Hi, Portland Boot Camp VIPs,
My Dad used to get me so mad.
Whatever it was, I would say, “I don’t want to.” And he would say, “You don’t have to want to.”
I was just sitting here remembering that and it occurred to me…
…99 out of 100 people don’t realize — or are unwilling to accept — what it really takes to achieve a fitness goal. Or any worthy goal for that matter.
The reality is, any goal has very specific steps and tasks that must be taken and completed. These tasks are not “maybe tomorrow” or “when I feel like it” tasks. Instead, they are tasks which absolutely must be done — no matter how you feel about them.
Like a child at bath time, you don’t have to feel like it. You don’t have to want to . You simply must.
No matter how you feel about the specific, necessary steps to reach your goal… know that by taking the steps, by completing the tasks, even when you don’t feel like it at all, you will eventually reach to your goal.
Lock step.
Think about that…
… the next time you are faced with eating a mind and body sustaining meal, or avoiding the meal and opting for junk because you “feel like it”.
Or when you don’t really “feel” like coming into boot camp and doing the work.
Or when planning your meals seems like “too much work”.
It IS work.
It DOES take time.
It IS tedious sometimes. But choosing not to do it just because you don’t feel like it in the moment is disservice to yourself.
Avoidance of what needs to be done is rooted in the subconscious thought, “I don’t enjoy doing this particular taks, so doing it is incorrect.”.
Not so.
We often get exactly what we want by doing what we don’t feel like doing.
The results are worth it folks.
Ask yourself…
Is there some form of self-ravaging I am engaging in which is hampering my results or slowing down my performance?
Am I doing anything which is aging me faster?
What areas of my fitness lifestyle need attention and tweaking? Food? Boot Camp attendance? Sleep? Water intake? Foam rolling? Stretching? Vitamins?
Take a moment to take stock and figure out the real score.
Be brutally honest with yourself and then take action doing exactly what you don’t feel like doing.
I promise, with each action you complete that you don’t feel like doing…but which brings you greater health and closer to a goal…you will grow in self-esteem and feel a supreme sense of accomplishment and earned pride.
And it all gets easier.
Before you know it, you have new goals which were invisible and psychologically untenable to you before. But now become worthy challenges which you embrace willingly.
And then – quite suddenly — you WANT to!
Go for it.
Cheers,
D
Portland Boot Camp: “Cardio is DEAD”!
Here’s how to Exercise LESS and Burn MORE
My Health Seeking Friend,
Imagine for a moment…
If you could make your body burn fat faster… and even STOP making new fat. Wouldn’t that be great?
You may be thinking, “What’s the catch?”
Great question.
Hold that thought, and think how you would feel for a moment…if the more you worked out, the more your body made fat.
Which would you prefer?
The answer is obvious. Nobody wants to make MORE fat through exercise. But that’s what happens when you perform long-duration exercise like aerobics and so –called cardio.
Here’s what I mean: when you do slow, long distance cardio, your primary fuel source is fat. Sounds great… BUT…what happens is, your body learns that it needs fat for fuel. So it actually makes more fat to have it ready for your next round of long duration cardio!
Now THAT”S a catch.
And it’s a vicious cycle.
This cycle of using fat as a primary source for fuel during a workout is why you see people chugging it out day after day on treadmills and getting nowhere fast. Their bodies keep making more fat to keep up with the aerobic exercise demand for fat as a primary fuel source.
Think about it for a second…
When you lay around on the couch, your body is using almost entirely fat as fuel. Well, after the first 4 weeks of doing slow long distance cardio or aerobics, your body adapts and what used to feel intense will just be a grind. And your body doesn’t see it as a challenge at all. Your body, fuel wise, doesn’t know the different.
You have to learn to see slow jogging on a treadmill, or watching Oprah on an elliptical trainer as kind of like… laying around on the couch, only you are on your feet.
And that’s also why we don’t focus on burning fat at boot camp.
Instead…
We focus on short duration, high intensity exercise. Which burns fewer calories and fewer calories of fat during the exercise session… but burns EXTRA amounts of fat AFTER the workout is over.
In fact… in a study at Quebec’s Laval University, subjects lost NINE TIMES more fat than slow cardio exercisers for every calorie burned.
After the workouts were over the aerobics group stopped burning fat and their bodies reacted by creating more fat for fuel to use at the next session.
But the other crew took advantage of the “Afterburn effect”. Essentially their metabolism blasted through the roof. And the best part is: this metabolism turbo-boost can last a whole day. But as soon as you step of a long boring session of “cardio” on a treadmill, it all comes to a halt.
So let’s do the math…
So what makes it work?
Ah. This is good: It works because after you work at a high intensity, your body needs to burn a whole bunch of calories to restore your muscles, energy supplies, back to normal.
Short burst, high intensity exercise is a proven protocol for burning the maximum amount of fat in the minimum amount of time.
It also:
Boosts your Anti-Aging hormone: Growth Hormone. Growth hormone incinerates fat, improves bone density, raises good cholesterol, and helps build muscle. Aerobics has little to no Growth Hormone raising effect!
Builds a Strong Heart. Short burst exercise needs a LOT of oxygen. And the heart has to work harder to adapt. The heart begins to pump MORE blood per beat and as a result, it grows stronger and actually lasts longer. Traditional aerobics weakens the heart over time.
An hour on a treadmill and no real metabolism boost.
OR
40 Minutes (or even much less) of High Intensity training with a 10 minute warm up and cool down with a FULL DAY of high metabolism.
*Ding Ding Ding*!
Cheers,D