Diet and Workout Maintenance

Keeping yourself in shape is not hard work. Well, to be honest, it kinda is. But to be even more honest, it shouldn’t be.

Sure, burying yourself in your couch in front of the TV while stuffing your face with a big bag of chips sounds way easier than actually working out, but is it really? When all day along, all you can think of is how rewarding it must be to be crushing your workouts in the gym. Or how liberating it must feel to be running a few kilometres outside, wind against your face, taking in a refreshing change of scenery that you have always needed. What’s exhausting is never knowing, never getting to experience these things just because you are too afraid, too lazy, and too intimidated to give it a go.

What exhausts you is not the thought of building a better body but the million pathetic reasons that you give yourself not to. However, since you are here, reading this, then it probably means that you are tired of being weak and only dreaming of greatness, that you are just looking for that dare to push yourself to your limits, for that one push that will get you started and set you off. So let’s get you started, then —

First, Remember: The Peanut Butter and Jelly Metaphor

In the classic book The Fat Loss Factor, the author Marc “The Machine ” Lobliner said that whenever he is asked whether it is working out or eating healthy that is more important in building a better body, he would offer the Peanut Butter and Jelly Metaphor as an answer. Funny name for a fitness for metaphor, but nonetheless very eloquent in putting gym and kitchen training to perspective.

Mark would go on to say that building a better body always consists of a healthy diet and an adaptive workout program, and that one without the other is like enjoying “peanut butter without jelly”, meaning that you get something good out of it, but it is ultimately an incomplete experience. Understanding and remembering this concept is crucial in setting and keeping you in the right track in your fitness endeavors.

How do I stay off the couch and into the gym?

1. Find a Hero – Who embodies your workout goals? Who is it that you see as the epitome of strength, of power, and of the active lifestyle that you badly want? Whether it’s Kate Upton, or Gina Carano, whether it’s Michael Jordan, or George Rush St. Pierre, it is important that you find yourself a hero. Find yourself a role model, someone whose image and fitness level you aspire to be on someday. Whether you tape a picture of them on your fridge, or make then into your laptop wallpaper, or put their photo up on Facebook, it’s all up to you. Having someone to admire and look up is great way of reminding yourself why the hero you are trying to be like (or even surpass!) deserves so much of your respect in the first place.

2. Have a Fitting Perspective and Set a Realistic Goal – When you train for your first 5k run, for example, try not to have the mentality of a couch potato who just wants to get it done with so that he can go back to stuffing his face with mouthfuls of donut and bacon. How do you expect to find and arrive at greatness in what you are doing if you are not in the proper state of mind to begin with?

When you engage your body, think like an athlete, as someone who finds enjoyment in pushing his body to beyond the perceived limits, as someone who wants to get better and stronger by outperforming every bit of his inferior self. Arriving at greatness means aspiring for greatness and it all begins in your head.

As for setting a realistic, goal, it’s really quite simple. For example, don’t expect your body to miraculously power through and outlast an entire high altitude ultramarathon race if you have been training for a 3km fun run. Doing so would literally be setting yourself up for disappointment. Set a more realistic goal that you can use as a stepping stone to much greater ones. Sooner than you think, you are no longer at the foot of a mountain looking up, but you are halfway up to the peak, moving fast.

3. Mix Things Up and Track Your Progress – In other words, make a conscious effort not to bore yourself to death. Sometimes, the more difficult part of working out is not the sheer intensity that it requires from your body. Sometimes it’s just monotony of your everyday routine that eventually gets you all burnt out.

Mix things up. For example, if you are doing you are hitting the steets on a slow steady cardio workout, try and hit the gym to crush some heavy weights on your next scheduled tomorrow, and perhaps do yoga or attend a kickboxing class on the following day. It’s all a matter of avoiding the pitfall that takes the motivation out of you, otherwise known as monotony.

Also, keeping track of your progress in websites like http://www.fitnessjournal.org/ can keep you from falling into a slump. When you see that you’ve been doing the same number of reps and the same routines for weeks, you’re more likely than not to expect yourself to push a bit harder to improve yourself.

4. Consider Dexaprine – Just saying, this might come in handy, especially if you are trying to cut weight.

Dexaprine is specifically formulated to help your body to burn the right kind of fats in a faster rate while improving your energy output at the same time. This simply means that it works twice as well, the perfect 1-2 combination, so to speak. First, Dexaprine’s unique formula allows your body to burns fat more efficiently. Then, as its fat loss ingredients actively leans out your body out, Dexaprine’s energy enhancing ingredients kick in and supply your body with incredible energy that helps you power through your workouts more efficiently and with greater intensity. Using Dexaprine will get you to cut weight and lean out – the perfect 1-2 punch fat loss combo.