Maximize your time, limit your options....comfort, sacrifices

Every few years some new dieting approach comes around and people start raving about it or believe they have finally found that magic bullet, but food is food, and eating is eating. I personally think that eating is the most simple part of the progress paradigm because it's pretty simple. If you want to get bigger, eat more. If you want to get leaner, eat less. Yes, that's a very simplistic way to view it but that's really the case.

It's the same with training. Here's some new method. It's the be all end all because it's so incredibly complex and you need to kill a level 9 ice wizard and sacrifice his body to the iron gods in order to comprehend it.

It's snake oil, and bullshit.

Prisoners get jacked as shit in prison eating garbage food with limited time for training each week. They maximize the time they do have in the weight room, and eat what they can. As far as I know, prisoners aren't online debating furiously about whether or not a diet or training system works. They don't have a lot of options so far as eating goes, and they just fucking train hard when they have a chance.

I suppose that's a real way of looking at things isn't it? Once you stop giving yourself options you have to actually DECIDE what it is you are going to do.

Maximize your time in the weight room. Train hard, train fast, get as much work done in as little time as possible. Stop training like a lazy bitch and make yourself squeeze as much work as you can into a single hour.

Stop giving yourself so many options in the kitchen. Make a list of foods to eat, buy those foods, and those foods only. And I mean nothing outside of that.

So there is the lesson. Maximize your training time, limit your food options. There. Boom. Progress awaits you.

Goals, sacrifices, and comfort - 

One of the things that Brandon Lilly and I talked about in the last video was making sacrifices in order to see your goals come to fruition.

Brandon made note of the fact that people tell him that they can't afford grass fed beef, organic food, and the like. The he gets pictures on Monday of them partying over the weekend.

Obviously the sacrificing of their partying and drinking isn't worth giving up for eating more quality food.

One of the most prominent themes of my writing/coaching/speaking whatever, is that figuring out what you want is EASY. In mere seconds you can spout off all the thing you'd love have a change in regarding your life.

The hard part is deciding what you will SACRIFICE in order to have those things.

You may not need to turn yourself into a recluse in order to see your lifting/fitness/strength aspirations come true. However if your desire is to really become the "elite" version of yourself you need to be honest with how much time, energy, and effort you're putting into becoming "elite". By elite, I mean really fulfilling your own potential to its complete capacity.

Once people start asking people to sacrifice, and I mean REALLY sacrifice, the first thing they do is start trying to rationalize with themselves as to why they don't need to give up certain things in order to move ahead. But if you start looking at the habits of champions, you will see that aside from their God given ability, they have a drive and a focus that is unparalleled in becoming their zenith, and were willing to sacrifice everything in order to reach those goals.

Write your goals down, then write down what you think you might have to sacrifice in order to achieve them. You see, the goal setting is easy. It's the proverbial laying of heads on the chopping block that gets to be difficult.

The truth is, most of us DON'T sacrifice like we need to because we find a comfort zone and settle into it.

And comfort is the enemy of progress. As I wrote before regarding comfort....you don't forge a strong will and resolve by catering to the comforting natures within yourself. You do so, by asking yourself to be uncomfortable often enough so that comfort eventually finds its way into those places.

You want to achieve all those things that make you feel awesome inside?

Get uncomfortable and start making the necessary sacrifices.