being the case, the strategies used at school are reflective of that mission. Test, test, test! What’s that sweetie; you’ve found a passion in your life? Sorry, we don’t have time for that. Please get out your math book. Are you kidding me!? Here I am trying to jump off this train, and I am continually purchasing my kids’ tickets to keep them on. Don’t get me wrong, my kids have some fantastic adults in their lives at school, but the problem is systemic. I am a middle school teacher for crying out loud. I am part of this system. This is madness! Is this it? Is this the optimal experience I have to offer my family while we are on this big round rock? I believe our time extends beyond this planet for sure. That said, does our time here have to be so freaking linear, duty filled, and lack luster?

I am learning the answer is, no. I am an optimist. There must be more, another path. I’m seeking it out. It will be a journey, but as long as my eyes are open and I am seeking an escape from the hamster wheel, I will find my way. When I say find my way, I mean for myself and my family. I am not looking to ride off into the sunset with a new motorcycle that I can’t afford. I am extremely mindful of the journey, the process. So this work for the weekend stuff doesn’t sit right with me. When I’m in the gym, I’m enjoying the process of getting stronger. I can appreciate the minutiae of training and improving weaknesses. I’m not in there just to reach a certain weight on a lift. If that is the goal, what do you do when you reach it? It will leave you empty the next day if that is the totality of the goal. Don’t get me wrong PR’s get me pumped, but it is all about the journey. It is a lifelong pursuit of strength of mind and body. When it comes to life’s trajectory, I just need to know that my frontend is pointed toward something new, great, and adventurous. Circumstances don’t have to be perfect right now. What would that even look like? If there was such a thing as perfect, tomorrow would leave you empty. Enjoyment in life is about contrast. You must experience discomfort to truly appreciate the thrill of something great. I just need to feel the progressive movement (not of the political variety). I am starting to ramble. What is the bottom line? I want to love Mondays. I want them to be a continuation of everything that is great about life. Not a stake in the ground that marks a brutal reality check. There must be something more for me and my family, and I am going to dig it out. Light it up! Tackle it with full aggression. Will you do the same? Unplug from the system and pursue life.

I Hate Mondays was originally published in Red Beard Ramble on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

It was January 2014. I was 31 years old. My stats were 6’ and a puffy 235 pounds. Fully clothed, I didn’t feel too bad. I wore my extra poundage pretty well, I guess. No one ever told me I looked fat anyway. Like a delicious Bismark donut, you don’t know the fluff is in there until you get through the outer layers of pastry goodness. Honestly, I didn’t even care. I was enjoying myself. I liked to eat half of a pizza for dinner and then ice cream before bed on a random Tuesday evening. Two Snickers bars from the vending machine at work was a satisfying and tasty snack; unless I was in the mood for Twix. I think that habit started one day when the machine malfunctioned and gave me a two for one deal. Wow! It was like triple 7’s on a nickel slot machine. The only time I really noticed or was a little bothered by my pudge was when I would sit without a shirt on. The tire would become accentuated.

That January, events culminated. Signs were present that I needed a different approach to my body and health. My wife, Megan, would frequently ask me to be accountable with her regarding our eating habits. She wanted to eat better and be healthier, but she understood human nature all too well. Eating clean is easier said than done and easier done with real accountability. Her need and my desire to meet it was the first prod in my side. We also go a Nintendo Wii with WiiFit. I know, we were about 8 years late to the Wii party. We aren’t really a gaming family; the kids were just getting bored being inside so much during the winter. Anyway, the WiiFit generated my avatar based on my stats. I am just going to be blatantly honest. I was a fat ass. I tried to make it look cool by putting a beard, some sunglasses, and a beanie on it, but it didn’t matter; at the root of it, I was fat. My kids were making fun of my avatar because he was hilarious. But while fun was being had, at the core it was at my expense. I don’t blame the kids; I was laughing too. It was no one’s fault but my own. The avatar was just a reflection of me. The third and final catalyst was a Biggest Loser competition at my school. Every year, a group of teachers would band together and try to get themselves to look better for Spring Break. It is a vicious cycle for some people. I had absolutely no intention of participating. I had done it a couple of years earlier, and I ended up breaking even with my weight, but a little poorer because it costs a dollar every week you gain. I just didn’t care enough. I didn’t have an impactful “why.” I was asked to be on a team with one of my buddies again. Had there not been Megan and the obese avatar, I would have said no. I had actually recently said out loud in a conversation, “I am in my thirties, I don’t have the discipline or care to look 20 again. I am just going to eat crappy food and be overweight for the rest of my life.” I said it in jest, but I kind of meant it. However, that wasn’t to be. The right circumstances led me to say yes to the weight loss competition. Because I am a red blooded American male with an athletic background and with some real motivation, if something is called a competition, I want to win.

Step one was logging all my food. I knew I had to see what I was putting in, as scary as that was. Seeing all the garbage and useless calories I was ingesting was a real eye opener. I was no nutritionist, but I was confident that 4000+ calories is not ideal for a guy my size with a fairly inactive lifestyle. I got strict, crazy strict with my diet. It wasn’t sustainable long term, but I felt that I needed to rip my body out of its addicted state. It was like diving into an ice bath for that first week or so. I was really missing my Grandma’s vanilla cream cookies, not my actual grandma’s cookies but the packaged kind you can find at any convenience store. I actually began losing a little weight before our initial weigh in for the competition. This actually hurt me from a competitive standpoint, but like I said, I had other motivators. During the competition, some people were losing weight, some were just staying at their current weight, and some people were actually gaining weight. Can you believe that? You sign up for a weight loss competition, and you care so little that you do less for your health. Oh wait, that was basically me a couple of years earlier. Readiness and knowing why you are doing it are paramount. You can’t expect to get any significant results from anything in life, if you aren’t doing it with genuine purpose. As the weeks went on, I got more comfortable with my eating plan. Habits formed, the routine helped, and while they did not vanish, the cravings lessened. Having done some weight training and various fitness activities over the years, I knew that exercise needed to compliment my weight loss plan. I began utilizing the gym at my school. At first I would do something like walk/jog on the treadmill for a few minutes and ride the stationary bike for a few miles and then call it a day. My heart wasn’t really into it, but it felt like something I should be doing. I was losing weight with the nutrition adjustments, so often the “workout” was used to justify a cheat meal. Now is a good time to mention that while I’m on my leisurely stationary ride, two other guys are on the other side of the gym screaming in pain and slamming barbells. A couple of different times, they asked me to join, saying something like, “You should jump in today. It’s a pretty easy day. You’d kick our butts.” It was just peer pressure by flattery. They looked like they were torturing themselves. I knew that even though I was losing weight, I was still out of shape. I didn’t want to make a fool of myself, so I just stuck with my routine. I did want to target my mid-section, so one day after my jog, I grabbed a 35 pound dumbbell and started doing some side bends. Yep, that’s what was really missing…a consistent regime of freaking side bends. So there I was one day, cruising through my side bends, feeling like I might potentially, just maybe break a little sweat. All the while I am watching these dudes do this barbell front squat to an overhead press thing, which I later learned was called a thruster. Again with the grunting and slamming! I felt like such a tool, a real wimp. These guys were training hard like men, and I was going through some motions like a recovering fat guy upholding a weak New Year’s resolution. Shame washed over me, and I decided that the next time they asked, I would join the suffer-fest. My very next workout was 3 rounds for time of 65# power cleans (Rx 95 #), 21 reps, 27 Burpees, and 27 GHD sit-ups. I was willing away the puke during round two of Burpees. In the middle of round 3, I wanted to quit, but one of the guys could see the fight draining from me and said, “Just keep going. If you quit, you will regret it tomorrow.” I didn’t quit. I clenched my teeth to guard against the impending vomit, and I finished in 31 minutes. I felt like I had been beaten up by Andre the Giant and then put on the Tilt-a-Whirl for a very unfair amount of time. I just sat next to the trash can with my head between my knees and waited for the fog to clear. It took me about a half hour to muster the strength to drunk man stumble to my truck for the drive home. About two hours after the workout, I was sitting at the kitchen table, and a great feeling of invigoration hit me. Sure, I was still super tired and would feel really sore the next day, but I knew I had accomplished something great for myself. There was no going back. I was officially set on a course directed at becoming the best me. I had been selling myself short. I was capable of more. The spark was struck, and the fire was lit. What’s next? Bring it on! Along this new path, I found OCR and Spartan Race, the thrill of pushing it to the max, the exhilaration of training outside, even in the winter. I began to desire more knowledge about training and nutrition. I found a new mission to learn everything I can that will make me stronger, both physically and simply as a human. I began finding new passions. I was convicted about the example I set for my kids about being passionate, fit, and fulfilled. My kids do Burpees and tire flips and pull-ups and overhead squats. They are by no means athletically exceptional, but they appreciate a healthy lifestyle. By the way, I lost 40 pounds in 4 months that winter. But that didn’t even really matter that much. The internal change is so much more valuable and precious. As long as I have breath, I will continue to learn and pursue a more optimal human existence. Let me put in a caveat that there is really only one source of true, eternal joy and purpose for mankind, and we can’t be perfected until we meet Him. However, that doesn’t mean that we can’t live a life of passion that rocks hard. In this journey, I’m learning about fitness, mental health, business, relationships, and on and on. Somewhere along the way, I lost my desire for improvement, but I’ve found it. This extends well beyond the walls of the gym. I’m asking hard questions for myself, and my family. To be honest I am a little confused right now about my path, what’s best for my family, and how this one life should be spent. I think that’s natural though. That is what my wife and I have to figure out together. That’s a great thing too. I have someone awesome to share this ride with. We share the burdens as well as the joy. For me, my focus is about enjoying the journey, wherever it is taking me at the current moment.

As you gain knowledge, you become more analytical and question more. Since my eyes are opening, I have much more to consider. As I press on, I have faith that the path will be laid a step ahead of me. I don’t know where it’s all going to end up, but I am stoked with the movement. My desire is that I become a better husband, father, son, friend, and man. I am diving in, ready for life’s voyage. So I say, thank you dearest side bends. Let’s go!

How 35# DB Side Bends Changed My Life was originally published in Red Beard Ramble on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.