Tag Archives: bodybuilding

Are You Confident Or Insecure? Rep It Out!

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“I try my best to leave my ego outside,” is what one of the most jacked, aesthetic guys at New Leaf Fitness said the other day.  It’s a common idea, but not one that a lot of average people would expect to hear from a daily gym-goer, meat head, or serious bodybuilder.

“Oh really?!  Keep my ego outside of the gym…There’s no way you have ever done that,” is what I’d expect some of my own critics to say to me.  However, he really did say that and so would I.  The truth is that working out is a great way to please your ego and make you more self-confident, but what happens when you are bloated with self-esteem issues and pride?

Do you:

A) Always attempt lifting a weight that is far too much for you?

B) Constantly check yourself out in the mirror?

C) Only give your mirror muscles a work-out?

D) HAVE to lift as much as the other guy at your gym who has probably been lifting for years?

E) Constantly think about supplementing your “gains” with steroids or pro-hormones?

If YOU said yes to any of the above questions, then you may need to take my friend’s advice and leave your ego outside.  Luckily for you, a big part of lifting weights is building character values such as discipline and humility. Here is a short list of things I compiled during today’s workout that may help YOU succeed at your gym-going endeavors.  Not only that, but these tips may help you succeed at life in general:

  • Practice humbling yourself when speaking to other people.

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Keep a smile on your face and try not to talk about yourself too much!  If you make it about them you’re happy to listen to them, then you are well on your way to getting that ego of yours on lock down. This carries on into the gym, where you’ll notice that you are happy to listen to more experienced lifters who want to give you advice.  You may even become more apt to initiate the conversation.  You may wind up asking them how to improve your form or how you should go about seeing better results.  Over time, a well developed sense of humility can only make others more likely to help you on your fitness and life endeavors.

  • Make sure that your mentors are humble.

You want to be humble!  You want to listen to the advice older, more experienced people have for you.  You also know that if you hang out with losers, you’re more likely to be a loser.  Be careful about who you surround yourself with and who you take advice from.  This is a bit more challenging, but be a little selective when looking for advice.  Respect everyone and at times respectfully disagree, but make sure you don’t allow someone to give you serious self-esteem issues.

  • Try working out solo!

A lot of people don’t like to work out alone, and oftentimes there are plenty of good reasons for that.  Maybe you like to lift heavy and need a spotter.  Maybe you need the extra boost of support from a friend to get into the gym.  However, if your spotter and you work out in a way where you get seriously too competitive then it may be time to fly solo.  I’m not saying competition is always a bad thing. However, if you are so competitive with your gym buddy that you’re constantly worried that he/she can curl more than you then it may be damaging your self esteem and causing you to lift too much too soon.  Try working out by yourself with good amounts of TUT(time under tension) and progressive overload.

  • Wear baggy clothes that don’t show your muscles.

A sweatshirt, maybe?

A sweatshirt, maybe?

It’s not always a bad thing to inspect yourself and make sure that you are making some serious gains. However, if you’re checking yourself out for 75 minutes and lifting for 60 then it may be time to take action.  Some sweats would be a great option as that’s appropriate gym gear!  You know what I mean…as long as you don’t cut the sleeves off! 😉

All of this was just my advice and my personal opinion.  Keep in mind that working out is awesome, and it’s good for you.  I hope that you see a lot of impressive gains and that you have genuine self-confidence, discipline, and humility.

Have a great day!  Please subscribe to my blog via email, wordpress, or twitter for updates of my new posts.

Keep lifting folks.

To Be The Best You Have To Sacrifice

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Is there anything in this world that you want more than everything else? Then you must be willing to place it above everything else. 

That just seems like common sense, right? Let’s say you want to be the best boxer in the world, and you want to be as good as boxing legends such as Mike Tyson and Muhammed Ali, but you aren’t willing to give up drinking three out of 7 days a week. I promise you, you will see results but they will remain subpar compared to giving it your all and giving up drinking Thursday through Friday.

I was driving home and I thought about my own journey with lifting weights and nutrition. I personally want to be the best I can be with these things, and I have pretty much given up hanging out with friends and trying to get girls. This probably sounds crazy, but that’s how badly I want to be the best. I work out for almost 2 hours every day except Saturdays, I eat well, I spend at least an hour a day reading books on nutrition, and in the remainder I write new posts for my blog so you have new motivation and content to read.

During my drive home, I remembered someone else who said something similar although on a much higher level and this is strictly metaphorical to my own journey and yours. I thought about Jesus in a passage I read from the Bible. There was a rich man begging him to enter the kingdom of heaven, and Jesus more or less told him that if he wants to be the best follower of Christ he can be and enter Heaven he has to sell all of his belongings and follow Jesus. In a way, you probably think Jesus sounded nuts. However, when you look at it in a context that is metaphorical to whatever you are passionate about, you realize that if your heart really wants something badly enough, Jesus is saying you’ll give up anything for it.

Most of us would never take that step and we would have looked at Jesus like he was crazy, but again it’s all about how badly you want something and the rich man told Jesus he would do anything to enter heaven. Jesus quickly proved that the rich man definitely would not do anything for it, considering he wouldn’t part with his wealth. His wealth was where his heart was.

My heart is with my fitness, and I challenge you to go all in for something you are passionate about. If you want something bad enough, you’ll truly do whatever it takes. Thanks for reading.

By the way, as a disclaimer, you don’t have to quit your job and go out of your way to do these things. I’m simply making the point that your results will be far beyond what they could be if you do go to the extremes and do what it takes. Also, about the point in dropping a job, you may need a job to have the revenue to pursue your dreams so don’t quit absolutely everything people. Again, thanks for reading, and have a great day.

How I Got My Crohn’s Disease In Remission

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I’ve had crohn’s disease since I was 15, and it’s been a journey that I could describe as a roller coaster.  I’ve had my ups and downs.  For a few months I’d be in remission and then for a month I’d be really sick.  Things went this way from the time I was diagnosed shortly after my 16th birthday until I was about 18.

When I turned 18, my doctor decided to try a drug called infliximab, or Remicade, and it seems to be a wonder drug.  I’d go in to the outpatient nursing clinic at the hospital and get this drug through an IV ever eight weeks.  I still get it every eight weeks.

However, last year I started flaring up a lot even though I was on the Remicade and another drug called Imuran.  I finally decided that the cause for my illness was diet and stress, as I had read a lot on the disease and my body would get too sick for the medicine to do any good.

Finally, I began experimenting with diet and exercise.  To my surprise, exercise alone seems to be enough to keep me in remission as long as I am getting my Remicade every eight weeks.  That’s without even taking the Imuran, so no need to take pills every day.  Right now, just having to go to the hospital every eight weeks for a few hours, I’m a lot happier than when I started with my consistent flare-ups.  I know from previous experience that if I also focused on my diet I’d personally have no need for the Remicade either, since my case of this disease seems to be so dependent on diet, exercise and stress.

I’m not saying that this will work for anyone with Crohn’s disease, but I am saying that it works for me.  I hope that no matter if you are healthy or have a type of illness that you do the research and try to get your body on track through exercise and diet. Try to do this under the guidance of your physician or specialist, and make sure you get to know your body.  This has helped for me, and now I am in a much better place as far as my health goes than ever before.

Thanks for reading!

Build The Virtues Associated With Giving It Your All

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No matter what you’re doing with your life right now, give it your all! That may sound cliche but if you never go all in you may never find out how far you can go with something, or how truly incredible your accomplishments are.

  
Along the way, you may learn that achieving your goals requires you to become more committed. You may learn that you have to become the type of person who has to commit, and finish what he/she starts, and take the ridicule and torment others try to drive your way and use it for fuel. You may need to learn to be strong, independent, self-accountable, and determine.

Whatever your end result is, if you learn something and become a better person through the experience then you are truly gaining something in life. That may just be my opinion but it’s the truth. 

I have a challenge for you. No matter what your goal is. If it’s weight training or running marathons or being a great painter, I still have a challenge for you. Decide today that you are going to pick that thing that you are passionate about and you are going to go for it 100%. No matter what the end result is, look at the beauty that had to have unfolded for you to grow as a person through the trials and struggles of achieving that goal.

Lastly, if you fail or fall off the wagon, just dust off your knees and try again. Thanks for reading.

Taking A Week Off Can Help You Appreciate Working Out

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Taking a week off can really help you appreciate working out. I know that I’ve been anxious to get back in the gym all week but I’ve been stopping myself, in fear that I won’t get the full effect of a week’s worth of rest. That may not even be the case, but just the thought is sort of like a placebo that may make me hit the weights twice as hard next week.

I decided to take a week off because I had been going hard at it for three months and I was catching a cold and my joints were hurting. Now I am starting to get better and I feel like that’s all I needed.

It could be extremely beneficial for you. If you’ve been working out for months at a time, it certainly won’t hurt you to get a little rest, as long as you dedicate yourself to going back. Try to become gracious of the time you get to spend getting your body in shape when you go back. Thanks for reading!

Backstory To Becoming A Warrior

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Before I started on a journey of self-improvement and fitness, I was timid and always so stressed and self-conscious. I remember being a shy kid at first who just wanted to have friends, who made them mostly by convenience and then had the same friends through grade school.

Having what I’d say is a bad friend and a bad family member led me to learn there are three things that made me grow the most as a person and ultimately become a warrior.

  1. This friend was an obstacle placed in my life for me to overcome. It was my responsibility to cut ties and have confidence in myself.
  2. The family member, sad to say my own mother, was always bringing stress into my life which led to a lot of Crohn’s Disease flare ups and problems. Dropping her from my life and choosing to do my very best to move on without her was a huge step proving I will not take undermining and disrespect for others.
  3. My Crohn’s Disease was a problem that has been with me for years and it has been both a blessing and a curse, as it has made me learn more about nutrition and keeping calm. It has also driven me to my passion of becoming a nutritional counselor and helping people.

By overcoming these obstacles, I have learned that there are two things you must be ready to do at any given time.

  1. Say no!
  2. Take action.

Say no – do NOT allow anything in your life to slow you down in your development as a person.

Ex: If you are trying to stay away from alcohol and you have a friend who always wants you to drink and makes fun of you for not drinking, drop that friend. Not saying anything against drinking, but this is my example.

Take Action – Be ready to take action by knowing what you want in life and going for it, by whatever means are necessary.

Ex: If you want to become an amazing musician be ready to practice day and night and always be ready to meet new people who could teach you more and give you valuable connections.

Hopefully, this will make sense to you and you can use this as helpful advice in whatever you are choosing to do. Whether it be fitness related or not, find your way as a person and be successful. Prepare to say no to opposition and crush through barriers, because on the inside you are a WARRIOR.

Kick Your Last Month’s Butt

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If you can set for yourself at least one goal each month and succeed at that goal, then you are taking baby steps that will add up to giant achievements in the future. Take the time to track your results, be consistent in your training, have a plan, and do your very best while not getting discouraged if you fall of the wagon now and then. You can, and will succeed. Get it done. Beat your old records and make improvements every month.

Here is my body fat chart. I update it every sixth day of the month. Here are my results. You can do the same, maybe better. Again, I’ll say it this way, believe you can do something and do it. Get it done 😉

  

Tracking Results Can Maximize Performance

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I just want to let you know it will help you tremendously if you track your results when you lift weights. This will keep you from aimlessly stacking weight on the bar because you don’t remember how much you did before. It will set a personal goal for you as you want to do more, somehow, than you did previously.

I hope my advice helped. If you’d like free updates to my blog feel free to subscribe. Thanks!