Transcription
Lots of people think that becoming fit requires you to have a daily risen grind set in your mindset only to find that inside that hardhead you're upset with regret want to reset. But whoever said that is incorrect but also bars.
David Gogggins, Joseph Rogan, Jaco Willink and other Gears of War characters come to life always talk about pushing past your limits, embracing suffering and living that hustle culture no days off alpha grind set. But the reality is when it comes to success in fitness, this approach doesn't work for 99.99 with a line over it percent of people. Becoming fit is available to almost everybody with methods that are much more reasonable, manageable, and realistic than the David Gogggins method of running till you pee blood. Piss so much blood.
Some people also think that getting fit requires you to restrict your eating like your Killian Murphy prepping for Oppenheimer or forces you to get on some other crazy diet. I'm a level five vegan. I won't eat anything that casts a shadow. Wow. But the reality is there is a way to eat food that you like that still works toward your fitness goals by focusing on really simple daily benchmarks like hitting your protein numbers, which for most people is about 1 g of protein per pound you weigh, which does sound like a lot of protein. Like for me, that's sacrificing four chickens a day just to be built like a ego waffle. But that's where drinking your protein comes in handy with protein shakes you can make at home or even pre-made ones that are actually pretty good and don't taste like booty hole unless you're into that.
Before we really dive into all the specifics here, let's go over the common mistakes that people run into while trying to get fit. Going too hard too fast. Inspired by the Rocky montage. You hit the gym 7 days a week. You only eat chicken and broccoli. You buy all the gym clothes, even that one that looks like a giant thong. And you go pedal to the metal, ball to the walls, nose to the hose, rib to the bib, fork to the pork. And then you burn out because you switch up your lifestyle so immediately it was unsustainable. You try to take a sharp left turn, but you're Derek Zoolander.
This all or nothing mentality is super common for people starting out and often leads to people going from zero to 100 and then back to zero. The name of the game is consistency and that means slow growth and progress that can develop lasting habits. This is the true key to becoming fit. One crazy workout session isn't going to change your whole physique, but dozens of medium difficulty workouts will. And you can take that to the bank. You won't be able to exchange it for any money, but you can still take it there.
This focus on sustainable habits is especially strong because it doesn't rely on motivation. Motivation is definitely useful when it's there. It usually arrives when you see another person who's super jacked or realize you look like a P90X before photo or most commonly you feel intense motivation after a big breakup because it's very true breakups make bodybuilders. But in the end, motivation is extremely fleeting and you'll feel like it maybe 20% of the time. Habits, systems, and routines are the things you can really rely on and are the core of becoming truly fit. Uncle Iro may have felt motivated to start working out before, but he only really started to get jacked when he was forced to have a rigid routine in a Fire Nation prison. And look at him now. Biggest dil west of bossing say.
So, how do you create a system that works for you? I'll tell you what I do. First, I get fired up by watching best of Uncle Iro compilations on YouTube. And then I get to work. First thing in the morning, Monday through Friday, I get a workout in. And for each of these sessions, I only do a small handful of exercises. I have roughly 30-minute workouts. And at the end of it, the muscles I use are heavily stimulated, but I'm not really that close to feeling exhausted. Partially because I am so strong and very humble. But also, the strategy here is to have manageable workouts that aren't daunting.
I used to try to go to the gym 3 days a week for hour and a half sessions, hitting multiple muscle groups each time, which in theory is a good plan, but because they were such hard sessions, I would dread them and inevitably skip, shorten, or avoid a lot of them. With shorter, more enjoyable workouts, that mental hurdle to get to the gym is much lower. So, it's a lot easier to be consistent. And because I go 5 days a week, I'm still able to do all the workouts on my list and hit every area that I want to just spread out into more manageable sessions.
When A was learning how to bend all four elements, he didn't do them all at once. He mastered air bending first and then water bending next because trying to learn the rest of them all at the same time would be impossible. And also because he was really trying to get at Qatara. Honestly, for a kid, he was he was pretty sexually charged. Oh, a you dirty dog. I mean, I guess for a hundred years he did have blue ball. Hey, can you make sure you edit that joke out?
I know that spreading things out to make them more manageable will anger the David Gogggins of the world who will be like, "Sounds like beta behavior to me. You got to want it. Stay hard." And I get it. Over time, you can build up to having these crazy intense workouts. But for the vast majority of people, starting with consistency as the north star is the way to go. Not all of us can stay hard. Not that I have an issue with that. I don't. Trust me. Feel free to ask any of the women in my imagination.
And that brings us to the sponsor of this video. Bluechu. Just kidding. But that would have been perfect. Bluechu, you're missing out. Guys, call your local Blue Chu representative and let them know. They got to jump on the smart adjacent train early because your boy about to rise up like he just downed a handful of blueies. If they don't sponsor me while I'm alive, I hope they would at least sponsor my funeral. Just so the priest would have to be like, "Hey everyone, I know this is hard for you, but not as hard as you can be on Bluetooth. Use code hardest goodbye for 10% off. And thank you to BetterHelp. With BetterHelp, maybe Jonathan wouldn't have done it."
All right, here's some quick tips I'd recommend. If you dread your workouts, just make them a little easier so you don't hate them so much. And if you want, you can ramp up the intensity later on. Consistency is king. Also, try to work out in the morning if possible. Your willpower meter is much lower in the evenings, and nighttime workouts can potentially make it harder to get quality sleep. So, if possible, get the workout out of the way before you have time to come up with the excuses that your brain is an absolute pro at making. That's why there are so many famous quotes about getting up early, like the early bird gets the worm, and early to bed, early to rise gives a man thick and veiny quads and thighs. I think that one is Ben Franklin.
And to help solidify the habit of working out, try habit stacking. Habit stacking is a tactic I learned from the book Atomic Habits by James Clear, where if you have a new habit that you want to stick, you attach it to a habit you already have. Every morning, I brush my teeth without fail, despite the rumors my ex is spreading. I brush my teeth. Okay, Denise, I brush my teeth. So, I made a rule where after I leave the bathroom in the morning, I have to hang from my pull-up bar to stretch. And then I do at least three pull-ups. At that point, I usually start to feel a little warmed up, which then leads me to doing push-ups, stretching, and getting into a full workout. Brushing my teeth became the first domino in this habit stack that leads me to working out. No motivation needed, very little willpower, just the smooth brain sequence of I do this, then I do this. Because most of the time, starting is the hardest part.
Your habit stack could be attached to any action you already do consistently. Making your bed, changing your clothes after you wake up, re-watching all the videos on my channel every morning. All things you should definitely do. So, uh, do it.
Another useful tactic taken from Atomic Habits is to reduce the friction around the habits you want to stick. For lots of people, going to the gym after work is tough because they're tired, the gyms are packed, and they have depleted willpower. It's usually not sustainable to fight against the grain like that every single day, which is why so many people are inconsistent. People have different situations, but some potential solutions are waking up early to go to the gym or building a home gym so you can avoid the crowd after work. Stay hard.
Here are some other ideas to decrease friction. You can put your workout clothes out the night before. Prep your gym bag ahead of time. Install a pull-up bar for easy access. Set up a slip and slide that connects directly from your bed to a nearby Planet Fitness. Essentially, you just want to do what you can to make it easier for you to be successful by greasing the hinges and lubing the tube. Woo!
All right, let's get into the actual workouts. My biggest tip here is to start with movements that you don't hate. Hate running? Don't run. Hate deadlifts? Same. Hate people? Tell me about it. If you don't like squats, you can always use a leg press machine. You can do lunges. You can start working for a moving company. You got options. I personally don't like doing traditional deadlifts because the setup is so tedious. So, I replaced it with landmine deadlifts, which are way easier to set up. And as an additional glute workout, I've also increased the amount of torquing I do at the club. This alternative exercise doesn't engage my glutes exactly the same as deadlifts, but the attention is worth it.
Here's my 5day workout, which you can use as a template and then adjust in whatever way works for you. By the way, I'll include this entire thing in the video description. So, Monday, which is chest day, I'm doing bench press, chest flies, and dips. Tuesdays, I do shoulders and abs. So, overhead press for front delts, lat raises for side delts, reverse delt flies for rear delts. And then for abs, I do crunches for upper abs, and hanging leg raise for lower abs. Wednesdays, I wear pink I do back, so I do rows, pull-ups, deadlifts, and then after work, I go to the club and I clap that ass. Thursdays are legs and abs. So, I do leg press machine cuz I hate squats. Dumbbell lunges. And for abs, again, I do crunches and hanging leg raise. Friday, I do some miscellaneous workouts and hit any exercises that I just enjoy. So, I do bench press, pull-ups, bicep curls, and shrugs. Shrugs are a workout I do not only at the gym, but also whenever people ask me questions that I don't know the answer to, which is most of the time. That is one of the positives of being totally clueless. It really builds your traps.
Depending on busyness, tiredness, etc., I cut some workouts short here and there, but this is what I do for the most part. If I'm really tired, I try to still make it to the gym and just do a shorter workout to keep the habit. Like last Monday, I didn't get much sleep because I was not nothing. Anyway, I was tired that day, so I went to the gym, just did a couple pull-ups and maybe two sets of bench press, and then I left. A mediocre workout is still a workout, and you showing up to the gym, even for a quick one, deepens that consistency habit within your brain.
All right, some quick tips. Consistently increasing weight is important for muscle growth. This is called progressive overload and you should do this week after week. So be sure to increase the weight every week. So the progress of your progressive overload load will make you less weak week after week. Oh, I forgot to mention week.
Okay, so there's also the cardio component to all of this. Honestly, whatever you do, whether it's walking, running, chasing waterfalls, which I've heard you really shouldn't do, as long as you're getting yourself moving in a way that you enjoy for at least 10 minutes a day, that's a great place to start. Low impact cardio exercises like stairmaster, elliptical, or incline walk on treadmills are really popular these days because they're not harsh on your knees and they don't make you feel like dying the way running does. I honestly mostly just walk a lot since I live in New York and that's been pretty good for me. Walking is a highly underrated source of cardio and honestly happiness. And I think every day you should be taking at least one walk, whether it's down the street or from a Chinese restaurant.
Okay, let's talk about food. If you're looking to lose fat while building muscle, which is called body recomposition, you need to exist in a caloric deficit while eating about one gram of protein per pound you weigh. Caloric deficit is where the calories you burn is greater than the calories you eat. You can calculate the calories you burn at tdecal.net. And you can calculate the calories you intake by tracking your food with nutrition labels. And for foods that don't have a label, estimating using online resources like My Fitness Pal. It may seem pretty tedious to track these things, but once you do it for a little bit, you'll become able to pretty accurately estimate calories. So, if it does sound like too much, just do it for a week and then you can guesstimate from there.
Once you have your calories in and calories out, you can adjust accordingly to be in a deficit. If you tend to overeat, I'd recommend just cutting your meal in half and putting the other half away before you start eating. That's worked wonders for me because my stomach will eat anything in sight. But luckily, it also lacks object permanence, like a newborn baby fresh out the womb. Mama.
Now, when it comes to protein, it does sound kind of crazy to have to eat one gram of protein per pound you weigh. If you're 180 lbs, that's 180 g of protein a day. Sounds like a lot, but that's where drinking your protein comes in handy. Every day after I work out, I drink one double scoop whey protein shake with oat milk, which is about 50 g of protein. And later on in the day, I drink one pre-made protein drink like Lean Body or Nuri. This gets me to about 80 to 90 g of protein purely from liquids. To get the other 100 gram of protein, here are some common protein richch foods I eat almost every day. Protein waffles, Chipotle bowls, Subway sandwiches, protein pasta, protein pretzels, tofu, and uh Okay, that was one time.
If you're under your protein count for the day, but you just feel like you can't eat anymore, you don't have to stuff yourself and feel sick. Just stop, make adjustments, and try again tomorrow. Sustainability is king. I know I said consistency is king before, which wasn't very consistent of me, but they're both kings, okay? They switch off the crown every other day. Just got off my back.
When it comes to tracking progress, some people do it through scales and shirtless photos, and this could be a great way to see how much progress you're making visually, but I personally don't do this, and I instead focus on the number of times I make it to the gym each week and the weight progress I'm making for each lift. When you focus on the process, you're not obsessing over the number on a scale or your reflection every morning. You're just showing up, doing the work, and one day, you'll notice you look and feel different, and it'll hit you. You've been focusing on your systems, and the results take care of themselves.
Overall, you just got to take it day by day. In the end, all you got to do is get to the door and work on your core. It can feel like torture, but try to do more, even if you're sore. You might feel unsure and think, "What is this for?" It might be a blur, but you've come so far. Remember, you swore to improve from before, to become more mature and avoid eating s'mores. You blast param more and get shirts from the store. You watch Avatar, Uncle Iro, you adore. You're changing a lot and it might feel bizarre. You look really good. You focus on self-care. Your arms got so big, you really can't ignore. You've gone farther in fitness than you've ever explored. You deserve to have fun and really let go. So go straight to the club and hit the dance floor and go shake your butt, you dirty little [Music]