Reflect, Align, and Buck Trends

Take time to reflect.

If you are just starting out on your fitness journey, more frequent reflection helps.  If you are a fitness veteran, periodic reflection is sufficient.

The big takeaway:  schedule your reflection on the calendar.

During some of my most haphazard, unsatisfying fitness stretches, I stopped reflecting.  I began living on autopilot.  Day-by-day on autopilot, I drifted further away from my overarching goals.

Exactly what does reflection mean?  Let’s break it down into 3 steps:

Step #1: Evaluate the action patterns themselves.  

Are you consistently doing the right things?  Helpful tools include:

• Exercise logs
• Food logs
• Sleep charts
• Meditation / stress management data

Step #2: Evaluate the look, feel, and perform.  

Are you achieving the results you want?  Helpful tools include:

• Pictures
• Circumference measurements
• Body fat %
• Clothing sizes and fit
• Blood biomarkers
• Exercise performance data – time trials, volume progressions, heart rates, etc.
• Scale weight
• Intuition – simply, how do you feel?

Step #3: Connect the dots and ask a difficult question.  

Are the causes (action patterns) creating the effects (results) you desire?  Do your action patterns need adjustment?

Brutal honesty is required.

To achieve happiness with regard to fitness (or get close, anyway), you must balance action pattern with end result.  For example, if you want the cake badly enough, you likely accept an extra clothing size (or three).

Only you can make that decision.  There is no good or bad or right or wrong and to hell with those who would judge.  There is only you and your life.

That said, what kills me are those who want the consistent cake and the slim clothing size and then complain about the injustices of the world – fate, genetics, etc.

Unfortunately, you can’t have your cake and eat it too in this instance.

My true happiness as a Transformation coach is not to deliver everyone a beach body.  Nope.  It’s to deliver satisfaction.  To align action pattern sacrifices with look, feel, and perform results.  To educate on how one contributes to the other.  And to understand and accept a unique point of balance.

I want to help you achieve that.  So do me a favor and schedule some reflection time.

Are your action patterns lining up with the results you wish for?

Results Round Three

I’ll save my own reflection for tomorrow, but today it’s time to release third week results!

The official numbers:

• Weight:  191 -> 191 -> 193.2 -> 192.6  (+1.6)
• Circumference (in):
  • Chest:  42 -> 41.5 -> 42 -> 42.5  (+0.5)
  • Waist:  33.25 -> 32.75 – 32.75 -> 32.5  (-0.75)
  • Abdomen:  35.5 -> 34.75 -> 34.5 -> 33.25  (-2.25)
  • Hips:  40.5 -> 42.5 -> 41 -> 40  (-0.5)
  • Thigh:  24 -> 24 -> 24 -> 24.75  (+0.75)
  • Calf:  15.5 -> 15.5 -> 15.5 -> 15.5  (EVEN)
  • Arm:  14.25 -> 14.25 -> 14.5 -> 14.5  (+0.25)
• Bodyfat (mm):
  • Back:  13 -> 12 -> 13 -> 14  (+1)
  • Chest:  10 -> 7 -> 8 -> 8  (-2)
  • Abdomen:  13 -> 14 -> 15 -> 13  (EVEN)
  • Thigh:  15 -> 12 -> 15 -> 14  (-1)
  • Bicep:  7 -> 6 -> 6 -> 6  (-1)
  • Triceps:  9 ->8 -> 7 -> 7  (-2)

Day 24 Recap

Back to big things in the exercise world.  I grinded out the Thursday workout, which is always fulfilling when it’s over.  Here’s the protocol:

• 500 Jump-rope warm-up
• Deadlift + dumbbell bench press warm-up sets
• 5 x 5 superset structure with increasing rest as the sets progress:
  • Trap bar deadlift
  • Dumbbell bench press
• Repeat the following 3x, no rest between exercises, rest :45 between rounds:
  • Cable flys
  • Kettlebell front squats
  • Straight bar pulldowns
• 38 Strict chin-ups and 60 bar push-ups (broken into chunks)
• To failure sets with 6-10 closing burn reps of the following:
  • Dumbbell lateral raises
  • Bench dips
  • Straight bar bicep curls
• Ab wheel closer with stretch

Steps and miles checked in at 16,746 and 9.01 (add 20%).

Sleep checked in at 7 hours and 26 minutes (1 restless minute).  Excellent quality makes up for less quantity (seems like that happens often).

The nutrition…

Breakfast: Grass-fed yogurt, (28g) whey protein isolate, (5g) creatine, raw cacao nibs, chia seeds, coconut flakes, organic blueberries, banana, cinnamon.  Stumptown Hair Bender black gold.

Pre-Workout: Raw Tea.

Post-Workout: Grass-fed whole milk.

Lunch: The picture does not do the size of this lunch justice.  It was massive.  5 free-range eggs, leftover brown rice pasta, green peas, broccoli, cucumber kimchi, probiotic.

Afternoon Snack: Rise Bar.

Dinner: Grass-fed tri-tip steak, organic red potatoes, asparagus.

Daily Fuel

Are you taking popular health trends at face value or are you first vetting them in your own mind?

Long haul success requires that you, yes, think things through!

Remember the Time Magazine cover that effectively shattered decades of mass media fat bashing?  Did you take the fat free message to heart for years?  Most did.

Read this article on bucking trends.  “Just because it’s popular doesn’t mean it’s smart or good for you.”  Well said.

 

Image Credit: Reflection – http://stayhealthyfitness.blogspot.com