Transformation 5.0

Habit, Payoff, and Synchronicity

habit

Habit is a powerful thing.

A productive habit allows you to expend less energy doing the same things.  It shifts the mind to autopilot.  It reduces overall stress.

Sometimes the difference between you and that person you see and think “I could never do/look like/feel like that” is simply habit.  Long-standing, consistently-acted-upon habit.

Breaking old habits isn’t easy.  Establishing new ones isn’t easy.  The payoff, however, is well worth your effort.

Examples of habits that will revolutionize your life:

  • Exercising first thing in the morning, 6 days per week.
  • Doing creative work first thing in the morning before checking email/social media, 6 days per week.
  • Meditating (your choice of meditative form) 20-minutes an afternoon, 5-7 days per week.
  • Exercising first thing after work, before going home, 5 days per week.
  • Establishing a consistent sleep routine and bedtime every night of the week.
  • Preparing 3 day’s worth of bulk, fresh meals every Wednesday and Sunday.

All of these habits start with one single action.  You must do it the first time.  And then the second.  And then the third…

What positive habit are you working on?

Plan Meme

Plan Payoff 

I love it when a good plan comes together.

My initial foray into the Relentless Transformation came with exercise caution.  I didn’t want to do too much, too soon, and have momentum squashed by sickness.  This was hard, hard, hard to do, as I have an “all-in” personality and immediately want to outwork the process.

The caution has paid off.  The body has responded, and I’m now finding it receptive to increased strength volume within workouts.  Step-by-step I’ll feed it more and more as it acclimates.

Take another look at the habit passage above.  See how this works?  My exercise in week 6 of this process will look far different than week 1.  If you snapshot week 1, you might say “yeah, that looks reasonable”, whereas week 6 might get a “wow, I couldn’t handle that”.

Action.  Consistency.  Habit.  Iterative improvement.

Day 14 Recap

To the exercise!  Mondays are my longest strength effort of the week.  Here’s the step-by-step:

3x through, no rest between, :30-:60 between rounds:

  • Alternating grip pull-ups
  • Leg press
  • Dumbbell chest fly / presses (fly form on way down, press form on way up)

3x through, no rest between, :30-:60 between rounds:

  • Dumbbell single arm rows
  • Dumbbell walking lunges
  • Dumbbell overhead press
  • Dumbbell reverse flys

3x through, no rest between, no rest between rounds:

  • Dumbbell pullover
  • Cable triceps pushdowns
  • Dumbbell standing curls
  • Dumbbell single leg calf raises (on platform)
  • Cable side-to-side chops
  • Cable slow core press

The workout was wrapped with a heavy farmer’s walk, grip work hanging from the pull-up bar, and a little closing yoga style stretching.

Total steps and miles for the day checked in at 13,753 and 7.42 (add 20%).

Sleep checked in at 8 hours and 1 minute (7 restless minutes).

On the nutrition front, I’ve responded to the need to eat more by doing 3 things: bulking breakfast with whey protein, increasing quantity of post-workout milk, increasing general lunch quantity.  As with everything else, I’ll continue to up the ante as needed.

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

Day 14 Breakfast

Pre-Workout: Raw Tea.

Raw Tea 2

Post-Workout: Grass-fed whole milk.

Day 14 Post Workout

Lunch: Leftover free range turkey, brown rice pasta, wilted spinach, green peas, peppers and onions, purple kimchi, fresh avocado.  Fish oil and probiotic.

Day 14 Lunch

 

Afternoon Snack: Rise Bar.

Day2Snack

Dinner: Spring mix salad with orange tomato, extra virgin olive oil, grass-fed 85/15 beef patties, 1 free range egg, 2 strips bacon, organic sweet potato.

Day 14 Dinner

Daily Fuel

I’ve been beating the music drum a lot lately, but it’s for a reason.  It has hands-down been my greatest source of meditation and energy.  That’s a powerful one-two punch.

Yesterday I had an incredible moment of synchronicity.  5 years ago, during my last piloted Relentless Transformation, I turned to In Flames’ album A Sense of Purpose for fire.  When I say “turned to”, I mean “became obsessed with”, “listened to at every opportunity”, and “used it as my Transformation montage’s theme song”.

5 years later, during the current Relentless Transformation 5.0, In Flames released their new single early.  I found this out while walking the streets of Philadelphia, listened to it several times, and immediately wanted to do something amazing.  I stood taller, walked harder, and felt incredible.

You probably won’t like In Flames.  I get that.  I’m ok with that.

That’s not the point.  Go find your In Flames.  Find the input that makes you want to do something amazing.  And leverage the hell out of it for your daily, weekly, and monthly fuel.

 

Image Credit: Habit – http://socialmetricspro.com

Image Credit: Plan – http://quickmeme.com

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7 Comments

  • Reply
    Darcy Donahue
    June 11, 2014 at 4:02 am

    Hi Roger,
    Just curious about the post workout grass-fed milk. Why this and not some fancy protein shake? Is it the simplicity of the nutrition. What about those of us who are not eating dairy. A glass of organic almond milk, even homemade stuff would not be nearly as nutritious as cow’s milk, right?
    Thanks,
    Darcy

  • Reply
    Relentless Roger
    June 11, 2014 at 11:40 am

    Thanks for writing Darcy! A few different thoughts when it comes to the milk. One – I simply wanted to experiment with the inclusion of grass-fed dairy. Two – I knew I’d be adding protein powder to my morning breakfast, and it’s also an ingredient in Rise Bars. I wanted to avoid overdoing powder reliance. Three – you touched on this – nutrition. It definitely trumps almond milk and has solid fatty acid and nutrient profiles.

    All of that said, there’s nothing inherently necessary about milk, and you can be quite successful without it. Keep on keepin on!

    • Reply
      Relentless Roger
      June 11, 2014 at 11:49 am

      Quick expansion to reason #1. Calories. I’m trying to add muscle mass, and grass-fed dairy is very helpful (if tolerated) in adding bulk to nutrition.

    • Reply
      Darcy Donahue
      June 11, 2014 at 9:26 pm

      Thanks Roger! I was craving fresh, whole grass-fed milk this week I think in part because I have been following your posts. There’s nothing like it. I bought a quart and my daughter and I gulped it down.
      On the contrary, I have read a few credible articles arguing that cows milk is designed for baby cows and not for humans. That’s why I stopped drinking it a few years ago. Here’s the rub for me though-I don’t feel or look any different after adding or deleting dairy to my nutrition intake each day, week or even month. Back in March when I eliminated gluten and sugar-whoa!-huge differences there but not with dairy.
      Like you have mentioned, we are all different and tolerate things differently so adding or subtracting things from our diets to get desired results while tedious can make the difference. (And also making quality nutrition a priority)
      Thanks for inspiring me and my family!

      • Reply
        Relentless Roger
        June 12, 2014 at 7:08 pm

        I love your line of logic Darcy – you’re thinking things through! Look, feel, perform is the best measuring stick we have at our disposal.

        Thanks for inspiring me right back!

  • Reply
    Steven
    June 14, 2014 at 11:01 pm

    You mentioned you’ll up the ente food input wise as needed.
    What do you use to judge whether you you need to increase food input or it’s too much already or not enough ?

    • Reply
      Relentless Roger
      June 15, 2014 at 2:06 pm

      I’m intentionally avoiding things like food scales, and instead relying on two main factors: #1 – metrics and #2 – intuition.

      Metrics (weight, circumference, bodyfat) will provide the compass for my efforts as a whole, and my weight will be most closely tied to food quantity. As a week-to-week trend line develops, I’ll adjust accordingly.

      For me personally, intuition is also important. This isn’t my first rodeo, and I’m aware that when I’m feeling significant hunger during a mass building phase, I’m shorting myself.

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