Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom.

Rant and tip for January 31, 2012

Quote:  “Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom.”  George S. Patten

Yes another quote by the General. OK I am not a war monger but I do believe there are some things worth fighting for. OK now back to this quote. During your workouts as well as you daily battle in controlling what we eat, there will be days that you hit rock bottom. In your workout it may be a stall in gains you hope to make in a particular lift. We all hit those. It can be frustrating as well and mentally draining. It is how you rebound from this set back that will tell what a success you training is or isn’t.

The same applies to your diet. When you fail whether it be, due to poor planning or a moment of weakness when that cookie that just seemed to jump into your mouth, you feel like you have hit bottom. Yeah I know it has happened to you. All of a sudden you are thinking, “What did I just do.” It is at this time you need to bounce right back up and get back on track. You can and will be successful if you handle these moments of weakness as a learning experience instead of letting it defeat you mentally. I have seen it happen many times to friends and even myself when trying to lose the fat. We make a mistake in our diet plan and we feel defeated. We end up feeling like there is something wrong with us. We say to ourselves “Why can’t I just stay on plan? “ I just want you to know you are just human. We all make mistakes when we work a diet plan that is a new way or eating for the rest out our lives. That is truly the journey you are on, the journey to get fit and live a healthy lifestyle which includes a healthy clean diet. There is nothing wrong with you. You have been eating all the foods that have gotten you to where you are for so long it will take the ability to bounce back from setbacks to be the success you deserve to be. How high can you bounce back? 

Benching went well Yesterday. To change things up a bit and confuse the muscles after working up to a one rep max I switched my grip out wide on the bar. When you bench with a wide grip you stretch the chest more and actually shorten the stroke of the lift. I wanted to isolate the chest and this was the way to accomplish that. I also wanted to get myself use to the wider grip. If you recall I stated last week that benching in the Super Katana it was suggested I move my grip out wider. I will bench again in the shirt on Wednesday night and am looking forward to getting the grove right. I felt very strong today and fully expect that it will carry over on Wednesday.

Today will be squat day. I will work my 5X5 workout making sure to hit dept on each set. While I will not be doing box squats today I will use the box to make sure I am low enough. I will not have a spotter available so I will have to set the safety rails on the rack and as a friend has told me “Just be Fearless”. Over the next few months you will see I mention a 400 squat. Each time I right this number down it becomes engrained in my mind and I see it happening.  

Have a great workout!

Tip: Be sure to get enough fats while on a low carb diet.

This can be a real problem. Despite some effort to get out the word about so-called "healthy fats", hardly a day goes by that I don't see or hear a negative message about fats in the diet. This leads some to attempt a low-fat version of a low-carb diet. At the beginning, some can even manage it, if they are using up a lot of their own fat (as opposed to eating it). However, fat loss inevitably slows down, and people can then become hungry if they don't add some fat to their diets. Nothing will sabotage a diet faster than hunger. So don't let this happen to you!