Let's get serious

I'm all about shedding the fat these days. My goal is to be able to get into a weenie bikini this summer and look fantastic. Not really. That'd be wrong. But, I do want to be proud to strip off the t this summer, instead of being the kid who's swimming with a huge cotton t-shirt on. That's not for me.

Unfortunately, the quickest way...and the ONLY way to shed fat, is through proper nutrition(diet). Working out is a critical component, for sure. But, at age 35, the days of just working out harder and losing the extra pounds are over. We have to eat right, eat almost perfect if we want to do it in short order. It's April, so we're doing this in short order. I've got a good 20 pounds of fat I need to shed. And I've only got a couple of months to do it. So, the diet is ON.

I'll give you a few of the general philosophies behind my diet/nutrition strategy for the next two months. Much of this you've heard many times, I'd imagine, as just about every program out there touts this principles....
1. Eat smaller meals, more often -- My goal is to eat 5 or 6 small meals per day. It keeps us feeling full and it blows our metabolism rate up to a much higher level.
2. I'm focusing on protein at every meal -- the goal is to get protein each time I eat, but it's not just any protein...lean meats, protein powders, fish, eggs, etc.
3. I'm cutting simple sugars out completely -- complex carbs are ok, as are fruits and veges. But no soda, no ice cream, and no Sour Patch Kids.
4. I'm adding some supplements to it -- I'm focusing on fiber supplements, fat burners(before workouts) and protein shakes.

These are the broad strokes of how I'm structuring my nutrition, but the bottom line is that I need to have a calorie defecit of around 700 calories per day. That means I should be consuming around 1800-2500 per day, depending on my workouts.

My workouts are looking like this....

I'm still running quite a bit, as I'm training for a half marathon in Champaign on May 1. So, that training has me running about 30 miles per week or so. It's hard to put on lean muscle mass when you're running that much, but I'm doing my best to do enough strength training and eating to a point that I don't just wilt away. Don't want to be the guy who gets sand kicked in his face at the beach...

The strength training is four days per week, focusing on total body workouts. I'm incorporating a lot of the CrossFit principles, doing Olympic lifts, body weight exercises and power moves. That's not all I'm doing. My main objective is to make sure I blow up my muscles four days per week, minimum. I'd ask you to refer to Crossfit.com and check out their WOD's(work out of the day). I don't care what kind of weight training you're doing, I just think we all have to do it. Muscle mass is too fleeting at this stage of the game for most of us. We have to keep slamming in the weightroom or we're not going to have the broad shoulders the women are looking for.

When it comes to lifting, I am proud to say I still have a fairly juvenile attitude towards it. I'm still wanting to throw around as much weight as I can(without injuring myself of course), because I want to push my limits. I want to be in the best shape of my life. Going in and doing 135 pounds on the bench for sets of 30 is not going to cut it. It's better than doing nothing, for certain. But, I think we have to get after it in there, the same way we do in our businesses and in life in general...

Which brings me to my next point. There are times in a man's life when it serves him to be casual--to just go with the flow and have a relaxed attitude about whatever is going on. You know, to just not sweat the details...whatever happens, happens. Our fitness is not one of these occasions. Our time at work is not one of these times. Too many good guys I know are falling short in this area. The highest achievers...the ass kickers in life, business, and fitness are never casual about anything having to do with the "bigs" in life. There's just too much at stake to take a casual approach and just fuck around. Look around, brother, there are guys out there who are trying to take things from us as we speak. If you've got something good going in your life, I can promise you there's somebody thinking of a way to take it from you. Your business, your job, your customers, your girl...some asshole is chomping at the bit to strip it from you.

That may seem like a jaded outlook, but ultimately, I think it's true. We can not afford to just go with the flow when it comes to these important aspects of our lives. Our businesses deserve every ounce of focus and energy we have inside of us. Our bodies deserve every ounce of respect and focus we have inside. Our women, our kids, our financial futures all deserve every ounce of blood, guts, and tears we have inside. Maybe you're one of those guys that's just too cool to give it your all. You have a rep to uphold. You wouldn't want your buddies to see you giving your gig your all...that's what the geeks and sellouts do. I'll tell you right now, no ass kicking, ripped, money making guy I know ever takes this sort of detached approach to the bigs. You can not have it both ways. You can't make it to the top -- be physically ripped, be liquid and rich, be a leader in your industry, make your wife or girlfriend weak in the knees and carry yourself with nonchalance. We have to get ourselves into that peak mental and emotional state every single time we work out, run, speak to our girls, pitch a deal, write a blog post...that state in which we have some cock in our walk, our shoulders back, heads high, ready to blow through any challenge standing between us and what we want. We have to stand up and give ourselves the respect we deserve, and we do this by demonstrating to those around us that we're worthy of their best. No one will ever give us their full respect, no one will ever come to us with the deal of a lifetime, if we're not showing ourselves the respect we deserve. Winners can smell that kind of confidence a mile away. Winners can sniff out a Sally or a talker just as quickly. We have to man up every day, get ourselves into state, and take care of our business. There will be plenty of time for casual later....

Flip the switch