Mental Toughness/Motivation/Discipline/Goals

I had a rough/lazy day today, and it was hard for me to psych myself up for the gym. Nonetheless, I KILLED my workout and it was LEG DAY!!! Here's a little tip on what I do to refocus my attention on what is important to me and on what helps me accomplish what I need to do in the gym. Nonetheless, you can apply this to practically anything you want to accomplish in life. For instance: You want better grades: study harder, study more, and plan ahead and don't procrastinate. You want a promotion at work: don't miss work, work hard, don't be lazy, and try to be the best you can be. Remember what you want to do, why you're doing it, and how you're going to make yourself accomplish what it is that you're trying to do.

Mental Toughness:

• By far I think this is the key to success. Your brain is the computer to your body. Sure your heart keeps you alive by pumping blood throughout your body, but for the purpose of staying motivated and staying focused, your heart does nothing to help you in those aspects. Your brain is what you can alter, its what you can manipulate to shift your mood, refocus your attention, gain insight to push you over the hump. 
• Lifting weights in my opinion is 80-90% Mental. If you go in with the mindset that you can't lift heavy today, or you can't accomplish a new Personal Record, you've already FAILED before you even attempt to workout/lift.
• Have an agenda or routine before you tackle your workout.
• Mine is to listen to music, get on some kind of cardio machine for a warm-up, and meditate while doing my warm-up. I picture myself lifting the weights, mentally hyping myself up, telling myself "Yes I CAN, and Yes I WILL"
• Mobility work and foam rolling (still mentally refocusing my attention away from everything thats going on around me. When I workout, I'm in my own world)

Motivation:

• Find something that motivates you. When you are feeling crappy and drained of energy and you just want to half-ass your workout, think about why you're doing this in the first place. What purpose do you have? Is it to be more healthy? Is it for yourself? To impress someone? To look good on the beach? Whatever you end goal is, keep that in the back of your head and use that to push you to your limits. Use it to help alter your mood and change your state of mind to be more optimal for what you're about to do
• If you half-ass something, is it going to get you closer to you end goal any faster? More then likely it'll slow you down. Everybody hates procrastination, I'm sure that is probably one of everyone's New Year's resolution, is to not procrastinate. Half-assing leads to procrastinating yourself to reaching a long term goal, try not to do that  

Discipline:

• Be strict on yourself, at least until you feel that your lifestyle has changed. Before you know it, you'll be doing everything with great discipline without even trying because it simply becomes a routine. It's like driving a manual car or riding a bike, once you learn, you'll never forget.
• Resist the urge to do something that will set you back. But be flexible, tell yourself that if you give into temptation and mess up today, that you'll make it up tomorrow. But go through with the promise you make yourself. The last person you want to fail on is yourself.
• Pull your own weight: Rely on yourself, make yourself better. Don't wait for someone to push you, push yourself. In the end of the day "It's YOU vs. YOU!"    

Goals:

• Use short term goals to accomplish a long term goal
• If your goal is to lose 20 pounds in 3 months (12 weeks), awesome! Do it! But everyone knows it is easier said then done. Progression and results come slowly. Set up a plan to lose 1.8lbs a week, by the end of the 12 weeks, without even knowing you'll reach your long term goal.
• It is much easier to attain short term goals to help you reach a long term goal, than it is to straight out and jump the gun to shoot for a long term goal
• But as mentioned, progression and results come slowly. Just because you don't see results every week doesn't mean that your diet or workout has stopped working. Just because you stop losing 1.5lbs per week doesn't mean you failed or you didn't reach your short term goals. Stay consistent, cause as your body adapts and changes, wonderful things can happen. Your body can plateau while its adjusting itself, and although nothing has changed in your diet or workout routine, your body can adapt and out of nowhere, instead of losing 1.8 pounds, you end up losing 2.5 pounds the following week.
• Don't be in a rush to see results and just because you don't see results doesn't mean you're doing something wrong. Be patient, stay consistent!     

As you can see, all these relate to one another! Use it to your advantage. This is better then any kind of preworkout supplement, better then any kind of caffeine pill, any kind of adrenaline junk that is suppose to help pump you up and focus you on a certain task. Everything you do lies within yourself. Make a promise to yourself and keep it. Use it for determination, use it for discipline, and for the goals you set.

All in all, thanks for listening or reading my spill! Thought I share this for you guys so you can apply it to whatever you want if you feel that it'll help.

Current Macros/Typical day of eating!

My current Macros:

• Fat: 65-70 grams
• Carbs: 275-285 grams
• Protein: 200-210 grams

Total Caloric intake per day = 2500 calories

What I'm going to eat today 2/14/2014:

Meal 1:

1. Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk (1 cup)
2. Hormel Thick Cut Bacon (3 slices)
3. Original Fiber One Cereal (1 serving, 30g)
4. Homemade Protein Bar
5. Multivitamin (3 pills)
6. Fish Oil (3 pills)
7. Cup of Coffee with Walden Farms calorie free caramel syrup

Total calories for meal 1: 651 calories (fat = 35g ; carbs = 49g ; protein = 35g ; fiber = 21g) 

Meal 2: (pre-workout meal)

1. Chicken Breast (6 oz)
2. Baked Sweet Potato (6 oz)
3. Green Beans (2 servings, 162 grams)

Total Calories for meal 2: 417 calories (fat = 5g ; carbs = 49g ; protein = 44g ; fiber = 10g)

Meal 3: (post-workout meal)

1. Skinless Boneless Chicken Thighs (6 oz)
2. Baked Sweet Potato (6 oz)
3. Green Beans (2 servings, 162 grams)
4. Van Camp's Pork and Beans 98% fat free (one can = 2 servings)

Total Calories for meal 3: 695 calories (fat = 11g ; carbs = 95g ; protein = 54g ; fiber = 22g)

Meal 4:

1. Quaker Caramel Rice Cakes (2 rice cakes)
2. Spinach (100g)
3. Kale (100 g)
4. Hard boiled egg whites only (4)
5. Blackberries (100g)

Total calories for meal 4: 285 calories (fat = 1g ; carbs = 46g ; protein = 23g ; fiber = 9g)

Meal 5:

1. La Tortilla Factory - Hand Made style corn tortilla (2 tortillas)
2. Chicken Breast (6oz)
3. Sharp Cheddar Cheese (1oz)
4. Hot Salsa (2 TBS)

Total calories for meal 5: 507 calories ( fat = 19g ; carbs = 31g ; protein = 53g ; fiber = 2g)

Miscellaneous:

1. ON AminoEnergy (1 serving) = 10 calories (carbs = 2g)

TOTALS FOR THE DAY:

1. Fat = 71 grams
2. Carbs = 272 grams
3. Protein = 209 grams
4. Fiber = 64 grams

TOTAL CALORIES = 2563 calories 

Update Pics/5-3-1 Program for Strength

Photo taken 2/8/2014: Starting to get a little more vascular! Dont mind my flabby rolls, still slowly cutting, and it wasn't a morning picture so I had food in my system. I easily put on 3 pounds during the day when eating! (It looks like im smiling, but im really not LOL)

Photos taken 2/6/2014: Morning pictures! I look a lot more lean in these then the picture above! But pictures always makes you look better than in real life, just to be honest =)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anyways, 5-3-1 Program for strength:

As you all may know, my split routine is Legs, Push, Pull, (all 3HYPERTROPHY days), REST, Lower Body, Upper Body (Both POWER days), REST.

I am starting to incorporate the 5-3-1 program on my LOWER and UPPER POWER DAYS:

Here is the breakdown and what you need to know to start the 5-3-1 Program:

1. 1 REP MAX FOR:
1. Flat Barbell Bench
2. Squat
3. Deadlift
4. Standing Barbell Shoulder Overhead Press
5. (and if you want, not a part of the program, but I added it in to my routine) Power Pendlay Rows

After maxing out on these lifts and getting your 1 REP MAX (1RM) you will base the weights and lifts off of 90% of your 1RM.

So if your max bench is 100 pounds, you will use 90 pounds as your "working max".

• Week 1: Warm-up as you normally would for the exercise:
• Working sets: 3 sets of 5 at 65%, 75%, and 85% of your "working max" 
• On the 85% set of your working max, hit as many reps as possible, you should be able to hit more than 5
• Week 2: Warm-up
• Working sets: 3 sets of 3 at 70%, 80%, 90% of your "working max"
• same thing, on you 90% set of your working max, hit as many reps as possible, should be able to do more than 3
• Week 3: Warm up
• Working sets: 1 set of 5 at 75%, 1 set of 3 at 85%, and 1 set of as many reps as you can at 95% of your working max
• Week 4: Warm up 
• De-load week (work on form week)
• 3 sets of 5 at 40%, 50%, 60% of your working Max
• START ALL OVER AGAIN, except now a whole month has gone by. So what you want to do is add 10 pounds to your lower body lifts like SQUAT and DL and 5 pounds to the upper body lifts like the Bench and Shoulder Press. As mentioned earlier, if your working max was 90 pounds, now you start the cycle over with it being 95 pounds. 

here is an example chart for week 1:

Squat 1RMax:__385___ Training Max:__345___ Date:________

Bench 1RMax:__345__ Training Max:__310__ Date:________

Deadlift 1Rmax:__440__ Training Max:__400__ Date:________

Military Press 1RMax:__170___ Training Max:__150__ Date:________

Pendlay Rows 1RMax:__285___ Training Max:__255__ Date:________

Sets	Weights	Sets	Weight	Sets	Weight	Sets	Weight	Sets	Weight
65% x 5	225	65% x 5	200	65% x 5	260	65% x 5	100	65% x 5	165
75% x 5	260	75% x 5	230	75% x 5	300	75% x 5	110	75% x 5	190
85% x 5+	295	85% x 5+	265	85% x 5+	340	85% x 5+	130	85% x 5+	215

 

Typical Grocery List

Grocery stores I usually shop at:

1. Wal-Mart (go here when I don't have time to go to Sprouts, or if Sprouts is not having any mind blowing sales on their meat products)
2. Sprouts (usually go here if they're having a good sale on meat products and for their DOUBLE AD WEDNESDAYS!)

SPROUTS LIST
Meats: (I buy these meats at sprouts when these sales are available)

1. Chicken Breast (usually $1.99 or cheaper/lb)
2. Chicken Breast Tenderloins (usually $1.99 or cheaper/lb)
3. Skinless Boneless Chicken Thighs (usually $1.99 or cheaper/lb)
4. Center-cut Boneless Pork Chops (usually $2.99 or cheaper/lb)
5. Ground Turkey (usually $1.99/lb), rare to see this price!
6. Eggs

Dairy: (Depending on my Caloric intake, and my carb intake will depend on which type of milk I buy)

1. Anywhere from Whole Full Fat milk to 1 or 2% Milk
2. If I am on low carbs, I will stick with Unsweetened Vanilla Flavored Almond Milk

Grains:

1. Long Grain Brown Rice
2. Green Lentils
3. Steel Cut Oats

Fruits: (Whatever is on sale that is cheap Ex: sometimes they have Avocado or Grape Fruits 3 for $1)

1. Avocado
2. Banana 

Oils:

1. Extra Virgin Coconut Oil

Miscellaneous: 

1. Coffee Beans
2. Almond Butter or other Nut butters if they're on sale

Wal-Mart List
Meats:

1. Chicken Breast ($2.09/lb) or the Frozen Chicken Breast 5lb Bags
2. Frozen Tilapia
3. Canned Tuna
4. Eggs

Vegetables:

1. Frozen Broccoli Florets
2. Frozen French Cut Green Beans
3. Frozen Sugar Snow Pea Vegetable Mix

Grains/Cereal:

1. Fiber One Cereal
2. Quaker Rice Cakes

Fruits:

1. Banana
2. Canned Pineapples

Legumes

1. Bush's Baked Beans

Oils:

1. Non-stick cooking spray

Morning Weigh-Ins (February)

Every morning I weigh myself fasted and after I use the restroom. My weighing scale is pretty cheap so I think it weighs me less then I really am (by 4-5 pounds, because at my school gym, we have a huge hospital electronic scale that always weighs me heavier, and i think its more accurate!), but since it is my default scale, it makes it consistent for me cause I know it will read my body the exact same way every morning. Furthermore, the weight of my body is JUST A NUMBER! It however it does help me keep track of weight loss. Ultimately I judge myself on the way I feel and look, not by my weight!

I will update and log my weight everyday!

• 2/1 = 172 
• 2/2 = 171.2 (Carb-up Day) 
• 2/3 = 174.2 
• 2/4 = 172.6 
• 2/5 = 171.6 
• 2/6 = 173 
• 2/7 = 173
• 2/8 = 171.6
• 2/9 = 171.2 (Carb-up Day)
• 2/10 = 172.4
• 2/11 = 172.6 
• 2/12 = 173 
• 2/13 = 173
• 2/14 = 174 (if you guys are wondering why i am slowly gaining weight, its due to me me increasing my carbs a little bit; i felt that i was losing too much weight too fast, so I decide to up my calories back up) 
• 2/15 = 174
• 2/16 = 174 
• 2/17 = 173.6 
• 2/18 = 174 
• 2/19 = 174
• 2/20 = 174 
• 2/21 = 174 (Cheat day, not really, but went out with some friends. Had 4 beers, 3 shots, a bowl of chilli, huge burrito from the taco truck, and 2 slices of pizza) =)
• 2/22 = 176
• 2/23 = 176
• 2/24 = 173 
• 2/25 = 174
• 2/26 = 174.2 
• 2/27 = 174
• 2/28 = 174

Morning Weigh-Ins (January)

Every morning I weigh myself fasted and after I use the restroom. My weighing scale is pretty cheap so I think it weighs me less then I really am (by 4-5 pounds, because at my school gym, we have a huge hospital electronic scale that always weighs me heavier, and i think its more accurate!), but since it is my default scale, it makes it consistent for me cause I know it will read my body the exact same way every morning. Furthermore, the weight of my body is JUST A NUMBER! It however it does help me keep track of weight loss. Ultimately I judge myself on the way I feel and look, not by my weight!

I will update and log my weight everyday!

• 1/6 = 177.4
• 1/7 = 178
• 1/8 = 176.6
• 1/9 = 177.6
• 1/10 = 177.6
• 1/11 = 177.6
• 1/12 = 177
• 1/13 = 177.2
• 1/14 = 177.6
• 1/15 = 177.6
• 1/16 = 177.6
• 1/17 = 177.6
• 1/18 = 177.6
• 1/19 = 177.6
• 1/20 = 176.4
• 1/21 = 176.6
• 1/22 = 176.6
• 1/23 = 176.2
• 1/24 = 176.2
• 1/25 = 176.2
• 1/26 = 176.5
• 1/27 = 176.5
• 1/28 = 176.5
• 1/29 = 174
• 1/30 = 173.4
• 1/31 =  174