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#82 - The "Secret" To Staying Motivated, How To Prevent Falling Off When Life Gets Busy & More
27 Plays4 months ago
A Q & A episode talking about these five topics
- Things you can do to stay motivated
- Knowing when bulk for muscle gain or cut for fat loss
- How to stay on track when life gets busy or stressful
- Finding a balance between fitness and life
- Creating better eating habits
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Transcript
Introduction and Q&A Overview
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome back to The Fitish Project with your host Latham Bass where we make fitness and health simple for regular people like you and I.
Key Topics: Motivation and Consistency
00:00:11
Speaker
Getting into another weekly episode, we have a Q and&A episode. I like to do these about once a month answering questions that I get from you guys, answering questions that I get from clients.
00:00:21
Speaker
answering questions that I get from social media. So I got five questions for you this week talking a little bit about what to do when motivation is low, how you can stay consistent when things get busy or stressful, improving your relationship with food, how to draw a line between holding yourself accountable but also having some grace with yourself, and then lastly whether or not you should be focusing on bulking or cutting and how to know that.
Why Discipline Trumps Motivation
00:00:46
Speaker
So getting into these five questions, starting off with question number one, what do you do when motivation is low? So I think the first thing that you have to think about when it comes to motivation, because this is a question that I get all the time. People ask me all the time, like, how do you stay motivated? And the fact of the matter is, like, I personally do not stay motivated all the time. And most people do not stay motivated all the time. Motivation is something that will come and go. It's not always going to be there.
00:01:11
Speaker
It's really nice when it is there and it's really useful when you do have that motivation. But again, it's not always going to be there. So I think the first thing is just realizing focusing more so on discipline can be very helpful because discipline is going to take you a lot further than motivation because discipline is something that you can cultivate and something that you can practice, something that you can build up and something that you can use every single day. So because there's going to be days where, you know, you're not feeling it. Life happens. Like you have a job, you have families, you have friends, you have busyness, there's stress, there's different challenges, you're tired some days, there's different life events going on. So like, there's gonna be very few days where you wake up and just all the stars a align where you feel super good, energy is awesome, had great sleep, day is just looking perfect. Like you feel super solid, like everything is just going your way and you're just super motivated to work out or, you know, eat healthy or whatever the case may be. There's not gonna be a ton of those days. More often than not, you're gonna have days where like, you just feel kind of average. so like
00:02:12
Speaker
You might not feel like working out. You might not necessarily feel like making the healthy choice, but that is where the discipline comes in. And the more often that you can continue to build up that discipline muscle, the easier that it becomes over time. But I think again, the first thing is just understanding that you're not always going to be motivated and that is 100% okay. So quit relying on motivation and start focusing more so on discipline.
Future Casting for Motivation
00:02:34
Speaker
With that being said, I always like to give some practical tips and some things that I've used in the past to help with this. so On a little bit deeper of a level, I use something that's called future casting. and To put this pretty simply, you can do this in a positive way or you can use it in a little bit more of a negative way and both ways work. I tend to try to use the positive way a little bit more, but the fact of the matter is is that a lot of people are motivated more by negative feelings like that pain and not wanting to get to a certain place. so using it in a negative frame also works pretty well too. And so the way that it works is that you're thinking about yourself in a future scenario. So if we think about this from a positive standpoint, this could be like, I need to work out today and I need to eat healthy today because I know that doing this for a long period of time is going to help me live a longer life. I'm going to be able to look the way that I want. I'm going to have better energy. I'm going to feel better. I'm going to have more confidence. I'm going to have,
00:03:29
Speaker
less pain, I'm going to be better for my family, I'm going to be more fun to be around just because I feel better and so all these different things of why it's a good idea to work out and you see yourself as this better version and so essentially you're just thinking about like what's the reason that I want to do these things from a positive standpoint.
00:03:47
Speaker
Now you can also use this from a negative standpoint. So like, what's going to happen if I don't eat well? What's going to happen if I don't work out? What's going to happen if I just neglect my health and continue to not do the things that I need to do, even though I know I should be doing them?
00:04:01
Speaker
Well, you can probably look around and I'm sure you have friends or family members whose health probably isn't that good. And a lot of these things are very preventable. So like if you think about in the future, if I continue to not show up, if I continue to eat really poor diet, if I continue to skip workouts and never lift weights and never do any cardio and never walk and be super sedentary, well, I may end up with one of those really big long-term diseases. I may end up with cancer. I may end end up with type two diabetes. I may end up with heart disease.
00:04:30
Speaker
I'm probably going to live a shorter life. I'm going to live a lower quality of life. I'm probably not going to be as happy. I'm going to have to deal with more pain and injuries. So all these different things of why not doing these things that you should be doing is going to hurt you in the future. So again, you can use it from a positive standpoint. You can use it from a negative standpoint. Both work and I personally like to think of it from a positive standpoint more often than not because I think for me that just works a little bit better. but If I'm being 100% honest, like when I first started, I thought of it a lot more from a negative standpoint and being where I was at, you know, overweight and unhappy and lower confidence and all these different things. I just didn't like where I was. And I refused to just be in a place where I was going to live that kind of lifestyle for 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 more years. And so I thought about it a lot from the negative standpoint of like,
00:05:20
Speaker
I'm not very motivated to work out today, and I don't really want to eat this certain meal today. I don't really want to have to skip on these certain things that I'm used to eating. But I know if I don't do these things, I'm just going to continue to be in the spot where I'm at today, and that's not where I want to be. And so that motivated me a lot. And then I got to a place where I was starting to see more progress, started to feel a lot better, started to look the way I wanted to look. confident was Confidence was getting better. Energy was getting better. And then I started thinking about it from more of a positive lens because I actually knew what that felt like. so Once I started getting into my body and just like my mindset was better, all these things were better. I got a little bit of a taste of that, that positive, healthier life. And so then I started thinking about it from a positive lens a little bit more like I never want to go back to where I was because this feels so much better than where I was at. So I've been on both sides of it. And again, you can use it both ways, but you just have to kind of figure out which tool is better for you in that moment in that day.
Overcoming Low Motivation
00:06:16
Speaker
Because something that I think about quite a bit when it comes to motivation is people are very good at enduring hard things, which is kind of a double-edged sword. And so like you'll have people who you've seen like accomplish these amazing things. They've done like crazy endurance events or maybe they've gone through this really harsh stuff and then came out on the other side and now they're living a much better life. But you also see people who will stay in really bad situations for a really long period of time, they'll let themselves go really bad when it comes to like their health and dig themselves in a really deep hole. They'll stay in a job that they hate for years, decades, they'll stay in a relationship that's not good for them. And so people have this really amazing ability to endure hard things. And I think that understanding that and just being aware of that and making sure that you're focusing your energy on the right things can be very helpful because
00:07:06
Speaker
unless you choose to be on the other side of that and use that for good, it's really easy to let yourself slip and it's really easy to let yourself go and it's really easy to dig yourself in this huge hole even though you know it's hurting you. So being aware of that and then just thinking about those things I think can be super helpful. And then the last thing that I would say about motivation is that just break things down. A lot of people get very overwhelmed when it comes to like fitness and health and things like that. And it's because they're overwhelmed. And when you're overwhelmed, it's hard to be motivated because you don't really know where to focus your energy. But when you can break it down into simple steps that you know that you can accomplish, it's a lot easier to create that momentum. And when you create that momentum, you start to see progress, when you start to see progress, you start to get more motivated. And so I talk about 1% better all the time, because I like to break things down. And I like to put it
00:07:54
Speaker
in this very simple, easy to accomplish type of lens. Because once you can start accomplishing those small things, it starts to snowball. And again, you start to create that momentum and that leads to really good things. So one thing that I do a lot is I'll just use the five minute rule. And I've talked about this before, but essentially it's like you have it a task that you don't want to do. Maybe it's working out. Maybe it's meal prepping. Maybe it's going for a walk or run or like anything like that. It could be used for anything, but you tell yourself, I'm going to do the first five minutes. That's all I'm going to think about.
00:08:23
Speaker
That's all I'm focused on accomplishing after the five minutes. If I want to quit, if I want to be done, I can. And you get in, you do your five minutes and what happens literally every single time is you get going, you get that momentum roll and you do your five minutes and it's not hard anymore because for most people, the hardest part is just starting. Once you start, once you put your running shoes on, you get outside, you run those first couple of minutes, it's not that bad.
00:08:44
Speaker
Once you get your first couple of sets in, in the workout, it's really not that bad. Once you start meal prepping and you kind of get into it, it's really not that bad. So the hardest part is just starting. So if you can break things down and not think about this hour-long workout or this 30-minute run or, you know, this 45 minutes that it's going to take me to whip up all these healthy meals, you just think about that first five minutes. If you can focus on that, handle that, the rest seems to take care of itself. So a couple ideas on motivation and hopefully that is helpful when it comes to helping you just be more motivated and just thinking about motivation in general.
Maintaining Health During Stress
00:09:18
Speaker
Question number two, I've had some success with building healthier behaviors, but I struggle when things get busier.
00:09:25
Speaker
or more stressful, any tips. So I think first you just have to understand this is a normal part of life. Like life comes in phases and there's times where it's a little bit easier. There's times where it will be a little bit harder when you have certain things going on. So life is always coming and going in different seasons. And so just understanding that that's just a normal thing. And sometimes things will change a little bit and it's okay to take a step back and maybe you have to reduce what you're doing a little bit. Like maybe your routine right now has to change slightly. If you have some certain event that comes up that's super stressful or busy or whatever the case may be, for example, like, you know, people that have kids, like that is a huge life change and that changes your routine completely. And the way that your life looks after you have kids is going to be slightly different for a while and maybe for a long time. And so understanding that things aren't always going to be the same and that things are going to change a little bit, I think is the first step to that.
00:10:16
Speaker
And I think similar to the motivation thing that we just kind of talked about is just learning to adapt and kind of just figure things out a little bit as you go and just being okay with understanding that it's not always going to be perfect because a lot of people get into this mindset of like,
00:10:31
Speaker
If I can't be perfect, I'm not going to do anything at all. Well, that's stupid. Like it should always be do something because something is always better than nothing. You don't need to be perfect. You don't need to be a hundred percent. Like that's not the goal. Perfection is not the goal. We want to make sure that we're doing something so that you can keep that momentum rolling. And I found that with a lot of people, it's much more a mental thing than it is a physical thing. And what I mean by that is that people will like get off track a little bit and they'll fall off or maybe things will change a little bit. They'll get busier, they'll get stressful.
00:11:00
Speaker
And they work this up to be this huge big thing in their head in that they're like ruining all the progress. They're falling off. theyre They're not doing anything right when really it's just this super small like thing that's going on or this very short period of time. And it's not really having that much of an impact on their progress or their health in general. But they build it up to be this big thing. And then once you build it up, it starts to snowball. And so now that You know, they maybe had like one day where they were super stressed and they didn't eat super great. And then now that turns into five days or a week or two weeks, or they had a missed workout where something came up and they had to skip their workout. And now because they skipped their workout, they're like, well,
00:11:36
Speaker
Since I didn't work out yesterday, I'm not going to work out for the rest of the week. And then that turns into an entire week where you didn't work out. And so we we make it up to be a much bigger thing than it really is. And I think just realizing that, you know, that's part of life and that things are going to happen, things are going to come up. It's never going to be perfect and it's not supposed to be perfect. But to do what you can and to focus on doing something is always going to be better than nothing.
00:11:59
Speaker
I have clients all the time who will like, you know, they they have something going on where like they're out of their normal routine a little bit. And then they'll be like, I'm really struggling to get back on track. And so we talk through it and we talk about it. And it's like, what are you actually struggling with? Like, you know, the things that you should be doing. And they're not really these big things. It's just, you're afraid to get back on track because you feel like you've ruined a bunch of your progress. Well, that's not the case. Like the sooner you can get back on track and start doing the things that you need to do, the better it's going to be. But we tend to.
00:12:26
Speaker
draw those things out and again, make them bigger than they actually are. And that is what ends up hurting us in the end. It's never, you know, the single choice. It's never like one day or even a couple of days. It's all the choices that come after we think we messed ourselves up or we think we ruined our progress that actually end up hurting us the most. And so just getting back on track and just not making a bigger deal than it actually is. And then we're talking about this from a more practical standpoint.
00:12:50
Speaker
I like to have what I call daily disciplines. And these are things that I try to stick with no matter what's going on. They they will change it every once in a while. Like if, you know, something really big comes up and I don't hit these things, but having these daily things that you can focus on it can be really helpful. So for me, I think about steps. I want to get a certain amount of steps in per day. I think about food. And for me, that just means eating high protein diet. I want to try to eat protein at every single meal and I want to try to eat mostly whole foods.
00:13:17
Speaker
And then workouts, I know that if I can get four workouts in per week, I feel really good about that. So those are kind of my daily slash weekly disciplines. And I know that when I can hit those things, I feel really good mentally, and I also feel good physically. And it just kind of keeps that momentum rolling. And I found that this is very doable for me, pretty much regardless of the situation, whether I'm traveling, whether things are busy, whether things are stressful. And so that may look a little bit different for you, but having these things that you set for yourself, these these daily disciplines or these minimums that you set for yourself that you're going to hit no matter what can help you to feel like you are continuing to make progress and continuing to keep that momentum going because again, as I said, it's a lot more of a mental thing than it is really a physical thing because the grand scheme of things like even if you did miss like, you know, a week or two of workouts or you know, you didn't
00:14:05
Speaker
eat the best for a week or two. Like it might hurt your progress a little bit. It might slow you down a little bit, but in the grand scheme of things, it's not going to make that big of a difference. But if you can keep up with those things, especially mentally, it's going to make staying on track, but also just not having to make it such a big deal to get back on track so much easier. And then the last thing that I would say is just having some sort of accountability can be really helpful when things do get busy, when they do get stressful. But this is typically when that kind of stuff goes right out the door. So I'm a big fan of tracking different things. I like data, I like numbers, things like that. So tracking things can be super helpful. So this could be tracking your food, this could be tracking your calories, tracking your protein, tracking your steps.
00:14:44
Speaker
tracking your workouts, tracking water, tracking sleep, any of that stuff that's going to help to hold you accountable. Because what I see a lot is that when people get busy, when they get stressed, like this stuff kind of goes out the window. And they just like they don't want to look at the scale or they don't want to look at their food because they think that they're like way off or they think that they're hurting themselves a ton. But as I said before, that's really not the case. like You may be going a little bit over your calories or maybe eating a little bit too much or not eating enough protein or not getting enough sleep or maybe you like didn't hit all your workouts but like that's okay. It's better to know like what you're actually doing and continue to track and kind of hold yourself accountable than it is to just throw all that stuff out the window and just ignore it and pretend like it doesn't matter. It doesn't exist because you're not looking at those things.
00:15:25
Speaker
You know, another thing with having accountability is just like if you have a training partner, if you have a group that you work out, if you have somebody who is maybe like trying to hold you to certain standards, like having a coach, like any of that stuff can be super helpful just because when we get busy and when we get stressed, it's very easy to fall off. So when you have somebody else there that you know is keeping you accountable and somebody that you're going to have to answer to, it can help to just push you a little bit when things do get a little bit more hectic, a little bit more busy. So those are some tips when it comes to getting busy, when it comes to getting stressed, because those things are always going to happen, they're going to continue to happen. There's never going to be a time where like everything is 100% perfect, because that's just not how life is. So learning to handle those things as they come can be super helpful.
Building a Healthy Food Relationship
00:16:09
Speaker
Question number three,
00:16:10
Speaker
I've been struggling with my weight for a long time. And I know a lot of it has to do with my poor relationship with food. Do you have any tips to work on fixing this? Yes. So this is something, especially people who have like weight loss goals, this is something that I see a lot. And I think for a lot of us, it's just like, we never really, like, if you think about food, we all know like, typically what things we should be eating more of and what we should be eating less of. Like we know we should be eating more fruits, vegetables, proteins, things like that. And we should be eating less of the other stuff that's like super highly processed and super calorie dense and very easy to overeat and just doesn't really do as much for us nutritionally. like We know that we shouldn't eat tons of those foods and that shouldn't be what our diet is full of. But at the same time, we still have these thoughts around food. We have a certain mindset around food and a lot of us just never really learned how to eat a healthy diet. and so
00:17:02
Speaker
When I think about this from my perspective, like when I was younger, I just ate whatever. Like I didn't really think about food as anything more than what tasted good. And that was just what I ate, which things that taste good, at least back then when my taste buds were a little different was highly processed foods, things that had a lot of sugar.
00:17:18
Speaker
things that were just made to taste really good. And so I hate a lot of processed foods. And then as I got older, I started learning a little bit more about food. I started realizing how these foods affected me, what foods made me feel good, what foods didn't make me feel good. And then I started making choices based around that. And so I think there's two things that you really need to understand when it comes to creating a little bit better relationship around just food in general.
00:17:39
Speaker
And the first part of that is awareness, because a lot of people have no awareness when it comes to like their hunger cues, when it comes to just paying attention to their own eating patterns, maybe like you're an emotional or a stress eater. And so you find yourself just like doing these certain patterns that you've been doing for your entire life without even realizing realizing what you're doing. So like if you get stressed, you immediately go to the snack cupboard and you just find yourself eating tons and tons of food, or you just find yourself mindlessly eating in front of the TV. And so starting to create more awareness just about the things that you're putting in your body and the things that you're putting in your mouth can be a really good place to start. Because without that awareness, it's going to be very hard to change. And then once you kind of have that awareness, and you start paying attention to these things, you can start deciphering, am I actually hungry right now? Or maybe I just am bored and I want food. Do I actually need this food? Or is this something that I just want because I'm stressed out and you start to
00:18:32
Speaker
realize that a lot of these patterns that you have around food aren't based in hunger. They're just based in things that you've always done or they're based in these certain habits that you've had previously or based on things that you learned as a kid. And so starting to gather more awareness around this can be a really good first step. And then the second thing I would say is just actually having some education around food. And it's not that you need to be you know a PhD in nutrition or anything like that, but you should have a basic understanding of food. Eating is something that you're gonna do for the rest of your life You do it multiple times a day. So it's something that you should understand. It's kind of like money or just people in general or like any of those things that like you deal with on a daily basis, you should probably have a little bit of info about these things. Otherwise, it's hard to really know how you should manage these things and how you should go about incorporating these things within your life. So learning things like what's a protein? What's a carb? What are fats? How certain foods make you feel? How much protein do I need? How much fats do I need? like
00:19:29
Speaker
What certain foods should I be eating more of and what for certain foods should I be eating less of? And again, you don't have to be like super into this stuff in order to gather some information about this. There's very simple things that you can do just by following people that you trust around nutrition, reading a couple books, like there's tons and tons of information, videos, podcasts, all that kind of stuff about nutrition.
00:19:51
Speaker
But one of the things that I found that's been super helpful for people with both just creating more awareness and just kind of learning a little bit more about food is just taking a period of time to track your food. You'd be absolutely amazed at how many people think that they're eating a certain amount of calories and then they track their food and they're like, man, I've been eating way more than I ever thought.
00:20:10
Speaker
where they'll start to weigh out certain foods and be like, I had no idea this was a serving size. like then I thought that this was a serving size of peanut butter. I've literally been eating three times as much as that every time I have peanut butter. Or they start to track food and they're like, oh, I realized that I actually do pretty well. like I do better when I have more carbs and less fats. Or I feel so much more full and satiated now that I'm focusing on eating more protein and tracking my protein. And so like the amount of things that you'll learn if you just spend a period of time just tracking your food,
00:20:40
Speaker
and being more aware about your food is something that will help you literally for the rest of your life. And as I said, it's something that you will do for your entire life. And it's something that affects how you feel, it affects how you look, it affects all these different things. And so really spending some time, even, you know, a couple months just doing this can have a huge payoff and just how you feel your quality of life, how you look, your fitness goals, like all these different things. And so taking some time to do that, I think is well worth your time.
00:21:08
Speaker
And then when in doubt, you know, if you're somebody who is maybe you're in the process of figuring all that stuff out, you're, you know, you're trying to create better habits, you're trying to become more aware, you're trying to learn more about food. One of the basic tips that I tell people is to focus on the 80-20 rule. I think that if people use this rule and really just focused on doing this one thing, it would solve so many problems when it comes to just nutrition and with knowing what to eat and how you feel and your body composition goals and all these certain things. And that simple rule,
00:21:38
Speaker
is that 80% of the time you focus on whole, minimally processed foods, your lean proteins, your healthy fats, your complex carbs, your fruits, your vegetables, just things that come in their whole form, things that humans have been eating for thousands of years. And then 20% of the time you can have some of that other stuff. Like you can have some processed foods if you want. You can have some fast foods if you want. You can eat any of those other things that you really enjoy eating from time to time.
00:22:02
Speaker
But if you focus on eating more whole foods, it's just going to solve so many of these problems because you're going to be getting more protein. You're going to feel better. You're going to look better. You're going to be able to be more full, less hungry. You're going to be able to pay attention to your hunger cues a little bit better. Like all these certain things will start to figure themselves out if you start to eat more whole foods. So at a very basic level, if nothing else, like start eating more whole foods. And I think that you'll notice that things start to improve for you quite a bit.
Balancing Accountability and Grace
00:22:27
Speaker
Question number four, I have fitness goals, but sometimes I struggle with holding myself accountable versus giving myself some grace when things get hard. How do you find that balance? This is kind of a difficult one, and I'm probably not the best person to ask about this because I do struggle with this still from time to time, ah full transparency. but This is something that I think you'll have to figure out with some trial and error because there's some things to think about. So one of the things that I'll always talk about or I always think about or that I'll mention to clients is like, when you look back on this tomorrow, like when you look back on this decision tomorrow, how are you going to feel about this?
00:23:03
Speaker
And I think this works really well because it takes you out of that current situation and it puts you just a little bit in the future and allows you to look at it from more of just a logical standpoint. Am I just being a little bit of a baby here and not wanting to do this because I'm a little bit tired and a little bit unmotivated? Or do I actually need to take a break? Like would this be a good day to take a rest day? Or do i should I take some time off? or You know, should I give myself a little bit of grace? Because maybe you're absolutely dog tired. You've been grinding. You got terrible sleep. You feel super crappy. And if you do work out today, you're just going to dig yourself in a further hole. Or maybe, you know, you're just a little tired. You're a little unmotivated. You had a little bit of a stressful day and you probably still should work out, but you're like, ah, maybe I should just, you know, call it a day and just go hang out on the couch and eat some ice cream. Well, when you take yourself out of this situation and you think about
00:23:54
Speaker
Okay. What am I going to think about this decision tomorrow? I think that is very helpful and that can be a really good thing to use when you are struggling with those decisions in the moment. And so that's something that I try to think about a lot because there is certainly days where like I should probably take the break, even though I do have something scheduled and I should just take it easy a little bit. And so I'll think about it. Is this going to make me better or is this going to make me worse tomorrow? Like when I look back at this, am I going to be like, that was a good thing to do or now I'm paying for it today?
00:24:21
Speaker
And so think about it from that lens and that can help a little bit. Another thing I would say is just start to just pay attention to yourself, like know yourself because some people really have the tendency to push way too hard all the time and they struggle to take time off. And these are the people that maybe do need to take a step back a little bit more and maybe should take their foot off the pedal a little bit every once in a while and rest a little bit more. But there's also other people on the other hand who they struggle with discipline, they struggle with willpower.
00:24:48
Speaker
doing the things that they know they should do and this is the person that maybe does need to push themselves a little bit and does need to grow those certain characteristics in themselves a little bit more so that they can actually achieve the goals that they want to achieve.
00:24:59
Speaker
And in my experience, I found that most of the people that I've worked with, they struggle with the pulling back. So like they'll do too much. They'll think they need to do more and more and more. They think they need to burn the candle at both ends. And if they're not doing all these certain things that they're not going to make progress. And for those people, we have to really sit down and talk about, okay, these are the things that you need to do. And actually doing this much is probably hurting you because.
00:25:21
Speaker
You're going to burn yourself out and then you hit a wall and then you're like, well, I fell off for two weeks. Well, it's because you were going too hard and you're not pacing yourself a little bit. You're not giving yours your body that time for recovery and you're not doing the things that you need to do. So now you're getting sick all the time because you're pushing too hard. And and so you've got to find that balance. And I think a good step to that is just knowing what type of person you are and just knowing maybe I'm the person that I do need to be pushed a little bit more and I need to do a little bit more, or maybe I'm the person that needs to take a little bit of a step back and do that as well. so Know yourself a little bit. And then the last thing I would say is just understanding that you can hold yourself to a high standard without doing it in a negative way. Because I think people have this idea that like if they're not doing the things that they do, they're just like super negative to themselves and they talk really badly to themselves and they just berate themselves anytime they mess up or take a day off or maybe aren't doing every single little thing that they should be doing. And I've learned through personal experience and through
00:26:16
Speaker
really focusing on this that it doesn't have to be that way. Like you can hold yourself to a high standard, but you can do it in a positive way. And I think understanding that holding yourself to a high standard and doing it also in a positive way is one of the greatest forms of self-respect that you can do for yourself, but also just a form of self-love because you know that if you're holding yourself to this high standard, you're going to be able to accomplish all the goals that you want to accomplish. You're going to feel better. You're going to have better health. All these certain things are going to happen because you are doing the things that you need to do.
00:26:45
Speaker
I mean, you could do that in a negative way too. And there's plenty of people out there that do that. And there's plenty of people out there who put content around that. But personally, that's just not how I want to live. I think that if you live in that space for too long, a lot of that starts to bleed over into other parts of your life. And now you're just become this kind of negative, just downer type of person. And that's not the type of life that I want to live. And so I think you can do it in a way where like you do hold yourself to this high standard, you do have these goals that you want to achieve, but you do it in a more so positive way. So Just understanding that too, I think it'd be helpful when it comes to finding this balance. But again, it's gonna be a little bit of a trial and error. You won't figure it out right away, but continue to focus on these things and continue to show up day in and day out and you get better at learning what your body needs and what you should be doing and maybe when you need to pull back a little bit.
Should You Build Muscle or Lose Fat?
00:27:33
Speaker
Fifth and final question. I have weight loss goals, but I also want to build muscle. So I'm wondering if I should focus on building muscle or losing fat.
00:27:41
Speaker
All right, this is a really good question actually. So you can do both of these things but it is hard unless you fall into one of these categories. So you can build muscle and lose fat at a pretty good rate if you are somebody who has a large amount of weight to lose like if you're very overweight or even obese, you can build muscle and lose fat at the same time.
00:28:01
Speaker
If you're somebody who's like brand new to lifting weights and like working out, you can lose fat and build muscle at the same time pretty effectively. Or if you're somebody who like took a long time off, like you took a really long break.
00:28:12
Speaker
or maybe you had an injury or you know you had a kid and you took multiple months off or whatever the case may be. like If you took a lot of time off and you're coming back, you can build muscle and lose fat at a decent rate as well. If you are not somebody in that category, so if you're like the average person who has worked out consistently for a decent amount of time and you also just have a pretty good diet, you can do both. like It's called like body re-composition where you're building a little bit of muscle and you're also losing a little bit of fat. and so like You may not be seeing the scale change as much, but like your clothes start to fit better. You start to notice differences in your progress pictures. And so this is definitely something that you can do, but it takes a lot longer in the product and the process of it. And seeing your actual progress takes longer versus if you were to just specifically focus on, I'm going to spend a period of time just bulking.
00:29:00
Speaker
I'm going to eat more food. I'm going to focus on really pushing the weights, going to focus on building more muscle. I might put a little bit of body fat on, but I don't really care because I really want to focus on building muscle. That process is going to be a little bit faster than trying to do both at the same time or the other end of the spectrum where you're trying to lose fat, you're cutting. So you're eating in a calorie deficit.
00:29:19
Speaker
not eating as much food, you're really focusing on losing fat and maybe not building as much muscle, which is fine. You're going to see progress faster doing one of those two things and trying to do both at the same time. And so for that reason, that's why a lot of people choose to pick one or the other because it's a little bit more motivating when you're seeing that progress. So for a lot of people, that's typically the route that they go. Regardless of what your goal is, the intent should always be to build strength, build muscle, focus on progressive overload, whether you're bulking, cutting, trying to maintain because we always want to make sure that we're trying to hold on to as much muscle or build as much muscle as possible. So regardless of the goal, that should always be what you're doing. But if you do want to see a little bit faster progress when it comes to either building muscle or losing fat and focusing on one or the other can be a good route to go.
00:30:05
Speaker
When it comes to specifically knowing whether you should bulk or cut, how do you know? So for most people, if you're looking at like body fat percentages for men, if you're somewhere like around 15% or maybe a little bit under that, that might be a good time where you want to start bulking and really putting on muscle. If you do want to change your body composition for women, that's somewhere around 20%. So you can see some good muscle definition. Maybe you have some ab definition. Your muscles are just showing a little bit more. You're looking a little bit more toned.
00:30:33
Speaker
all those sorts of things. If you feel like you have a little bit of fat to lose, like you have more you have a bigger layer of body fat, maybe you have a little bit of a stomach and you want to focus on cutting a little bit before you bulk, that's completely fine too. And obviously, there's going to be a lot of caveats to this. This depends on a person's goals. This depends on a person's body type. If you've been dieting for a long time, this could change what your route could be.
00:30:56
Speaker
So if you're really confused about this, I would say try to find somebody who knows what they're talking about and help have them help you with this and maybe give you some direction on which route you should go. And the last thing that I will say about this is that a lot of people get really pigeonholed into thinking that fat loss is always the answer. Like fat loss is going to be a little bit more quicker and more noticeable. Like you'll lose fat quicker than you will build muscle. Building muscle is a longer process. It takes longer. And so sometimes people will just get really stuck on like wanting to lose more fat, lose more fat, lose more fat. But if you have body composition goals specifically around how you look, adding even just like five pounds of muscle to your frame can do a lot for how you look as you start to lean up as you start to lose weight. So fat loss is not necessarily always the goal. Sometimes it's good like if you're somebody who's been dieting for a really long time, and you're just kind of like you have that diet fatigue, and you don't really feel like trying to lose more fat, it can be nice to take a break and just kind of maintain a little bit maybe just focus on
00:31:53
Speaker
building more muscle and then as you start to strip that fat away you're also going to look better you're going to look different you're going to look more toned more muscular have more definition all those sorts of things and so fat loss is not always the answer there is certain periods of times of building muscle is going to change how you look quite a bit and also just help with other things just with quality of life and because we know that having more muscle mass is is a good thing so Fat loss and bulking are both good things and it just kind of depends on where you're at. So hopefully that gives you a little bit of context. I know that was a lot of information there. but And so all in all, both options are solid and there's a time and a place for each one. If you have specific questions about what you should be doing, you can always reach out and hit me up with a question and I can help kind of point you in the right direction.
Listener Engagement and Coaching Offers
00:32:38
Speaker
But with that being said, that is all five questions. Just a few things before we log off here. If you want a question answered in the future, you can always send me a message on social media. I'm always up for new questions to answer on the pod. I always think it's nice to just dive a little bit deeper in some of these questions and give you a little bit more context. Have some one-on-one coaching spots available at this current time of this recording. So if you're somebody who is looking to make some kind of transformation on your own, you want some help with losing some weight, building some muscle, want some accountability, you want a personalized plan,
00:33:08
Speaker
All that good stuff. You can check out the link in the show notes and I will be in contact. And if you found some value in this and you think there's somebody out there who needs this information, you can share this with them or leave a review that just helps to get this out to more people. And I appreciate you listening and we will see you next week.