At the ripe young age of 48 I have had a couple of BIG life events that has given me a wonderful opportunity to take inventory. Lots of fitness experiences that may perhaps help you.
\nThe following insights and lessons are my framework of how I try to either live my life, rules and thoughts I train by and general surmises on our sport of bodybuilding. As always, a work in progress.
\n1. Exercise and eating are basic and simple in form, yet most people find this tough in application.
\n2. Many people start weight training to achieve fitness goals, only to give up because they don\u2019t reach their expectations quickly, and because the activity is surprisingly demanding if you are training with tenacity and intensity.
\n3. Life\u2019s only challenge is dealing with the single moment you are having right now. Before I recognized this, I was constantly trying to solve my entire life \u2014 battling problems that weren\u2019t actually happening. Nobody can deal with the past or future, because, both only exist as thoughts, in the present. But we can and we DO kill ourselves trying.
\n4. Gain weight too fast and the trainee will gain fat weight; lose weight too fast and lose muscle.
\n5. Give up trying to convince people that you\u2019re likeable and a nice person. Just be you. If people don\u2019t take the time to meet and greet you, to pay you attention, to speak to you nicely, to ask questions and to engage, that\u2019s ok. You haven\u2019t done anything wrong. You are perhaps just not meant to connect with that particular person and that\u2019s ok. We honestly can\u2019t be friends with absolutely everyone. You don\u2019t have to justify you to anyone.
\n6. Criticism can be a gift. Especially in the fitness industry perhaps more than in any other sphere. We can learn so much from it. It doesn\u2019t mean we have to agree or change what we\u2019re doing. It\u2019s simply a useful PRACTICE for us to define our truth & build our resiliency. Don\u2019t surround yourself with people who always agree with you. Stick your neck out, and then fall in love with your struggles.
\n7. Read. Watch. Engage. Be mentored. Exposure to both new and different ideas increases awareness and possibilities, allows for flexibility, more strings to your bow, and you can also learn what NOT to do!
\n8.Most of life is imaginary.
\nHuman beings have a habit of compulsive thinking that is so pervasive that we lose sight of the fact that we are nearly always thinking. Most of what we interact with is not the world itself, but our beliefs about it, our expectations of it, and our personal interests in it. We have a very difficult time observing something without confusing it with the thoughts we have about it, and so the bulk of what we experience in life is imaginary things. As Mark Twain said: \u201cI\u2019ve been through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.\u201d The best treatment I\u2019ve found? Cultivating mindfulness.
\n9. Emotions exist to make us girls biased.
\nThis discovery was a complete 180 from my old understanding of emotions. I used to think my emotions were reliable indicators of the state of my life \u2014 of whether I\u2019m on the right track or not. Your passing emotional states can\u2019t be trusted for measuring your self-worth or your position in life, but they are great at teaching you what it is you can\u2019t let go of (cheesecake and chocolate anyone). The trouble is that emotions make us both more biased and more forceful at the same time. Another survival mechanism with nasty side-effects.
\n10. Though fundamental, weight training and building muscle are ongoing processes of learning and discovery as the trainee\u2019s development unfolds, as plateaus, injuries and obstacles are engaged and as time goes by and years are added.
\n11 Don\u2019t not do something because you think there are people out there who can do it better than you. There will also be someone more knowledgeable, more well-read, with more experience or more talent and a better physique. Who cares? You need to start somewhere in order to get better and grow. Besides, why NOT you?
\n12 Eating chicken and broc out of Tupperware for 16 weeks is no way to live your life.
\n13 Bacon, nor peanut butter DOES not have magical powers. Pretty sure unicorns don\u2019t either. Oh wait, unicorns don\u2019t exist period!!!!
\n14. This might not agree with the so-called facts gained by research, but about one in a hundred takes personal health seriously by training seriously. Another five pretend to care by going through feeble motions, and the remainder don\u2019t care enough to even pretend.
\n15. My best argument for exercise and eating right is this: What if you don\u2019t?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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