Bryan Parady's Blog, page 26

What’s In It For Me?

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What Are Your Values?

I’m collecting different viewpoints on values for an upcoming blog. Message or comment your thoughts. It can be what you think are most important how you learn them or anything else in regards to them.

What Can You Do?

Often we are faced with challenging situations. There’s the friend who wants us to go to the party and we know there will be some questionable things going on.

We have the friend who asks us to help them do something that isn’t extremely bad, but still breaks some rule.

We are in a day and age when morality is put into question. We are bombarded with tv shows and movies that show it to be normal to be “bad”, to show that it’s okay to be unfaithful. It’s okay to look, okay to be a jerk, okay to look out for numer 1.

And it’s slowly becoming a reality. I saw a news clip that horrified me of a lady begin beaten by a man in a public place while ten people just stood there filming on their cell phones. What’s more the ladies son about 4 was the only one trying to get the man off his mother.

Everyone says we are in such a sad state. But what few realize is that the breakdown doesn’t just happen overnight. We don’t just wake up one morning and there are no values. We’ve become desensitized. Desensitized to people’s pain, desensitized to things that are wrong. Desensitized to lust, to cheating, to violence.

Morals and values are important and we can get it back. But you have to want it. You have to want to stop making questionable decisions. You have to want to care about others more than yourself. You have to want to be faithful.

Don’t try to figure out what is wrong with the world. Try to figure out what you can change.

Kick Butt Today

It’s Saturday! For many of us it’s a day off. But far more than that it is a day that you can turn your thoughts inward a little more and focus on what things you want to do. What goals, dreams, and aspirations do you have that you want to do? What drives you, what makes you feel alive?

Get out there and do it. We’ve been talking a lot about fitness this week, and today could be the perfect time to get your new food regime kicked off, or your new exercises routine. It doesn’t even have to be traditional. Go for a bike ride, go hike on a nature trail, there are so many activities you can do to benefit your fitness that don’t require going to a gym.

Make the most of today, tonight when you lay in bed what do you want to know that you’ve accomplished and conquered today.

Grab today by the horns and own it, make progress, and kick butt. You’ve got this.

Get Back Up

Failure is inevitable in life. None of us are perfect. Not one of us. Whether we are business execs, athletes, warehouse workers, clerks, waiters, we will have bad days and we will fail.

Likewise in our fitness goals we can be prone to failure. There are days we will give into our mind convincing us not to go run or not go to the gym.

There is a poster at the gym I go to that is a long saying from Michael Jordan talking about all his missed shots. He lists an enourmous amount of missed shots, he says how many games he lost for his team by taking the last game determining shot and missing.

But do we remember Michael Jordan for his missed shots? No. We remember him as a great athlete. But why? He messed up a lot?

But the point, he kept trying, he kept striving to make his game better. He didn’t let his failure or short-comings keep him from getting back on the court and showing everyone up the next time.

If you fail if you fall short of your goal, don’t worry about it, get off your butt and try all the harder. After all, we fall so that we learn how to get back up.

So stop giving into the failure mentality, stop getting depressed because you aren’t hitting your goals just as you would like. Keep trying, keep going, and keep pressing towards the goal. You can own this.

If you have any questions when it comes to fitness, or goals, or nutrition, leave a comment or send me a message, I would be more than happy to talk about any fitness questions.

What’s Your Story?

What’s your story? To continue with our fitness talk this week. What was your defining moment for wanting to get in fit? What motivated you to start? Was it a lightning strike moment or a gradual thing?

For me, my story borderlines cheesiness but here it is. When I was 17 I decided to watch all five rocky movies. I had never seen them in their entirety so I sat down and over the course of a couple weeks (okay it may have just been one week), I watched them. It was then and there I decided I wanted to be in shape.

I bought a weight bench and a punching bag.

The boxing didn’t work out but the weight lifting stuck. I found my niche and loved it. I laugh when I look back at my beginning days. It was embarassing how small I was and how little I could lift. But it was my beginning. It was my START moment, and I am thankful for that.

Today my goals and why are completely different but my love/hate relationships with weight lifting has remained. I am still hooked on it, now more than ever.

For many years I just did the workouts. Then about 3 years ago I decided to start changing my diet. It was then that the biggest change started. I was very limited by how far I could go when I continued to eat in a way that didn’t propel my weight lifting. I still have cheat days (you have to), but my diet and workouts are completely different from before.

My goals change even from year to year, I always set goals for where I want to be by the end of the year, and this year I am half way there.

It’s good to set goals, good to constantly strive for more.

So what is your story? I’d love to hear when/why you began, or why you are beginning now. Comment or inbox me.

Pump Each Other Up

So how are you doing this week? Honest talk? I’ve been talking about fitness now for a few days and goals associated with that. I’ve offered some tips on how to get things going when it comes to exercise or eating. So what are some of your tips and tricks? I am always open to new ways to try things to get to my fitness goals. One thing that drives me crazy is how some people think that one workout program or eating routine is better than another to the point that they put down whatever workout they are not performing.

The truth is we all have different goals, weaknesses, strenghts, and body types. What works for some will not work for everyone across the board. The main thing is that you do something. Don’t let anyone make you feel bad because you are not doing their workout.

With that being said don’t think because you are doing something different than someone else that you can’t learn from what they are doing.

We should always be open to ways to better our fitness goals and health. None of us knows everything and no one is perfect, so we should always seek to lean more as well as help others.

On that same note everyone is on a different level. There will always be people who are ahead of you and behind you on your fitness goals. Learn from those ahead of you, and help and be encouraging to those behind you. This will get you much further than judging others. So get out there and encourage others. Strike up a conversation with someone at the track or at the gym, see someone doing something good complement them, see someone doing something that might be harmful help them out. Look out for one another.

You Can Do This

What are your fitness goals? Is it to lose weight? Bulk up? Get toned? Improve your diet? Improve your overall health? Is it wanting to make sure you are able to keep up with your kids or grandkids?

We all have different reasons and motivations for what we want when it comes to physical goals. I have been working out for close to 10 years now. Three years very seriously, and I still am not where I want to be. I constantly am seeking out different tips and ways to get in better shape, constantly trying to improve on what I have started.

My goals are much different now than when I started. But I continue to make new goals. And I probably always will.

Yes a big part for me is to be in really good shape, I want to be around for a long time, I want to be able to keep up with my kids and some day grandkids. I don’t want to be stereotyped by age. I love older people who are owning it at the gym.

So what are your goals? Why do you want to get fit? Or why do you want to get to a better fitness level? What drives you? It’s really important to remind yourself of your why so that you can stay motivated on the days when going to the gym or lacing up your running shoes is the last thing you want to do.

Remember your why.

Remember where you came from and remember where you want to go. So what are your current or new goals? List below in the comments. Nothing is too daring. Go for it. Your body is capable of way more than you think is possible.

Just START

So I’ve been talking fitness lately and it’s something that is a huge deal. So many people are limited in what they do due to physical condition. Children are growing up not being aware of what it means to eat healthy or have healthy behaviors and it’s no wonder when we are not modeling it for them, when we are not leading by example.

Our minds are limitless, they can figure anything out and with enough determination accomplish whatever you set your mind to.

There is a lot of material out there about the effects that positivity and negativity have on the brain and how we need to think, but just as our thinking and metality is important so is the physical condition of our body.

It has a direct effect on the way we think down to the chemical balances in our bodies.

Physical fitness has a positive effect on our lives just like positive thinking. Physical fitness begins with changing your thinking about the need to be healthy. You don’t have to be a gym rat vegan in order to be physically fit.

There are small steps you can take to begin to acheive a healthier and more fit you.

For starters read up on some things. Read up on healthy eating, on physical fitness, begin to learn some things to do nd not to do.

Start to be active, whether it’s going for a walk, a bike ride, a swim, or actually getting a home gym, or a gym membership, START doing something. Nothing is too small. Physical fitness begins with activity. Even if you buy a $30 pull up bar that goes over your door frame, start somewhere with what you have.

With food start making small decisions that can make a huge impact. Give up soda. I know this is a tough one, but it destroys your body. Even if you cut back, limit it to once or twice a week.

Stop buying fast food. Okay, I know there are going to be times when you have to hit the drive thru, but when you do, hit up subway or somplace that offers a healthy choice. And don’t go to fast food more than once or twice a week.

Stop eating white bread. Or anything white. Switch to whole wheat, whole wheat breads, pastas, cereals.

These are simple and extremely easy ways to start making changes.

It doesn’t take some huge revolutionary diet, or fitness plan. It just takes starting where you are. Once you have these things down start building on what you already have. Rome wasn’t built in a day, but if you don’t start building you’ll never get there.

Physical fitness is a very real possibility and you will never regret getting in better shape.

So what are your goals?

You’ve Got This

I hear people all the time say how they feel torn between doing what they feel they have to do and what is expected of them, as opposed to what they want to do.

I get really sad when I hear this.  It’s sad that so many people are not living out their dreams, either out of fear of their own failure, or out of fear what their family, or friends will say.

We all have a dream and a passion inside us to do the thing that was put in us to do.  We all have something specific to us.  We were born this way.

Sadly our culture has put labels on things and tells you if you want to do a certain thing then you have to pursue it this route, and have to have a degree, and have to have money.

It’s not true.  Hard work and determination can get you anywhere.  It truly can.

So stop listening to others, you’ve got this.  Go after your goal.