 |
|
|
|
Have You Been Eating your Wheaties? |
 |
 |
 |
| Written by Jason Aaron Baca | |
Do you remember walking into your gym on January 1st this year? Did you notice how crowded it was all of a sudden? Do you remember the serious look they had on their face? Do you remember watching them workout and saw how they were making it harder then it had to be? And finally, did you notice not seeing them in the gym any other day since then? If you answered yes to those questions, this is all too common. They have this “New Years Resolution” I see it every year at my gym. These guys come in all empowered, chest sticking out like King Kong. They are often pushy and ask how many more sets you have on the machine you are sitting on to try and get you to move off it. Little do they know that you are a regular in the gym so they’ve instantly insulted you. They don’t know any better. But you don’t overreact, you kindly say sure go ahead and use this machine, I’ll use the one over there that does the exact same movement. It’s great that you have people that have this New Years Resolution of wanting to get in shape. But all too often, they fall short because they aren’t specific enough to their brains. Every New Year’s when I step into my gym there is that sheer panic that comes over me as I notice the gym is way too crowded for me to be able to get an adequate workout. But then I realize that the majority of these people will be gone in a few days and a calmness rushes over me in an awesome wave. There is a pretty simple reason why the majority of these people won’t make it in the gym past January. I will tell you a little story or 2 that contain some important secrets to unlocking your body’s potential. When I was a child growing up I remember being over at my Grandma’s house watching Popeye the cartoon. I saw how he grabbed a tin can of spinach and squeezed it with his fingertips. The spinach then came flying out of the can and fell perfectly down his throat. I closely watched as he transformed into a machine! He’d pick up Brutes and throw him in the sky and rescue Olive Oil from the train rushing train. I quickly ran into the kitchen where my Grandma was cooking and told her I wanted spinach for lunch! She was confused as to why then laughed when she realized I had Popeye on in the other room. So she made me an entire can of spinach. I ate the whole can! Instantly, I sat up from the table and thought that now that I had spinach in my body, I was big and strong and I had muscles. I remember wanting to wrestle the kid across the street just so I could see what I could do. I knew I was going to wipe him out because I ate spinach. The kid agreed and I tossed him around like a cat does to an injured mouse! After a minute he didn’t want to play with me anymore. When I got older I saw boys at my grammar school eating Wheaties. So I went and told my Momma what the big boys eat. She made sure to stock our shelves. I insisted she do away with the Caption Crunch. She agreed and from that moment on, it was Wheaties to look forward to for breakfast. I remember going to school and I’d just finished eating my wheaties at lunch. Our teacher took the whole class out to the field for a game of kick ball. Well I thought I had superman strength and ended up being the only boy to kick the ball over the fence. All the kids would be cheering for me as I circled the bases but I wasn’t paying any attention. My mind was wondering how I’d do playing against the bigger kids over on the other field.
The moral of these stories are: When the mind believes something it believes it! As an adult, it’s the same scenario. If you believe you can create muscles, you can! All it takes is a vision! I think the people that have those New Year’s Resolutions of wanting to get in shape lack that very vision. They want to get in shape. Sure that is great. But what kind of shape do they want to get in exactly? Do you want to look lean like a runner? Buffed out like Arnold? Or toned like a Boxer? There are an endless amount of roll models that have a variety of bodies to choose from. It’s like walking into a Macy’s and picking out an outfit. You don’t just walk in and tell the employee “I want to look nice” You tell them the type of garment you want specifically. Otherwise, he will go and search for an outfit HE thinks will look nice which doesn’t necessarily mean it will look good on you. Think of your brain like that employee at Macy’s. Explain what you want, show him photos of what you want. Let him study the photos for a while so that he has a clear picture of what you are striving for. What you create in your head can also work against you too. I have a friend that feels that because he’s a certain age and has kids that he will have to live with being fat the rest of his life. This is the way my body is suppose to look at this age, he’d tell me. And he’d go on to say that when he’s 70 he will be hunched over and wrinkled. Well if he doesn’t change his thought patterns now, he’s going to embed those mental images into his brain. I think you know where this is going for the guy. I remember one time for about a month or so I got stale. My workouts were crumby. My eating habits were going south. I was in the gym doing hack squat when I suddenly stopped. “What am I after?” What’s the point? I said to myself. I didn’t touch another weight the rest of the day. I came home and thought about it. What was missing? I thought and thought and realized my brain had forgotten what its goals were with the gym. So I needed to go back and start at the beginning. I needed to look up the guys I wanted to look like. I needed to envision my body looking like theirs. I wanted to look even better! And if these roll models were to see me, I’d end up being their roll model.
In the gym, when an overweight guy would try to come over to me and give me advice, I wouldn’t listen. If the exercise he was showing me wasn’t working for him, what makes him think it would work for anyone else? But when I would see a guy that had a body equally as good as mine or say slightly better and he had advice, I’d listen carefully. These are the guys you want to pick at the brains of. They are the ones that have been successful in the gym, not the overweight guy. It’s just like would you take advice from a guy on how to get a job if he’s been unemployed for 3 ½ yrs? Or would you listen to the guy that found a job in a matter of weeks? When you mirror those that hold the secrets to success that you are after, you will get a similar result as they do. That is if you give it your heart and soul in the gym. You can’t just picture what you want to look like then run into the gym and throw the weights around either. If you challenged yourself and gave yourself a high level body to shoot for then you are going to have to work hard for it. So what does a person do if they want to have a body like mine? Ok here are my secrets to you. Besides all the important information I just addressed above, here are the meat and potatoes of my exercise and diet plan. I have personally found that by living inside this rigorous workout regimen and living in a health diet, it has proved successful. For my workouts I do chest/triceps on day 1, back on day 2, shoulders day 3, legs day 4, biceps day 5, rest on day 6 and the cycle repeats itself. I do forearms, calves, & abs everyday since we use those muscles on a daily basis and need to get trained regularly if you want to see results. I make sure not to just rush through my sets. If you do them at a fast rate then you don’t get the full effect of the movement. Take your time, go slow and make sure to squeeze at the top. I tend to be the type that does a little lighter weight and a lot of reps. I like to feel that burn for longer then normal. I know that if I can stay in that moment just a little longer for just one of two more reps, I will benefit. Many times I’ve found myself on the 15th or 16th rep of an exercise and then I tell myself to do 3 more. It’s those 3 reps that usually burn in that separation in the body! A thing to remember too about working out is not to play around the edges of what needs to get done. So for example, if you need to work on your midsection then you shouldn’t focus so hard on your biceps. I know a lot of people that can’t stand doing abs so they just avoid them. Well before long all the rest of their body looks great but then their abs are far behind. Then when they want to go on vacation to the Bahamas, they are embarrassed to wear a bathing suit. Face your weak points head on! Do not get discouraged if you do these workouts day in and day out and aren’t seeing any progress on your body. I had friends that I’d see workout out like maniacs. You could see them in the gym making crazy faces as they’d push out that one last repetition. Then you’d see them in the gym every day but 3 months down the road, their body still looks exactly the same as it did in the beginning. These are the guys that I suggest taking a photo of their front, side & back and writing down the date of the photo. They should put it away for a few months, keep working out hard, then take the 3 same photos again and see where they are at. Even if they only see minimal improvement, its still forward progress toward their goal. As for the diet. It can be just as important if not more important then the exercise itself. I read somewhere how a bodybuilder said that he can go several months without working out and maintain his body with proper diet but can only go a few weeks if he comes off his diet and continues to lift. I have always had the theory that if it tastes delicious, then you may want to check out the nutritional facts!
- Pork Loin - Egg whites - Skinless chicken - Turkey breast - Low carbohydrate protein bars - Cottage cheese - Fruit - Veggies - Wheaties with Non-Fat Milk I always drink plenty of spring water and not the cheap purified water you find at Target. Those contain unwanted sodium that your body is trying to rid itself of. I also take a multi vitamin 6 days per week. I avoid any deep fried foods or pastas with sauces mixed in with butter and oil. Sure that stuff tastes good but once you are done eating it you feel stuffed and maybe a little sick. Now if you are like me and love to eat then portion control can be a problem for you. I know that for the longest time I couldn’t understand why I was working out hard and eating good clean foods but my body would not get any more cut. I realized after a guy told me at the gym that I should also be watching my caloric intake. After I thought about it for a while, he was right. I was eating way more then I needed. It can be hard to judge what’s the correct amount each day because protein will make you fool but once your body utilizes it, it gets hungry again fast unlike carbohydrates. It is something to pay attention to though. Every night after I eat dinner at 6pm I jog in place for 10-15 minutes then do my stomach crunches (which I try to do 500 but I can do a thousand now.) After that I do a walk through the neighborhood to cool off. If I am still hungry after all of that (which a lot of the time I am) then I drink some water. Eating too late is unnecessary too. I try to eat, sleep, and exercise the same time everyday. Your body will get used to your cycle of doing things and your workouts will improve over time. Stay on track, if you louse up one day and have a burger, don’t get too down on yourself. Just hope right back on board and keep going. Think of the burger as fuel for your big workout you have planed. I never think for a second that if I have a bad eating day that it will completely change my body around for good. It won’t! You just have to maintain your healthy eating again. When you do have a cheeseburger or several slices of pepperoni pizza, learn what caused you to give into your cravings. Did you starve yourself too long? Or was it the smell of the restaurant that lured you as you drove by? Or was it that you just didn’t feel like dieting anymore and were at your wits end? The list can go on and on, but it’s important to realize what caused this so you don’t start any bad habits with diet. One thing I learned is to not even tantalize my brain. I learned that I can’t just “have a nibble” of a Mr.Goodbar chocolate and just stop there. I need to go all in or all out. In the past I’ve tried the method of just having a nibble and it doesn’t work. I end up caving in and having 12 chocolate bars the next hour! My brain gets used to the bland high protein, highly nutritious meals so if my pallet samples something different, I’m in trouble. Eating healthy is just another form of discipline. Just like a drug addict that craves a meth pipe, he knows it’s not right for him. If you look at it this way, it could make it easier for you in the long run. I know that when I go a long time dieting hard before a shoot, there is nothing better than sitting down to a nice pasta dish. It feels nourishing to put some fresh carbs in my body. But to do it everyday would just defeat what I’d worked so hard to create.
I hope that you can use my tools for creating the body and foundation you’ve always dreamed of. Jason Aaron Baca Romance Novel Model
|
