The Pro's And Con's Of Cheat Days (How You Can Make Your Diet Enjoyable).

In today's blog I want to share with you the good and bad of taking cheat days.  This is all from what I have experienced over the past couple of years and what might influence you to either start taking cheat days or stop taking cheat days depending on your current circumstances.

I have been taking cheat days every week or so since I have read Tim Ferriss's book the "4 Hour Body".   This book is pretty much what got me into taking cheat days in the first place.  Although there is controversy whether cheat days are good or bad for you, I wanted to write to share with you a pretty neutral position so you can decide what is best for you in the long run.

Basically the determining factor is going to be your willpower.  However even if you have strong willpower you may still crave junk food every once and a while (just less often than others might crave junk food)


The Good.

1) Cheat days keep you sane throughout your journey.

This is probably the biggest reason I would recommend starting to take cheat days.  If you don't already know, most people that start a diet eventually end up right where they started.  Being right back at square one can be discouraging, and often cause you to give up.

You can have all the knowledge in the world, but with no plan or applied knowledge, it is useless.

If you start a diet and it says you can NEVER eat a certain food ever again, how likely are you going to be to stick to that diet?

Even if you can stick to it for a month, you will most likely jump back to eating the "bad food" again or even more.

In other words you are going insane without that food.

Now if I tell you, "stick to your diet for 7 days and after that 7 days you can eat whatever you want on the eighth day" how much more likely are you going to be sticking to your diet?

Chances are high you will follow through.  Not only will it keep you sane, but it will keep you accountable and you will actually get a reward for your effort of eating healthy for those 7 days!

2) Makes the journey more enjoyable.

No diet or healthy journey is fun when you are never able to eat certain foods.  Just imagine you go to an ice cream shop with your family or freinds and everyone else is eating creamy, smooth ice cream in a waffle cone.

Most likely you are going to be hating every second of it if you don't allow yourself to ever eat ice cream.

Now I'm not saying to just eat ice cream everyday, but what if you had one day a week where you could.  You are in the same scenario except now you can have the ice cream.  

How much more enjoyable will this scenario be now that you are able to enjoy the ice cream and spend some memorable time with your family or friends?

3) Doesn't really effect fat gain.

This is kind of a touchy subject here.  At first when I tried cheat days this sounded counter intuitive.  

I though to myself "how could eating an enormous surplus of calories not effect fat gain"  I though it would all be BS.

But I tried it anyway and tested it out.  Sure enough my waist didn't ever get any bigger from taking cheat days.

The best way I can describe this is to think of it this way.  If all you eat is junk 6 out of 7 days and eat a salad on the seventh day how much of a difference will this make on you losing fat?

Not much right becuase its one salad or one day of salads when 90% of the time you were eating junk.

Basically the same principle is applied but in reverse for cheat days.  (You aren't going to gain fat for eating 10% junk food and 90% health food).


The Bad.

1) Overeating / going overboard.

This is a problem I find myself falling into too often on cheat days.  Most cheat days I end up eating more than I should and just eating to eat as much junk food as I can in one day. 

Although it is fun for me to do, there have been times where I would eat so much where I would be throwing up all night because of how much I ate.

This doesn't happen as much anymore, but I still do usually over eat past being full.

2) The way you feel the next morning.

I would almost describe this bad side effect to feel how I expect a hangover would feel.

Usually after I take a cheat day the next morning feels harder than it should.  

I often wake up feeling substantially less energy than I usually do as well as having a TON of mucuss in my throat and a bad taste in my mouth for the first few hours of my day.

It's not a pleasant feeling but it goes away pretty fast.

Closing thoughts.

After reading this I hope you gained some clarity on whether or not you want to start implementing cheat days into your life.

Just like anything in life there is a good and a bad side to cheat days, but its about what works or doesn't work for you. 

For some people (including myself) cheat days can work really well becuase they give more than they take.  For others it may take more than it gives.

I would love to hear what you are going to do moving ahead in your journey, as well as what your thoughts are on this subject / what you have experienced with taking cheat days.

Make the best of today,

Brian

Bodybuilding Physique Update 6. (Taking Measurements To Track Size & Progress).

In todays physique update I wanted to share with you where I am currently at, as well as what I will be implementing over the next month along the journey to 165 pounds.

Last month we discussed that I would start using MyFitnessPal to track my calories.  I have been eating around 2700 calories on workout days and 22-2300 calories on rest days.  This has resulted in some muscle gain with minimal fat gain (pretty much just enough for me to notice) over the last month.

This next month I am going to stick to 2700 calories on lifting days and 22-2300 calories on abs workout days.

I am also going to start taking measurements of my legs, arms, waist etc. to track my progress and make sure I am actually making consistent gains each month.

My current measurements:

Arms: 12 in
Legs: 19 in
Calves: 14 in
Waist: 29.5 in
Chest: 34.5-35 in

Overall this month has been successful in moving toward my big goal of 165 pounds by 2024 while maintaining a pretty lean body fat percentage.  However the past couple days I have been bloated from pigging out on my cheat day this past weekend.

The biggest problem I have actually noticed from myself this month is there were multiple days where I forgot to track and update the weight I was lifting while in the gym.

That being said, I was still able to make consistent and noticeable gains this past month.

Where I want to be within the next month.

Over the next month I also want to see if I am able to get all of these numbers (except for my waist) up half an inch as well.


Closing thoughts.

I have still not been having any luck with the body fat monitor at the gym, but as always I will continue to keep trying to use it and see if it eventually works for me.

Did you start your own fitness journey yet?  If not start today, and follow along the journey.

We can achieve our fitness goals together!

Bodybuilding Physique Update 5 (Learning How To Lean Bulk).

This month was mostly a good month, for the first 3 weeks I have been gaining muscle on a consistent basis and it was going great, my muscles appeared to be bigger than usual and I was gaining strength most of the time.  However this past week I started to notice muscle loss.

Where I am at now.

My strength still seems to be getting better consistently, and it looks like I am still losing fat (I tried to use the body fat scanner at the gym again, but once again I got the same error code as before).

That being said it looks like I dropped 1% bodyfat since last month.  

This past week however, I noticed some muscle loss.  I believe this is due to starting my job where I walk between 10,000 - 20,000 steps per day, which allows me to be in a deficit  nearly everyday compared to the rest of the month.

Where I want to be within the next month.

Today I did some research on how much I should be eating per day to "lean bulk" at my current activity level and found that it was about 300 - 700 calories more than I currently eat.

It seemed that eating 1700 - 2100 calories per day was working for me to "lean bulk" before I started working again, but once my activity level increased, my calorie intake stayed the same.


Over the next month I am going to test eating 300 - 700 more calories per day and see how this works out for me.  I will continue to do the same workouts and increase my strength on a continuous basis throughout this next month.

Closing thoughts.

Overall this month went well.  3 out of the 4 weeks I made noticeable progress but this last week it really looks like I took a step back even though I was doing the same things as usually in terms of working out.

This next month I am going to work on eating roughly 2550 calories per day on workout days and 2000 - 2200 on non-workout days.  This is just a test for now to see if I start to gain muscle as well as stay at the same bodyfat percentage , or even drop fat.

If you are new and interested in learning more about health and mindset click here to read the blog where I have written nearly 200 articles that will be of help to you along your journey!

Make the best of today,

Brian

Bodybuilding Physique Update 4; Road to 10-12% Body Fat While Maintaining Strength.

For this months physique update I want to share with you more in depth on my plans over the next couple of months.

If you have been following these physique updates you know that I am working on bulking up and putting on muscle, however this has caused me some trouble since I ended up not tracking calories for most of this time.

Since the last physique I have started to track my calories nearly every single day and have noticed myself getting leaner.

I did try to use the bodyfat percentage device at the gym but I kept getting an error code.  I am hoping that the next time I go to use it, it works because that is something that I want to share with you in these physique updates.  But for now I am just going based off of how much bodyfat percentage it looks like I have.

I was also sick for a whole week last week and wasn't able to get into the gym at all.  There was one day where I was feeling good enough to do 100 decline pushups at home but other than that I was pretty much just trying to rest, with the exception of doing yoga a couple times.

I was also eating a lot of foods to try and help me feel better so I think I was over my calories most days.

Other than that, it appears that I am getting closer to my goal of 10-12%  bodyfat (just based on how I currently look).

Closing thoughts.

This is where I am at right now.

Thank you for reading, I hope that you are gaining massive value along these physique updates and have been following along yourself with your own fitness journey.

Make the best of today,

Brian

How Daily Discipline Helps To Shape Your Life.

Discipline is something many of us lack in most areas of our lives (including me).  We all have our strong areas of discipline, but we often find ourselves not able to have discipline in other areas that might matter to us.

What actually got me thinking of writing this blog was how on Monday and Tuesday this past week I really didn't feel like taking a cold shower or going to the gym.  Now I know, I never really care for cold showers except for on extremely hot days, so this is normal for me, but not feeling motivated for working out is actually kind of different.

What actually got me to do both was that I started to ask myself "what would the ideal version of me do?"  This "act as if" mentality actually helped me to push through it, and afterwards I ended up feeling good about doing those things.

I personally take cold showers just for how it makes me feel energized and on top of the world afterwards.  On the other hand I actually have a real goal for fitness / working out.  If you have read some of my blogs from the past couple of months you know that I am working to be 165 pounds with 8-10% bodyfat.  So this gives me a reason to actually have discipline and continue to workout consistently.

How can this apply to your life?

Since most people don't even have the discipline to read a life altering book for 10 minutes after work, even having just a little bit of discipline will set you apart from most of the world.  If you think of it, it's really easy to go home and turn on the TV right away for 4 hours or so.

And although this is the easy thing to do, since all you have to do it sit there (and maybe hit a couple buttons on the remote, it doesn't take much discipline and on top of that) it probably won't bring you any closer to your goals.

If you are someone who currently has goals that you are working on, how can you continue to focus on them even when you don't feel like it?

Well from what I have found from my experience is that most of not taking action actually comes from overthinking the situation you want to be doing.

For example you have a goal to record a video.  You know its going to be a great video that your audience will love, but you start thinking to yourself "what if the lightings bad, what if I screw up, what if I have to redo the video?" etc. 

This type of overthinking the situation can actually cause you to end up not taking any action towards your goal of making that video.

And this is what most of us do whether we realize it or not.  

The winners mindset. 

I found that by changing our mindset towards our goals it makes it easier to have discipline to achieve them.  Now I'm not saying you will have this mindset 100% of the time, but when you do have this mindset it will completely change what you are able to achieve throughout your day!

Lets discuss this mindset.

Back to the video example.  If you find yourself thinking about all that could go wrong, you aren't going to get anywhere.  

But if you are still overthinking you could instead think "I'm at least going to record this video today, if it doesn't come out the way I want it to that's ok because at least I took action".  

And you know what will happen 90% of the time?  You will take action and make a video that is at least good.  And if it isn't, since you are already making the video, and in the right mindset at this point, you will be more likely to continue to record the video until you are satisfied with it!

Act as if.

As stated above acting as if can also be very beneficial to your life.  If you envision yourself already where you want to be it will be easier to take action from that state of mind.

Sticking to making that video, if you see yourself as the video creator
that you want to be, it will be easier for you to come from that place, and thus take action and create the video you want to create!

Closing thoughts. 

I hope that these mindsets help you to stay on track with your goals.  Although it is hard and takes a massive amount of energy to do, it will be worth it.

Continue to grow and move towards the life you want to live!

Make the best of today,

Brian

Ninja Professional 1100 Watt 3 Speed Blender (BL660) Review.

The Ninja BL660 was the second blender I have bought myself.   Before I owned the Ninja, I used to have a Baby Bullet blender.  The Bullet was good for convenience as it had small cups for blending with.  The reason I ended up purchasing the Ninja was because the Bullet had lost most of its power and took forever to blend a smoothie, and after that it wouldn't even be blended to perfection.

Investing in a good blender was a must for me.  I looked into a couple other blenders of higher price points such as a Vitamix and Blendtec.  I wanted to buy a high quality blender that would last me years.  However I didn't want to spend nearly $500 on a blender. You may be in the same boat yourself.

Today I want to share with you why I ended up going with the 1100 Watt Ninja BL660 and couldn't be happier with the blender that I chose!

Inside the box.

Although I don't have the box anymore, the blender came with the blender base (which controls all the speed settings, a 72 oz. pitcher, two 16 oz. blender cups (with lids), the blade attachment for the pitcher, as well as a blade for the 16 oz. cups, and the manual.

Personally I find that the 16 oz. cups are the most useful as I am rarely making a smoothie for multiple people at a time.   The 16 oz. cups are convenient (I never have to dirty any other dishes, and the blending process is quick and easy.

Everyday use / reliability.

I use the blender nearly every single day. Having owned it for about 3 years now, I can confidently say that the Ninja has never failed me when making a smoothie or protein shake.  However, as I am writing this blog, the only problem I have noticed is that it seems that it may have lost some power over the years.  That being said, it might take only 3 more seconds to blend a smoothie than it used to when I first purchased the blender.

The Ninja is caplable of chopping up frozen fruit into a perfect thick smoothie in a matter of just a few seconds.  This is a huge reason I still love the blender to this day, and believe it is an amazing value for the money.

The blender is also super easy to use.  If you are using the 16 oz. cups you only have to press one button for blending.  If you are using the 72 oz. pitcher, there are 3 speeds to choose from as well as a pulse button.  As I stated before, the blender can create the perfect smoothie within just a few seconds.

Pros & cons.

Pros:

- Easy to set up
- Easy to use
- Blends fast
- Convenient
- Reliable

Cons:

- The pitcher blade must be washed with care
- Although it still blends up a smoothie quick, it does take a couple seconds longer than it did when it was brand new.

The importance of a good blender.

I am a huge believer in investing money into a good blender.  This is because when I lost most of my fat, I was making smoothies every morning before school.  I was able to make a quick healthy breakfast smoothie within just a few second with the Ninja.

Most of us also want to save time.  The problem with a blender with only a pitcher, or that blends slow (or both) is that they can take a long time to clean or take a long time to blend your smoothie into a smooth consistency.

With the Ninja you have the convenience of choosing between a 72 oz. pitcher and a 16 oz. cup, as well as blending the perfect smoothie in seconds!

Overall.

I have blended everything from a simple protein shake (milk and protein powder) to nuts (nut butter) in the Ninja and have never been let down.

Owning the Ninja for about 3 years, I can confidently say that this blender has paid for itself and will continue to again and again.  It doesn't take up much space and is used nearly every single day.  It is versatile as it can be used for individual use or for multiple people (with the 72 oz. pitcher), and will blend anything (within reason).

The blender has served me well for about 3 years and will continue to.  I know it will for you as well.  This blender is a no brainer and an investment into your very own health!

Make the best of today,

Brian

Why You Should Meditate Daily.

Over the past month or so I have been meditating nearly every single day.  I have also practiced meditation over the past couple of year on and off.  Whenever I do meditate there are certain beenfits that I notice during my day to day life.  Today we are going to discuss why you should be meditating daily and how meditation can benefit you!


You will notice more peace of mind.

I realized this after meditating every weekday and then not taking the time to meditate on the weekend last week.  Although I meditated nearly every single day over the past month,  I noticed that I actually was more in my head over the weekend when I didn't meditate, as well as feeling like I could get stressed easier than usual.

I am not claiming that meditation is going to solve all your problems and eliminate stress from your life all together.  I still experience stress, but from what I have noticed, I don't stress over little things as much as I used to in the past.

You may have a similar experience when you begin to mediate on a daily basis.  If you take a day off you really start to notice how much it affects your peace of mind.  Rather if you meditate everyday you will notice that you have a more calm, present mindset for the rest of the day.

You will be more centered & present in the moment.

By far one of the biggest benefits I have received from meditation is the ability to be present more in my day to day life.  This is something most of us struggle with today.  It is nearly impossible to be present when we are distracted by phone notifications, TV, etc.  Although I wouldn't consider myself even close to 100% present in the moment I have noticed that meditation has helped me be about 20% more present than I used to be in the past (as well as being aware of when I am not present).

This especially helps everything from when you are talking to people, to when you are stretching / doing yoga.


You will notice your breathe throughout the day.

This may not seem like a big deal to you, but how often do you notice how you are breathing?  How do you think your breathe affects your life as a whole?

By being mindful of your breathe throughout the day, you actually start to develop a gratitude for each and every breathe.  Being mindful of your breathe throughout the day can actually help you be more calm and present as well.

You will be more inclined to spend time in nature or outside.

By far this has to be the point that is the most enjoyable in my life.  Getting out in nature is so important to our health, and meditation actually has inspired me to get into nature more often.  This section here is just my opinion and personal preference, but I know that many of you will feel the same when you start to meditate daily.

If you are someone who enjoys the outdoors meditation can act as a massive influence in your life to get outside and in nature even more.  As a bonus you will be able to enjoy nature even more as well as notice a calming sensation when in nature!

Meditation will help you build healthy habits.

Maybe right now you want to implement healthier foods into your diet, but you are having trouble.  I have noticed that by meditating, it seems as if the more I do it, the more I eat healthier foods.  I especially find it useful if you want to implement greens into your diet.

Eating greens alone can be a meditation.  Just by being present with all the flavors you are tasting, and feeling the life that the greens are giving you can help you to be extremely present in the moment.  And it can almost seem like the more you meditate, the more you will be drawn to these healthy foods that you want to start eating.

I know this point may be a little out there, but I am a huge believer in the philosophy that if you feed your mind good stuff, you will be more likely to feed your body good stuff as well (or vice versa).

You will notice how outside influences impact your life (such as tv, and the food that you eat)

Most of the influences that we have been brought up around can have a massive negative impact on our lives.  Whether it be from TV shows that are likely to keep us in a negative state, or the junk food that is considered normal today.

Just by taking 10-20 minutes daily to mediate you will be more conscious of the entertainment/media and food that you consume on a daily basis.  The good thing about this is that you will become aware of your lifestyle, and it will help you grow in the areas you need to grow in!

Closing thoughts.

These have been the benefits that I have noticed in my life that I hope you will notice in your life as well.  Meditation is very beneficial, and I really wanted to share this message with you to hopefully be a positive influence in your life and help you to start your very own meditation journey!

If you already meditate which benefits do you notice in your own life?

Make the best of today,

Brian