How to MOTIVATE yourself to get to the gym daily

I recently read this beautiful article by Katie Jack on Quora which answers this question int he best possible way. I am, therefore, pasting it here for all the readers.

I’m going to tell you a little secret that a lot of people don’t like to hear.

Are you ready?

Motivation is bullshit.

That’s right. You heard me. In terms of reaching goals, getting through bad days, and completing tasks that you might not necessarily want to do, motivation is bullshit.

Let me break it down. There are typically two key steps to achieving a goal:

Motivate yourself.
Cultivate discipline.

What’s the difference between the two?

Motivation generally operates on the belief that you need to be in a particular mental or emotional state in order to complete a task.

Discipline operates on the belief that inner mental states and emotions should be separated from outward functioning.

For example, when given the choice between eating broccoli or eating cake, operating purely on motivation would mean that you wait until you like broccoli more than you like cake before you start eating the broccoli, because cake tastes better.

You wait until you actually want to do the not-so-fun task to do it.

Discipline, however, would mean that you eat the broccoli even if you’d rather eat the cake because broccoli is better for you.

You do the not-so-fun task even if you don’t want to do it.

The reality is that most of us would much rather eat the cake than the broccoli, but if we wait until we feel like eating the broccoli to actually eat it, we’re all going to have pretty bad health.

Another example is how some people put off going to the gym for years because they just “don’t feel like it.” But you don’t wait until you’re in the physical shape of an Olympic athlete to start training, do you? It doesn’t work like that. You train to get into the physical shape of an Olympic athlete.

If you’re always waiting to be motivated or inspired in order to get started on a task, you’re essentially fucking yourself over and falling for the fantasy that we should always do what we feel like doing.

Life doesn’t work that way.

Although motivation is often an essential step when setting a goal (you get inspired to get fit when you see a picture of a model or get inspired to get an A on a test when your friend gets a better grade than you), motivation is not going to get you where you want to be.

Think about the last time you got motivated to do something. How long was it until your motivation ran out and you gave up? A week? A day? An hour?

Motivation comes in short bursts and typically only lasts for an hour or two at most. Motivation is fickle and driven purely by emotion. Motivation causes you to act on impulse and make inconsistent decisions. Motivation is different every day. Motivation is not going to get you through the tough times when you want to give up. Motivation is not going to help you through the bad days when quitting feels like the only option. Motivation has a tiny shelf life and constantly needs to be replaced and refreshed. Motivation won’t enable you to achieve your goals, and will never be useful in the long run.

Contrary to the popular believe in current society, motivation is not the answer.

Discipline is what you need.

Motivation is what gets you started, but cultivating self discipline is what keeps you going. Motivation is not going to help you achieve your goals in the long haul, not matter how much of it you had when you started. Whether it’s running a marathon or earning a degree or eating your broccoli, you are not always going to feel like finishing something you set out to do, no matter how much motivation you had when you began. Motivation is what gets inspires you to get moving. cultivating self discipline is how you maintain your momentum. Discipline is the only thing that will remove impulse and emotion from your decision-making process and help you sustain your momentum over time.

The point of discipline is to cut the link between feelings and actions.

You’re not always going to be motivated to do things that suck. And the reality of the life is that you’re often going to have to do a lot of things that suck whether you’re motivated to or not, simply because they need to be done. You’re not always going to be inspired to eat the broccoli or make the PowerPoint or run the marathon. But these things need to get done.

The point of discipline is that you get shit done that you may really not want to do, and then you get to feel good afterwards. Not the other way around. You eat the broccoli, make the PowerPoint, and run the marathon, all things which can generally not be so fun while you’re doing them, and then you get to feel good after you’re done with the task or after you’ve reached your goal.

Consider this analogy:

You want to drive somewhere in your car.

Turning the key to start the ignition is motivation.

The fuel in the car is self-discipline.

Yes, putting the key in the car to start the ignition is important to get going, but you have to have fuel if you want your car to be able to withstand the highs and lows of the land in order to reach your destination.

Now apply this analogy to real life. You look at a picture of a model and say to yourself, “I want to get fit.” There’s your motivation. The key has been turned and the ignition has been started. In order to achieve this goal, however, you’re going to have eat healthy and work out every day, whether you have the motivation to or not. This is your discipline. This is your fuel. You set a goal and you plan how you are going to achieve it. And then you stick to that plan on the days that you are motivated to do so, and also on the days you are not. Discipline is commitment.

Here are some harsh truths:

You are not always going to be inspired.

You are not always going to have the motivation to get stuff done.

You are going to have bad days.

You are going to have low points.

You are going to want to quit.

But if you have discipline, you will get through all of these things. You willsurvive the lows, the twists and turns, the forks in the road, and the days when your really just want to do nothing but give up.

For consistent, long term results, discipline will always trump motivation. Discipline is the only thing that is going to give you the commitment, consistency, and patience that you need to achieve your goals. And the funny thing is, once you cultivate self discipline, it will start to become a way of life. You will want to cultivate more of it. And, although it sounds strange, you will begin to derive a bit of inspiration and motivation from your own self discipline.

So quit trying to get inspired all of the time. It’s a bullshit approach and a waste of energy. It’s a counterproductive approach to productivity. Instead, prioritize. Set goals. Focus. Don’t deviate. Don’t get distracted. Persist. Success is not ultimate. It’s a continuous process. Screw doing things when you’re motivated to do them.

Because if you wait until you actually feel like doing something to do it, you’ll be waiting for forever.

If you like the stuff, check out the original link where this article was posted:

https://www.quora.com/How-do-you-motivate-yourself-to-exercise-every-day

Here is the link to the author’s profile: https://www.quora.com/profile/Katie-Jack-4

When to NOT hit the gym

They say any time is good time for hitting the gym. Not entirely true! Read below some instances where working out should be the last thing you consider doing:

Right after having sex or masturbation
The testosterone levels drop which is not good for endurance training. Also, you feel physically drained after masturbation and/or sex. A theory claims that going to the gym while feeling horny can be a good thing to do, for your testosterone levels are at a high then and that enables you to lift more in the gym.
Right after a heavy meal
Going to the gym after a heavy meal is not the greatest of ideas. While you may find professional bodybuilders eating between their workouts, you must know how professionally do they choose their foods and how their workout makes their body require that food at specific times. Hence, hitting the gym right after eating a heavy meal is a bad idea.
Don’t go to the gym drugged
If you are under the influence of any drug, avoid going to the gym. This holds even for people who claim to be regular consumers of any particular drug. Even if there is no damage internally if you are intoxicated and working out, small things like not checking your posture for the exercises, lifting too much weight too fast, giving in to the adrenaline rush without logically thinking, etc can cause serious injuries and can keep you away from the gym for a long time.
Don’t go when not fully well
This one is a very common mistake in terms of defaulters. If you are consistently working out and following a routine in order to chase a goal, you try and push your limits. However, pushing limits by working out when you aren’t feeling well or haven’t fully recovered from an illness can be a very bad idea.
Right after getting a tattoo
Don’t hit the gym right after getting a permanent tattoo done. Usually, a person should wait for a considerable amount of time before rejoining gym after getting a tattoo done, depending on the size and placement of the tattoo. Take the advice of your tattoo artist on when you presume working out.

Thanks for reading 🙂

How I lost 8 kg and 1 myth in under 3 weeks.

KABADDI.
That started it all.
You see, when you are already 28 years old and haven’t stretched your physical limits ever, doubting your capabilities is very easy. Doubt is almost certain when you have a dream. The more you think about the dream, the more the doubt should grow. Doubt means there is a stretch! It means it’s not going to easy but it is going to be worth it if done right.

The ever prestigious sports meet. It was a do or die situation. 4 teams battling it out for the top spot. I started the game from where my team was. I gave birth to the idea of kabaddi there. It was my arrogance that somehow made it possible for my area to form a team and participate last year. But we lost miserably. We were placed fourth in the ranking. Last.

This year, the venue was my area. Home ground. People would look up to it. I had done my initial bit by forming a nice team and getting together people who were as passionate about the sport as was required. We had practiced for nearly 40 days and we had developed solid strengths. The coach and team were confident about the team’s improved game and even more on my performance in the practice sessions. I mean I was amazing! So amazing that I myself felt good! It’s that feeling you get when you accomplish from yourself something that you couldn’t really believe you could ever! I gave my blood, sweat, and soul to the practice and it had paid off. I was definitely one of the strongest bet of the entire team.
I do not wish to praise myself by explaining how good I got, but I do it because it is important to understand the next part. The rule of the game was no player should be over 85 kgs. This rule changed it all.

A little more background about me is required here. So please, bear with me. I will keep it short at the technical spots. I was an endomorph, meaning I had the body type that stores fat very easily. This body type is very prone to obesity as they put on weight very easily. Also, I don’t run. Ever. Unless I am running for life.

20 days before the competition, I was 92 kg. I had 20 days to get to 84 kg mark, keeping 1 kg as the safe margin. This meant dropping 8 kilograms. Now I will walk you through how I did it.

So the first basic steps were easy to strategize and implement. Diet modulation began. No fats, no sugars, no complex carbs. Workout every day. Drink lots of water. Improve the sleep cycle. All this was being done.

The first big revelation was the need to run. This is what I need you all to read and take information from. I understood that in order to lose that much fat that quickly, I needed to run.

To give you a little perspective, one kilogram of pure fat contains 7700 calories. Doing a 30-minute intense physical workout, where you lift crazy weights, can burn around 170 calories for a 185-pound man. Running, on the other hand, can make the same weight man burn around 410 calories in 30 minutes at 9-10 kilometer per hour. This means while physical workout would take 45 days to lose a kilogram of fat, running would do the same in 18 days.

Now that you have understood the theory, understand the process. I have never liked running and have always shied away from it. But when I had no other option, I did it right.

Step 1: Get your running shoes right.
Very critical, for we generally run on hard surfaces. These surfaces exert back pressure whenever our foot hits the ground. These continuous jerks of pressure are absorbed by all our joints and in the long run, the joints get damaged due to this. Hence, it is very important to use proper running shoes with correct cushion and shape.

Step 2: Get your running posture right.
You need to take care how your foot lands on the ground while you run. You should not stomp your feet while running. This means your foot should not land all at once on the ground. This flat-foot running is detrimental to your knee and ankle joints. The rolling motion needs to be kept in mind wherein your heel should hit the ground first and create a rolling motion towards touching the front of your foot. Hence when the toe and sole is in contact with the ground, the heel should be taken off by then. This circular rolling motion makes sure minimal pressure is exerted on the joints and enables you to run for longer time.

Step 3: Layers matter.
The dress code is crazy for running. We need to ensure we generate maximum heat and let minimum get off. I used to wear one thermal inner, one t-shirt, one sweatshirt zipped up with a cap on my head. All this would trap a lot of heat when you run and help keep body temperatures elevated for longer. This, in turn, would burn fat speedily.

Step 4: Be clear of the motive.
The motive is to keep my heart rate spiked and body warm. Simple. To keep heart rate spiked, I would have to stretch my limits as I run. This means if I am very comfortable running at 6, I would run at 7 for I need it to be a little difficult for me. Not too difficult because I need to do it for a long time, say 40-50 minutes.
So I get my heart rate up and this, in turn, signals my lungs to breathe faster as more oxygen is needed for the fast-flowing blood. Now when I breathe faster and deeper, I immediately start burning fatty tissues in my body. Simple.

Step 5: Do the time.
Running isn’t easy for those like me. But, you need to do it for a long time nevertheless. One simple trick is to break the time in fragments. I used to run for 40 minutes in the morning and 90 minutes in the evening. For the evening time, I used to break it even further. I used to start my evening workout with 45 minutes of running and conclude it with another 45 minutes of running. This way I never felt the mental heat.

This way, I got to 86 kilograms 3 days before the competition. This was time to go crazy. Now please note that till now whatever was written can be implemented by everyone to lose fat. But please understand what I write below about what I did in the remaining three days will make sense only if you have a stringent deadline to lose weight as I did.

Having come this far, I couldn’t give up. I couldn’t even leave any margin for error. My target weight wasn’t 85 kilograms but 84 kilograms, leaving a 1-kilogram margin for exogenous factors. Just in case what Murphy’s Law suggests comes to life.

The next three days were defining. I took guidance from a very renowned and experience powerlifting coach. I had to drop carbs to a bare minimum, switch to liquid diets and lessen my water intake.
I was eating one granola bar every day. I consumed pulses and curd only. I took 2-3 glasses of water in a day, not even a liter full. In short, I was killing myself with all that running and physical workout, and so less diet. But, as I said before, it was imperative as I was on a clock.

What you need to understand here about the lessening of water from the diet is the logic behind it, which is that our bodies store a large quantity of water. This reserve is utilized only when demands aren’t met externally, with us consuming lesser water than our body requires. It is similar to the calorie case, where we consume lesser calories than we use up and thus creates a calorie deficit to enable the body to burn stored fat and help us lose weight. Similarly, when we consume lesser water than what our body requires, it utilizes the stored water and thus our water weight drops, thereby dropping our overall body weight. While this is not a healthy and sustainable way to lose weight, I repeat, it was important to meet the deadline.

Finally, the day of the competition arrived. We had to give our weight measurement 10 minutes before the game began. In those 10 minutes, I had a plan to eat as many calories as possible to gain energy boost for the game. I had bananas, big chocolate bars, and energy drinks ready in my bag.

I gave my weight. It was 83.8 kilograms. The whole team started cheering. They knew that the final hurdle was crossed. I suddenly felt super confident about winning all games as I could play and contribute!

I hope this real-life story helps you understand things about fat loss and help you gain insights for your own struggle to get fitter.

Thanks for reading. 🙂

The Mathematics of fat loss.

This topic is based on incredible talk by Ruben Meerman.

Let me start by asking you all a question. When we loose weight, say go from 80 to 70 kg, where does the remaining lost weight, here 10 kg, go?

Sweat? Stool? Energy?

The chemical formula of human fat is C55 H104 O6. There are a few variations between number of carbon and hydrogen atoms but oxygen remains same at 6 per atom.

So the reaction at weight loss goes like this:

C55 H104 O6 + 78 O2 —————————→ 55 CO2 + 52 H2O + Kj

Fat + oxygen gives carbon dioxide, water and energy.

How much each?

84% carbon dioxide and 16% water.

So if you were to loose 10 kg fat, you would be needing to loose 8.4 kg CO2 and 1.6 kg water.

NO SPECIAL DIET, NO SPECIAL ROUTINE, NO GREEN TEA

You just need to eat less and move more.

Let me elaborate them both. Eat less would mean you are consuming less calories than what you are needing to function in the day.

The second and more important one is move more which basically decides the pace of your weight loss. Now as we know for loosing 10 kg, we need to loose 8.4 kg carbon dioxide. But how do we do it? The only way you can do it is through your lungs pumping it out. Which would mean breathe more.

So does that mean if we sit and breathe more, we will be loosing weight?

No, but you will enter a medical state called hyperventilation wherein your body is getting more oxygen than is needs. You might need medical attention then.

So how do we do it? How do we make our own body require more breaths?

Simple: by creating a need for it.

When you do any physical activity, involving your muscles, your heart starts pumping more blood to those areas. Hence, to pump more blood, it starts beating faster and harder. Working in accordance with the heart are your lungs, which immediately sense need of oxygen inside and thus starts giving signals to increase breathing. Your breathes increase, resulting in giving off maximum carbon dioxide, thus reducing your weight. Bonus is the sweat which you release, containing the water molecules and also toxins from your body.

Hence, the ONLY way to decrease your weight is to exhale more carbon dioxide.