Bryan Parady's Blog, page 8

The Mental Battle Of Fitness

I took part in some exercise competitions this weekend. It was a lot of fun, they were all team activities, so when I wasn’t competing, I got to cheer others on and watch the teams compete, and I saw something I already knew, but really cemented it in my mind.

Fitness is so much a mental battle, The teams that won were not necessarily the stronger, but the mentally stronger.  Those who went in knowing they were going to win, those who went in knowing that defeat was not an option, those were the ones who won.

If you aren’t seeing results you have to make changes, not just physically and diet wise, because that is super important as well, but maybe the changes you need to make are mental.  Maybe you need to get start taking some time each morning to wake up early, and prepare yourself mentally for the day.

Maybe you need to focus your mind on where you want to be and more importantly why you want to be there.  Get there mentally and your body will follow.  If you think that your body can’t go on, trust me your body can handle it, it’s your mind you’ve got to convince.

Never Never Never Give Up

I wanted to take today to write about the determination to keep going.  I know this is a bit of a break from my normal fitness blogs, but it’s something I know I need a reminder of sometimes.

Yesterday morning I was with a group of people and there was an older gentleman giving some advice on when you hit those moments of failure.  He told the story of a woman who got a phone call saying that her son had a brain tumor.  In a panicked haste she raced to the hospital.  It was winter and the roads were not in good condition.  She hit black ice, rolled her car.  Her face had to be reconstructed and her back was broken, but she lived.

Her son because they found the tumor early, was able to undergo surgery, the tumor was removed and he recovered fully.

6 months later, the woman sunk in to depression and was in horrid pain and she decided to take her life.

She left behind a husband, her son and her other children who all will have to walk with that for the rest of their life.

After the gentleman finished this story he went on to say how sad it was that after only 6 months in this lady sunk into hopelessness. There are seasons of life, it’s pretty much like a roller coaster.  There will be really good times, and there will be really bad times, that’s just kind of the way life goes.  But time does heal.  The body can heal miraculously but it takes time, sometimes years from severe injuries, and the body can take sometimes a year or more to recover mentally.   But recovery will come.

You will have trouble in this life, but you get back up, you look to something bigger than yourself, and tell yourself you can and you will make it.  No situation is every hopeless.

Never, never, never give up.

How To Lift Heavier and Get Bulked

So if you are really trying to bulk and take it to the next level I highly suggest you do micro-cycles and double workouts.  If you are not familiar with micro-cycles, it’s where you break your workouts into 4 week cycles, week 1 you start at 12-15 reps, week 2 you increase your weight but decrease your reps to 9-11. Week 3 reps go down to 6-8 but weight increases.  Week 4: 3-5 reps and more weight.  At the end of the 4 week cycle start over again but this time you’ll be hitting more weight on your 12-15 reps.

If you follow the microcycle schedule you will definitely be stronger at the end of the month.

Now if you’ve been pushing yourself like crazy and still are stuck in a plateau try doubling up your workouts, it takes a little more time, and wears you out a lot more, but you’ll see more results.

If you are used to a schedule you probably break each muscle group into it’s own day which is what in the past I did.  Well, to kick more butt work out every muscle group twice a week, well almost.

So for example, Monday for me is chest, triceps, and shoulders, Tuesday is biceps and back, Wednesday is either legs or rest, Thurs is either legs or rest (depending on what you did on Wednesday).  Friday you do chest, triceps, and shoulders again, and Saturday is biceps and back.  Sunday is rest day.

On Friday and Saturday you can change up what exercises you do for each muscle group as long as you are doing a full workout for each.

I don’t recommend doing this if you are starting out, but if you are looking to take your lifting to another level, I highly recommend it.

Eat for Your Muscles

How do you feed your muscles?  Well everyone is a little bit different. Yesterday I posted a video that explained macronutrients.  If you haven’t yet watched it, please take 5 minutes to do so.  It will help determine what you need to be focusing on eating.

So when you are done sit down and figure out how many grams of carbs, protein, and healthy fat you need to be consuming a day.  Then sit down and make a list of everything you do eat, when you are done plug it all into an app like “myfitness pal” so you can see what you are getting every day.

Now figure out what you need to change.  If you are hitting 50% fat instead of 20-30% well, you need to cut out whatever foods is getting those numbers too high.

Are you getting enough protein or not enough?  Now protein in a mixture such as whey, casein, and egg protein is a great supplement, and I take it when am working out and in my smoothies, but you need to be getting protein from whole food sources as well, it’s not enough in a powder form.  Chicken, turkey, and fish are great sources, while maintaining the leanness (fish has some great omega fat in it).  Eggs, milk, cottage chesse, greek yogurt, all these are excellent sources of protein.

When some people think of carbs what pops in your head?  I’ve heard of gyms giving people pizza and have seen pizza at the end of marathons.  I cringe at this.  Sure it’s a carb but it’s empty calories.  Your carbs should come from whole grains, whole wheat breads, potatoes both white and sweet, or an excellent source.  Also brown rice, bananas, whole grain oats all are a killer source.

So figure out how much of each you should be getting and make the right decisions when it comes to where you are getting your fats, proteins, and carbs from.

If you have further questions I would love to talk to you directorb.blog@gmail.com

Not Seeing Results? Get Your Macronutrients

So if you’ve been struggling to hit your calorie limit and it just doesn’t seem to be working for you, let me introduce you to macronutrients. While calories are important, they are not everything.  It’s equally important where your calories come from. That’s why calorie counting programs don’t work.

If you are supposed to only eat 2,800 calories a day and get them all from fast food, microwave meals, and sugar, then you are not going to get much results.

So what are macronutrients?  While it sounds complicated it’s really not.  It’s more of a breakdown of where you get your calories from.  You should be getting your calories, from carbs, proteins, and healthy fats (no a big mac doesn’t count).  According to your body weight and your specific goals you need to be eating exactly for that.

So rather than me try to explain it, here is a great video from Matt Ogus that explains it.  If you still have questions feel free to hit me up.  Email me @:  directorb.blog@gmail.com

When You Plateau

Have you hit a brick wall in your workout or fitness goals?  I’ve had a frustrating last 2 weeks.  So what am I going to do about it?  Make change.  Because that’s what you have to do.  If you are stuck, make a change.  You can’t do the same things and expect to get different results.

For me I’ve been consuming 3,500 calories a day and working out one muscle group a day.  It’s worked for me, until now.  I’ve hit a plateau.  So I’m increasing my daily intake to just over 4,000 calories, and doubling my workouts.  I’ll be working out every muscle group twice a week.

Now I’m not saying this is for everyone, but what I’m saying is you know yourself, you know what your body can withstand, and what it can take.  If what you are doing isn’t working for you anymore, don’t get frustrated and quit, take on a new challenge and push yourself to new heights.

For me I love it.  It’s frustrating hitting a plateau, but it’s also exciting being faced with a new challenge. So go for it, make some changes and kick some butt.  Seriously.  Don’t wallow in defeat.

Set Yourself Up for Success

The weekend approaches, thank goodness!  It’s been a long week for me and in all honesty because of my work I’ve missed 2 gym days.  It’s crazy how much worse I feel when that happens, but I’ll just have to make them both up this weekend.

So how do you set yourself up for success?  We have 2 days to really prepare for the week and to launch our start of fitness success.  Take this time to go grocery shopping and plan and prep snacks and meals.  Get some fruit you like, get nuts, seeds, cranberries and raisins. Get some almond milk, yogurt, and bananas, and blend some smoothies together.  There are so many possibilities for snacks. Get veggies you like and cut the up into easy to grab snacks and put them in ziplocks.

Get turkey and chicken and pre-cook, then put it in containers, ready to heat up.  Saute some veggies, onion, bell pepper, broccoli, zucchini, spice it up with some lemon, pepper, salt, and garlic powder and olive oil.  Again put them in containers and store.

Ditch the sodas and buy bottles of water, or better yet, buy a nice 32 or 64 ounce water container you like and carry it with you throughout the day, not only will you be replacing sugary substitutes, but you’ll feel better, and may drop weight if you aren’t used to drinking just water.

Have questions on food or snacks, and getting what you need?  Feel free to email me at: directorb.blog@gmail.com  Would love to connect with you!

What’s Fit To You?

What is fitness to you?  What does it mean to you?  Is it a certain body type you want?  Is it a certain amount of muscle mass you want?  Is it optimal health?

We all have different ways we go about fitness and healthy eating.  We have different routines, different habits.

I am always curious as to what people do because I am always looking for something else I can learn, or something else I can add to my own routine. So I really want to open up the discussion. What are things you do and how have they helped you?

Evaluate Yourself

If you haven’t been taking time to evaluate your fitness goals, and how well you are doing, then you need to.  When we check our progress it helps narrow our focus. In order to track your progress you have to record where you started, what you are doing, and how you are progressing.

Keep track of what you do during the week.  When you workout, how much you eat, and track you actual weight and measurements each week.  Then take some time on the weekend to re-evaluate.  Sit down and look over everything you did, and write down what goals you want to hit the next week, and some ways you can get there.

Evaluate what areas were you strong in?  What areas need improvement.  How is your weight, do you need to cut a few more calories?  Do you need to add some more calories?

It’s great to jump in the gym and start eating right, I encourage people to not wait till they have the perfect game plan lined out, and just start, even if you don’t have it all figured out.  But also record and track your progress.

If you eat and workout for a month and never check to see how you are doing, how do you know you are eating enough, or working out enough?  You don’t want a whole month to got by without checking in.  So make your weekly check points a must.

Embrace Resistance

Our society teaches us to hate resistance, it pushes us towards the path of least resistance.  It tells us to find the easy way out, to just get by, do our part, and settle.  To get the nice house, get the 2 cars, and have the 2.4 kids.  To eat what you want, buy what you want, because you deserve it.

Average can be obtained.  We get comfortable and say “well I’m better than Mr. Jones.”  or “Ms. Sally doesn’t do as much as me so I’m good.”

And so our story goes.  Doing enough to where we feel better than others, but still just sub par.

So how do we break free of the rut? We take on the hard tasks, take the lesser traveled path.  What’s the main principle behind weight lifting?  Um, yep, resistance.  It’s only under the pain and strain that our muscles grow.  When they are under stress they tear, and then while we are rest, they heal and grow in the process.  Without the resistance, our muscles go nowhere.

So accept the challenges.  The things that are hard that life throws at you, run to meet them head on.  Not just in your fitness goals, but in every situation in life.  Look for the more challenging way and go for that.  Don’t settle for the easy way.  You’ve got this.