Losing weight VS getting in shape

Maybe you think that “losing weight” and “getting in shape” mean the same thing, but it doesn’t, and having one of the two doesn’t mean that you have the other either. By that I mean that you can lose weight without getting in shape and that you can get in shape without losing much weight.

First, let me explains each concept:
Losing weight: It’s a short term goal, you do some kind of workout, mostly steady state cardio, the longer the better and/or diet until you reach a certain number on scale and stop it all after its reached. Then you come back to your old lifestyle until you feel bad about yourself again and start another diet.
Getting in shape: Life long goal, you integrate physical activity in your week schedule and you clear “bad” food from your menu. You don’t eat less, more often than not you’ll eat even more to sustain your high intensity workout and/or sports while still burning fat. You don’t have a fixation on your weight and there’s no end date.

What most people seems to miss is that you should focus on getting in shape and have a healthy lifestyle instead of only relying on pounds lost. Everyone has a different body so it’s not logical to think that you can weight an arbitrary amount of pounds, instead of trying to look and weight like somebody else (or like you were 10 years ago), just do what you can to be the best you can be now, no matter what’s the number on the scale and no matter what it used to be.

The reason why losing weight for losing weight is bad is that you don’t make your body more efficient. You either cut down calories by eating less or burn more calories by doing more cardio. I agree that you will inevitably lose some weight by doing this, by once you stop, which will certainly happen, because it’s a short term goal, you’ll slowly drift back to your previous state because your body composition haven’t changed.

So now you may be asking, “How is getting in shape any better then?”. Getting in shape implies a healthy lifestyle throughout your life, which means eating clean and working out every week. It’s a habit that you’ll want to take on for the rest of your life. By experience I can tell you that if you do it long enough for it to become a habit, you won’t want to get back to where you were and that will be enough motivation to keep you going.

Eating clean: The short answer for most people is: cut down everything that tastes great and is easy to make. This means all processed and high carbs foods like frozen/ready-to-eat meals and dessert. Instead replace them by high protein foods like meat and nuts (yes they contains a fair amount of fat but that doesn’t matter if you have a healthy lifestyle) and a lot of fruits and vegetables. Protein needs more work than fat and carbs to be assimilated which means that your body burns more calories to use them compared to fat and carbs. Protein also helps your body building muscles.

Working out: Steady state cardio burns calories while you do it, which seems nice, but it’s in fact pretty useless, ok doing any kind of physical activity is still better than doing nothing, but there is some ways to make your workout effort a little more valuable (and that means harder too, nothing comes easy). While HIIT cardio training can have some benefits, steady state cardio provides no lasting benefits, except maybe the hability to jog for countless hours which is nice if you’re into that kind of things, but not if you want to get a better body composition. You don’t build muscles while doing steady state cardio. If you do weight training or do a sport that requires some impulse and/or physical strength, your body will build more muscle to sustain the activity you’re doing, more muscle means more calories burned while working out AND at rest. Now you may say “Burning calories at rest! I want that!”. You still have to workout to make it happen. You burn more calories at rest when you have more muscle mass because it needs to be fed like the rest of your body, it’s not really the case for fat because it’s just storage.

But maybe you don’t want to look like a bodybuilder? Building muscle won’t make you look like a bodybuilder if you don’t specifically work out to be one, big muscles require specific weight training, lots of eating (clean eating) and possibly other “enhancements”, so you won’t magically become one, and this is true for both men and women. You will instead get a toner body because your fat will soon be replaced by muscles, which are more evenly placed than fat. So in short, working out is a double positive, you burn calories by doing the workouts and you also make your body more efficient at burning calories between each training session (higher metabolic rate). Muscle is in fact heavier than fat, so it’s possible that you weight more while still looking fit at the same time, that why I’m saying that the number on the scale doesn’t matter.

If you weren’t already aware, those abs machine advertisings are misleading, localised fat lost doesn’t exist. Your body won’t prefer a place or another for taking his fuel while you’re exercising no matter if you do full body workouts or abs only, so do yourself a favor, work out evenly. It also means that it will be longer to lose belly and/or thigh fat if you happen to have an excess fat there, that’s part of the game.

And most importantly, if you decide to get in shape (or do any kind of change in your life), do it for yourself. Because you spend your whole life in your body, friends/family/boyfriends/girlfriends will come and go, but only you will stay with yourself until the end so make sure that it means something to you.

Honesty doesn’t put food on the table

I don’t like to lie, I avoid it as much as possible but I think there is one time when it is better to embellish reality: when talking to a future employer.

I had a couple job interviews this year and I came to the conclusion that being completely honest will (sadly) lower your chances of getting a job. Before getting farther I need to clarify that I’m not encouraging people to lie nor to give false informations about themselves. What is needed here is that you turn every negative point to a positive one, which may require to “force” reality a little bit and to intentionally forget some details.

I tried what I call the “full honesty” interview which is to respond to the interviewer’s questions in my “natural” way. Just telling the true story and being myself during the interview. That also means that I’m counting on the fact that the interviewer will appreciate my complete honesty over my weaknesses (from my experience, most of them don’t). I didn’t get any job. The interviewers are obviously not there to meet “weak” people nor to understand your personality, they want to get the best ones, the ones that will help the company to reach success. If I analysed myself while doing these interviews I would say that I looked like a stressed and emotionally unstable person. I just speak as I would with anyone else, the casual way. I speak relatively fast, I switch constantly between subjects and I don’t filter what comes out of my mouth (I’m not talking about swearing here but about the fact that I don’t omit details that would make me look bad). That may look interesting from some point of view, but not from the employer’s.

If I remember the interviews from which I got the job, I was rather in a “just look good” mode. What I mean by that is to put your own person aside and just answer the questions in a neutral way that makes you look good to the interviewer. You don’t have to show your personality traits, whether you consider them good or bad, unless it could present a huge advantage over others applicants. You don’t have to say what they don’t ask you about either, keep out bad information about yourself when you’re not asked for it. They can’t judge you for what they don’t know about you. Make sure that what the employer sees is the best way he can see you.

The interview is just the step to get the job, so show that you’re the one for it even if it means to leave out some aspects of yourself for a short moment. After you get the job, you can start being the real yourself as long as you do the job correctly.

Being yourself in a clone world

We hear a lot about it, everyone is saying that we have to be ourselves, but only few people are actually able to accept the difference in others.

This whole year I have been working on myself to be a better and happier person in general, which also means that I tried to eliminite the fake persona I was showing to people and instead show my real personality.

Changing yourself is something that is really though because you have to lose old habits and ways of thinking. Finding solutions is not really hard, it only requires some thinking, what’s hard is to apply them in real-life situations without getting back to your old and fake way of dealing with it.

But there’s something harder, dealing with people who aren’t able to accept it (aka closed minded people), and from my experience you will meet a lot more closed minded people than open minded ones. I also call these people “brainwashed” because they only do what they are told to without questioning it. So when someone stands out of the norm, they won’t be afraid to criticize, even if it has absolutely no influence on them.

It is even harder if you are a sensitive person and if you have low self-esteem because you won’t be able to convince people that your way is right too. Even worse is the fact that you’ll also doubt your own life choices because of them.

You’ll also find out how much the world attaches importance to things that don’t really matter in the end, especially about appearance and jobs. Say to someone that you meditate everyday or that you make shrunken heads in your spare time and it will seem like you were talking to the table, now grow a beard and quit your job and see how much it annoys them.

Now you might be reading this and saying to yourself “I don’t care if you grow a beard”, I don’t either, but try growing one (or maybe completely shave your hair if you’re a women) and see how much people will tell you about it like it’s the only thing that matters in the world. I have a five months long beard, and I can tell that people put too much importance on physical appearance. I lost count of the negative comments I had about my beard, “it’s too long”, “you look better without it”, “you’ll never find a job if you don’t shave”, etc. Whose problem is it besides mine? Yet people can’t refrain telling me about it.

The other thing people can’t stand is someone that is not working five days a week like everyone else. I managed to live this whole year by only working for a few months, I didn’t had any kind of welfare money or anything else, I just lived with money I already had or worked for. So I’m not a burden for anyone yet everyone seems to be annoyed because I have more free time than them. I actually made the choice of having less luxury to work less. It doesn’t involve anyone else but me, yet people can’t accept it and keep telling me that I should find a steady job and work more.

It may seem unsignificant when you’re not facing it in your life, but constantly being criticize by people and endlessly questioning your owns choices gets really tiring. I’m not sure why people do this but I think they are either jealous or scared. Jealous of not having the courage to do the same with themselves or just scared of what they don’t know. Or maybe they are afraid of other people’s judgment, so they make for it by judging others?

This post doesn’t give any answer to the problem because I don’t have any, the only advice I can give you is to hold firmly onto your dreams and don’t let others break them with their close-minded opinions. If you are good at arguing you can try to make them understand but it will most certainly be wasted time and energy, spend that energy on yourself instead or on people that really matter.

Urban walk aka farmer’s walk for the non-farmer

If you don’t know what a farmer’s walk is or why it’s good for you, I recommend that you read about it on t-nation.com. For the TL;DR people out here, doing a farmer’s walk is the art of walking while carrying something heavy in both hands for a certain distance, the kind of thing a typical farmer do everyday (and how often do you see an out of shape farmer?). The reason it’s good for you is that it makes use of every muscle group of your body and works your cardio at the same time.

I bet you’re a fan of “carrying all the grocery bags in one trip”, so why not taking it to a new level by using what we learned in that article about the farmer’s walk?

Instead of carrying the bags only from your car to your house/apartment, go to the grocery store on foot, buy some food (the heavier the better ;)) and walk back to where you live. It’s like killing 3 birds with one stone, but instead of being a bird murderer, you get food, a good walk and you get a full body workout at the same time!

That’s pretty much it, you can experiment with the weight, distance and speed to see what fits you best, just don’t forget to switch hands from time to time if you happen to carry bags of unevenly distributed weight which is often the case with grocery bags. And don’t forget your reusable bags to do your workout in an eco-friendly way!

The only thing you should fear is fear itself

We have all kinds of fears, spiders, talking in public, heights, being alone, dying, etc. It is possible to live around some of them but some other fears may keep you from achieving your life goals and dreams.

Sometimes the idea of a situation itself is far worst than what it is in reality, we make it worst by thinking about all the ways it could go wrong. Some people would say “Don’t think about it and do it!”, for me and possibly many of you, it is not that simple. We just can’t stop thinking about it, it’s just the way we are and that is not going to change in a day. We can’t stop our brain from doing what it does but we always have the choice to act or not. We can also force ourselves to override these bad thoughts with positive ones.

I agree that overcoming a fear is tough, but not only after overcoming it you’ll feel good about yourself, most of the time you’ll also see that it wasn’t even near as scary as you thought it was. It will also make your whole day a lot better, you’ll feel more energetic and have a self-confidance boost. You will also want to overcome more fears.

It can be done progressively too, just start with fears that don’t have much impact on your life and see how it goes. Once you have overcome smaller fears you’ll have the confidence to overcome bigger ones. It’s not a race, just do it at your own rythmn. But don’t make the mistake of waiting until you feel ready because you may never be. Just be attentive to signs and take advantage of these situations to act.

A lot of fears come in part from the need to be accepted and to look good to others. It’s not easy to get through this and stop carring about your image but I can assure you that it’s worth it. The more you stop doing things to impress people, the more you center yourself on the path to be succesful in your own goals and projects. You are the only one living your life so you know what’s good for you, others don’t. I’ll also push as far as to say that even your own parents (who most of the times are the ones who know you best) don’t know what they’re talking about when they tell you how to live your life. As much as I love my parents I sure wouldn’t be writing this now if I had followed their advices. Unlike what you may think now, my parents want the best for me, but if I had listened to them I would have taken the safe path of life and worked a well-paying job that I hate until retirement in 50 years or until I fell deeply into depression and possibly hang myself.

There is some places where it’s better to play safe, like when driving during a snowstorm. But for anything else that doesn’t end up with injury or death, you should take risks, because no matter what’s the outcome, you always learn something.

While reading some articles and click baits on the internet, I came across this sentence about frustration and conflicts: Ask yourself if it will still matter in a month, 3 months, a year, etc. I think that this principle should be applied to pretty much any situation, if you’re hesitating about doing something now and you decide to do it, will it still be important in a month, 3 months, a year, etc?

Yes it will! That’s probably the beginning of an adventure, you should do it.

No, it won’t! There’s not much consequence so do it! It could also be the beginning of an adventure.

Ok I’m NOT telling you to do it for everything: Should I punch [insert name here] in the face? Probably not. But if it can have a positive impact on your life while not harming anybody, you should probably do it. The only acceptable harm would be on someone’s close-mindedness.

If you’re in for a little game, try this:

  1. Imagine your life as it is right now and extend it for the rest of your life.
  2. Imagine your dream life (whatever it may be).
  3. Picture yourself on your deathbed reviewing your life and comparing these two possible destinies.

Does it motivate you to do something with your life? I hope so. So stop giving a s*** about what others think, take risks and live life in a way that will make your future self proud!

Having trouble getting things done?

Like many people, I have tons of ideas, projects and daily tasks to do but I can’t seem to find time to work on them. I found this trick that finally made my days more productive.

Every night before going to bed I take 5 minutes to write a todo list for the next day. Doing it before sleep helps me release some stress and free my mind so I can fall asleep faster and get an overall better night. I prefer writing short and straight to the point tasks but you can go with what suits you best.

The next day I just check my list and try to do everything on it. I don’t get everything done everyday, I have to live with unexpected events like everyone else, but having a list helps me be more focused on my tasks and reduces the risk of forgetting something important.

Just try it! All it costs you is a few minutes every day to wipe out these “Another wasted day” thoughts.

Going forward in life

You’re tired of doing nothing with your life? Stop waiting for everything to be perfect and start making decisions that will take you forward to your goals.

Sometimes I feel like my life is at the neutral gear, I just seem to be idling. Part of that is because I’m always waiting on something I have no influence on before doing what I want/have to do.
I found that when I stop carring about those things I have no power on and I start pushing forward with my ideas and projects everything seems to still get into place correctly.

Sure everything won’t go perfectly and you’ll face some challenges by living that way but it will make your life more exciting and it will give you confidence and motivation to have more projects.

So stop waiting for magic to happen and start making that magic by yourself!

Karma

Do you believe in karma? I’m talking about the fact that your acts, whether they’re good or bad, will be reflected back at you someday. I never really thought about it before but I seem to have lived the perfect example of it in the last few months.

A few years ago I had a girlfriend which had a more spiritual way of living than what I was able to understand at the moment. She was doing what she loved (drawing) and just being happy about her simple way of living. She didn’t have a job, so she didn’t have a lot of money too but it didn’t seem to be a problem for her. Being what I was at the moment I pushed her to find a “real” job and be a “normal” person (from society’s point of view). She finally left me later for various reasons that I’m not going to talk about now but what’s important here is that I tried to change that person to something that I thought was better at the moment.

Two years later I’m at the same place as she was at the time and that I couldn’t understand. I don’t have a steady job no more and I franckly don’t care, I do the minimum I need just to have a place to live and some food on the table. I get pressure from family and friends who can’t understand that I’m not wasting 40h+ on a soul-crushing job every week for money. I take long walks alone, I read books, I play video games, I go to the gym, I spend time with my friends, I learn new things and that’s all I need. Of course I can’t buy a nice car or other kinds of luxury but I found my life to be less stressful in general and richer since I have more time to deal with all kind of situations. A friend can ask me for help for a few days on some random work or I can just enjoy nature’s beauty while climbing a mountain instead of rushing it to come back home. I also have time to think about myself and about how I can become a better human being. That’s a lot of things I wouldn’t do if I worked 5 days a week and sat on the couch the two other days because of mental exhaustion.

It took almost two years for karma to hit me, while I regret forcing a lifestyle on someone else I’m still happy to have finally understood what it is all about. It’s the closer to freedom I have ever been in my life and I have no plan on giving up this lifestyle.

Before judging someone, try looking at life from their angle, maybe you’ll get a better view from there.

Final note: I have no idea if the girl in question will ever read this but thank you for teaching me so much things about the “real” way of living. Too bad it took me so much time to realize it.

Walking alone

A few weeks ago I started going to the grocery store on foot, partly because of my car’s poor reliability and also because it was the only kind of physical exercice I was allowed to do after a surgery. I discovered that I was getting a lot of creative ideas about things that worried me or about some projects I had in mind at the moment. I ended up doing it almost everyday since and always returned home with something nice to try. Being far from everything lets me really concentrate on one thing without being distracted by TV, Facebook, emails, Youtube, etc.

Being alone is pretty important here so you’re not getting into a conversation but just thinking about something that matters to you. It can also be nice to listen to some music so you’re not getting distracted by every little sound around you, keep something to take notes with you whether it’s a pad and pen or your smartphone (if you can resist the urge to do something else with it) and you’re good to go. I recommend walking for at least half an hour so you can get deep in your subject.

Some people would say that any exercise could work but I do not agree. For instance it is impossible for me to do it at the gym because I must concentrate on counting reps and keeping a good form throughout each set. I can’t do it while running either as I keep focus on my breathing. My personal preference is walking because I have no need to think about it while doing it but you can try other ways if you think it could work for you.

Most of the time I walk in the evening after sunset so it’s calmer in town. It also helps me to reduce stress and just relax while burning a few calories. I think most people could benefit from it if they would take some time to do it.