We all love overnight results. And although it might be right to say that nothing good really gets delivered overnight, there still remains this inner urge to find out that cutting edge habit of all successful people that we can include in our life and bring us in unison with the ultimate goal of getting better.
Better. Just like getting leaner and closer to losing that last bit of fat from our tummies that simply won't move away, no matter how many times we punch, kneed, pinch, squeeze or self-massage it away in all directions.
What if there was a way though? What if we were overlooking some simplistic steps to be taken all this time?
Well, yes, we can. And here are three such quick changes that might ignite your motivation sky high to make you try them right now.
1. Control of Your Emotions to Control Fat Gain
Let's hear it once and for all.
Fat Loss is an emotional battle.
Yes, it has a tremendous physical counterpart to it, such as preparation of meals, planning, purchasing the groceries and yes, of course, targeted training.
But how many of us actually notice that it is in fact, our thoughts, moods and emotional states that trigger cravings?
An upset low mood? Bang! The needs for munching on some cheeselings is triggered.
Had a rough fight with a customer in office? Sounds like the best time to have some samosas with the evening tea.
Bored at home and got nothing done all the Sunday? Let's get wasted to experience a high and order some large pizzas.
You see? All the disastrous and fat-loss demolishing outcomes above have been steered through mental states of depression, anxiety, loneliness or simply boredom. Yes. Boredom makes many of us eat to get entertained
Now, with that said, how does one put a handle on our emotions while we are focusing on getting leaner through diet and exercise?
While there is no single best way to do this that's better than practicing self-control, we can always hack our psychology. The best way to do so is to start clearly distinguishing between physiological and psychological hunger. After a while, it gets really easy to make this out.
The trick question to ask ourselves at such times is: 'Is the hunger so bad that it can shortly result in our death?' If the answer is no, you better give that subway meal a pass for now.
And of course, try to find out ways to stay enlightened, positive and entertained and do not let yourself fall into depression traps throughout the day.
2. Work on your N.E.P.A.
Long before wearable movement and activity trackers became all the rage, our ancestors, in absence of technology were moving a lot.
They walked miles long trails through the country side or forests. They climbed hills and walked the herd of cattle or pets. A lot of manual labor was also involved even in the daily chores of middle aged women. Men had their own load of subconscious activity over prolonged hours often.
And guess what, all of this resulted in a very leaner generation of our ancestors. Don't believe me? Pull out an old album and look at the pics of your grandparents, or even your parents when they were your age. Absence of comfort foods aside, a lot of their leaner condition can be attributed to how, in the absence of technology to make life easier, they took it upon themselves to go extra miles, climb up the floors or even engage in caloric challenges in the household.
Fast forward to today, we have come to call it Non Exercise Physical Activity (NEPA)
The reason behind NEPA being such a strong determinant of someone's leanness is how it represents those 23 hours of the day outside your 1 hour gym training window.
And the simplest way to augment your efforts in the gym to damage-proof fat-loss is to extend exercise in a disguise throughout the day, in one way or another.
NEPA is also why encouraging kids to engage in Sports and games is also a great idea to guarantee a foundation of fit and metabolically active lifestyles at an early age.
So, if immediate fat-loss is your thing, don't look further than your activity tracker and get active and mobile outside the gym as much as inside it.
3. Do Hard Things
We love easy.
Okay, I admit, I love easy too. Authoring a blog on fitness, I still go on to admit this.
There is inherently nothing wrong in striving to make things easier. That's what makes life-altering inventions happen.
But we need to understand where the fine line differentiating easy's advantages and disadvantages exists.
But what's easy, you ask? All that modern day living has condensed inside a handheld mobile phone or a laptop.
Food delivery, household repairs, grocery shopping, moving heavy furniture, commuting carrying heavy bags, picking up heavy household stuff and placing it... the list goes on.
Those are all things that are passe today. Also, those are all things that can be done while being seated on the same sofa in the drawing room using just a mobile phone. How better do we expect to get doing this button-pushing lifestyle? And leaner? Absolutely nay!
Here's an easy(duh, again) solution to this: Start identifying stuff you find hard. Then keep doing it.
In fact, this slight shift is going to be so rewarding, over a period of months, it may not only make you leaner (provided every other variable such as diet is on mark), it will also develop qualities in you like:
1. Strength
2. Balance
3. Better Grip
4. Better Core stablization
5. Better walking pattern
6. Fixing anterior/posterior pelvic tilt aka improvement in posture
7. Improved immunity
And we are just getting started with the benefits.
Above all, engaging in physical labor makes you more confident and 'in control'.
Which brings us to: "What the hell do I really do? I find everything hard. Uhh"
Here's the 'easy' list of hard for you:
1. Start lifting your bags or carrying them rather than towing them on wheels. Ditch trolley bags on one trip and switch to ruck sacks or heavy hand-bags
2. Move plants and heavy pots yourself in the garden
3. Carry heavy water buckets for distance
4. Park vehicle insanely away from office
5. Use a chair and table to use your laptop rather than lying on your belly like a walrus on the bed or couch
6. Eat bitter stuff like veggies, garlic, onions, cinnamon, olives, lemon etc more than all the delicious stuff like pastries, pizzas, bagels, bread or basically anything loaded with sugar.
7. You may feel like it but getting to bed an hour early than your usual time, and getting up an hour early as well is a hell of a rewarding and hard change. Do it.
8. Here's one from the Oak, Arnold Schwarzenegger himself: Arnie cropped the lower halves of his pants to really expose his lack of calf development. And it turned out to be a smart change since the
combined humiliation of his relatively smaller calves being exposed made him work them twice as hard and it resulted in tremendous growth.
What you can do about it is start wearing clothes that expose your holiday fat gain. Wear tank tops, shorts, fitter clothing and those garments from five years back that simply won't fit. And you will love the way you may work towards transforming yourself quickly enough before people start noticing that you are out of shape. I find this as a really smart and free of cost catalyst for leanness.
Sooner than later, maybe 2 to 3 months down the line of doing these more masochistic activities, you may realize how you have come to resemble Grandpa or Granny from that 40 years old Black and White pic in your family album.
How do you find these three switches to fat loss? If you are equally amazed with these as I, drop your comments or questions below. Until then!
Better. Just like getting leaner and closer to losing that last bit of fat from our tummies that simply won't move away, no matter how many times we punch, kneed, pinch, squeeze or self-massage it away in all directions.
What if there was a way though? What if we were overlooking some simplistic steps to be taken all this time?
Well, yes, we can. And here are three such quick changes that might ignite your motivation sky high to make you try them right now.
1. Control of Your Emotions to Control Fat Gain
Let's hear it once and for all.
Fat Loss is an emotional battle.
Yes, it has a tremendous physical counterpart to it, such as preparation of meals, planning, purchasing the groceries and yes, of course, targeted training.
But how many of us actually notice that it is in fact, our thoughts, moods and emotional states that trigger cravings?
An upset low mood? Bang! The needs for munching on some cheeselings is triggered.
Had a rough fight with a customer in office? Sounds like the best time to have some samosas with the evening tea.
Bored at home and got nothing done all the Sunday? Let's get wasted to experience a high and order some large pizzas.
You see? All the disastrous and fat-loss demolishing outcomes above have been steered through mental states of depression, anxiety, loneliness or simply boredom. Yes. Boredom makes many of us eat to get entertained
Now, with that said, how does one put a handle on our emotions while we are focusing on getting leaner through diet and exercise?
While there is no single best way to do this that's better than practicing self-control, we can always hack our psychology. The best way to do so is to start clearly distinguishing between physiological and psychological hunger. After a while, it gets really easy to make this out.
The trick question to ask ourselves at such times is: 'Is the hunger so bad that it can shortly result in our death?' If the answer is no, you better give that subway meal a pass for now.
And of course, try to find out ways to stay enlightened, positive and entertained and do not let yourself fall into depression traps throughout the day.
2. Work on your N.E.P.A.
Long before wearable movement and activity trackers became all the rage, our ancestors, in absence of technology were moving a lot.
They walked miles long trails through the country side or forests. They climbed hills and walked the herd of cattle or pets. A lot of manual labor was also involved even in the daily chores of middle aged women. Men had their own load of subconscious activity over prolonged hours often.
And guess what, all of this resulted in a very leaner generation of our ancestors. Don't believe me? Pull out an old album and look at the pics of your grandparents, or even your parents when they were your age. Absence of comfort foods aside, a lot of their leaner condition can be attributed to how, in the absence of technology to make life easier, they took it upon themselves to go extra miles, climb up the floors or even engage in caloric challenges in the household.
Fast forward to today, we have come to call it Non Exercise Physical Activity (NEPA)
The reason behind NEPA being such a strong determinant of someone's leanness is how it represents those 23 hours of the day outside your 1 hour gym training window.
And the simplest way to augment your efforts in the gym to damage-proof fat-loss is to extend exercise in a disguise throughout the day, in one way or another.
NEPA is also why encouraging kids to engage in Sports and games is also a great idea to guarantee a foundation of fit and metabolically active lifestyles at an early age.
So, if immediate fat-loss is your thing, don't look further than your activity tracker and get active and mobile outside the gym as much as inside it.
3. Do Hard Things
We love easy.
Okay, I admit, I love easy too. Authoring a blog on fitness, I still go on to admit this.
There is inherently nothing wrong in striving to make things easier. That's what makes life-altering inventions happen.
But we need to understand where the fine line differentiating easy's advantages and disadvantages exists.
But what's easy, you ask? All that modern day living has condensed inside a handheld mobile phone or a laptop.
Food delivery, household repairs, grocery shopping, moving heavy furniture, commuting carrying heavy bags, picking up heavy household stuff and placing it... the list goes on.
Those are all things that are passe today. Also, those are all things that can be done while being seated on the same sofa in the drawing room using just a mobile phone. How better do we expect to get doing this button-pushing lifestyle? And leaner? Absolutely nay!
Here's an easy(duh, again) solution to this: Start identifying stuff you find hard. Then keep doing it.
In fact, this slight shift is going to be so rewarding, over a period of months, it may not only make you leaner (provided every other variable such as diet is on mark), it will also develop qualities in you like:
1. Strength
2. Balance
3. Better Grip
4. Better Core stablization
5. Better walking pattern
6. Fixing anterior/posterior pelvic tilt aka improvement in posture
7. Improved immunity
And we are just getting started with the benefits.
Above all, engaging in physical labor makes you more confident and 'in control'.
Which brings us to: "What the hell do I really do? I find everything hard. Uhh"
Here's the 'easy' list of hard for you:
1. Start lifting your bags or carrying them rather than towing them on wheels. Ditch trolley bags on one trip and switch to ruck sacks or heavy hand-bags
2. Move plants and heavy pots yourself in the garden
3. Carry heavy water buckets for distance
4. Park vehicle insanely away from office
5. Use a chair and table to use your laptop rather than lying on your belly like a walrus on the bed or couch
6. Eat bitter stuff like veggies, garlic, onions, cinnamon, olives, lemon etc more than all the delicious stuff like pastries, pizzas, bagels, bread or basically anything loaded with sugar.
7. You may feel like it but getting to bed an hour early than your usual time, and getting up an hour early as well is a hell of a rewarding and hard change. Do it.
8. Here's one from the Oak, Arnold Schwarzenegger himself: Arnie cropped the lower halves of his pants to really expose his lack of calf development. And it turned out to be a smart change since the
combined humiliation of his relatively smaller calves being exposed made him work them twice as hard and it resulted in tremendous growth.
What you can do about it is start wearing clothes that expose your holiday fat gain. Wear tank tops, shorts, fitter clothing and those garments from five years back that simply won't fit. And you will love the way you may work towards transforming yourself quickly enough before people start noticing that you are out of shape. I find this as a really smart and free of cost catalyst for leanness.
Sooner than later, maybe 2 to 3 months down the line of doing these more masochistic activities, you may realize how you have come to resemble Grandpa or Granny from that 40 years old Black and White pic in your family album.
How do you find these three switches to fat loss? If you are equally amazed with these as I, drop your comments or questions below. Until then!