2632: [Part 1] Fitness Motivation: How To Never Lose Your Motivation Again by JC Deen of JCD Fitness on Discipline

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[00:01:09] Fitness Motivation – How to Never Lose Your Motivation Again, Part 1 by J.C. Dean of jcdfitness.com and I'm Dr. Neil, your very own personal narrator. Happy Monday and welcome back to another edition

[00:01:22] of Optimal Health Daily where I read some of the best blogs covering health and fitness just like an audiobook and with my commentary at the end. Now we have five shows where we do this, just

[00:01:33] search for Optimal Living Daily to find all of them. Now today's post is a bit longer than what I typically narrate so I'll read the first half today and then finish it up for you tomorrow.

[00:01:44] But for now let's keep this intro nice and short and get right to today's post as we optimize your life. Fitness Motivation – How to Never Lose Your Motivation Again, Part 1 by J.C. Dean of jcdfitness.com

[00:02:04] Fitness Motivation. We are all motivated to train, eat right and put in the work, but not all the time. You know the feeling, it's time to get into shape and this time it's gonna be different. But

[00:02:17] before you get started, a quick google search for fitness motivation is in order. How do we get ourselves motivated? How do we make sure that we keep going when the process gets hard, our muscles

[00:02:29] are sore and exercise feels like a chore? Traditional advice would say you just need to get motivated however that's supposed to happen. And then some people might suggest that if you cannot get motivated then you're just making excuses. The problem with typical motivation tactics is they're

[00:02:48] all superficial. Heck just go to the fitness motivation stream on instagram for a quick example. You get a bunch of this stuff. Oh looky here, loads of worthless platitudes meant to make you feel good but don't do jack squat for your motivation to actually do anything. Things like

[00:03:06] if you're tired of starting over then stop giving up and yesterday you said tomorrow. All roll off the tongue quite nicely but they're not doing you any good. Instead of hyping you up with a bunch of feel-good nonsense, today I'm going to help you see the

[00:03:21] truth of what's in store if you make a commitment to yourself and ditch the old maxims of so-called fitspo. True motivation comes from the process of building momentum. In order to build momentum you need the following things. A plan, consistency and accountability. Here are some ideas

[00:03:43] followed by action steps at the end for each one. If you will commit to building momentum instead of seeking more motivation your chances of succeeding will grow exponentially. Pick a plan

[00:03:56] and stick to it. It's easy to say I'm going to get into better shape this year and then go straight to the gym. But what do you do when you get there? Most people wander around aimlessly working out

[00:04:08] for an hour and building up a good sweat but it's easy to get caught up in the feel-good moment of going to the gym. Taking action is awesome but without a plan you're going to fizzle out. Because

[00:04:20] there are literally thousands of workout plans on the internet it may seem that having a plan is the easy part and it is in the beginning but our familiar friend we call shiny object syndrome

[00:04:32] is a reality for most. But even the best plan ever created, hint one doesn't really exist, will never work for you if you cannot stick to it. We only make progress when we commit to a training plan

[00:04:46] long enough for it to work. Keep a daily journal also known as track your progress. This might sound tedious but if you keep track of your progress you will always have the data to look back on.

[00:05:00] I've kept a journal in some form since my teens. I've had periods of time where I journaled a lot and journaled very little. I only regret the times I journaled very little. But I've always

[00:05:12] kept track of something whether it be my training, diet, goal setting or just jotting down my daily thoughts. In fact when I look back at my writing I'm always so glad I wrote down my thoughts because

[00:05:25] they help me remember the frame of mind I was in when I was writing and it helps me track my progress not just with my training but my life in general. When I was in athletics during high

[00:05:36] school our strength coaches made us keep a training log and he would check them every Friday. If they weren't filled out we got punished with tire flips, burpees or endless sprint sessions. While I didn't

[00:05:49] realize how powerful this disciplinary practice would be at the time it's proven to be priceless in my life up until now. The old cliche goes something like this what gets measured gets managed

[00:06:02] and it's so true too. How are you supposed to tell if you're progressing with your training program if you don't write down what you did? How will you remember if a weight felt too heavy or too

[00:06:13] light? Keeping records is important because it helps you make decisions based on feedback. Want to lose weight? Keep a nutrition journal and pay attention to how much you're eating. If you're not

[00:06:24] losing weight and reducing body fat you're probably eating too much. From looking at the data you have two choices. One, you could reduce your caloric intake by a few hundred calories each day or two

[00:06:37] you could increase your training and activity. Either way you'll be taking a positive step in the direction you wish to go. Action step. Start tracking something. It can be your training, nutrition, daily thoughts and feelings whatever just track something. Write it down and look

[00:06:56] back over it within the week. The notes and records will become valuable over time and you might wonder why it took you so long to keep track of your progress. Avoid over committing in the beginning.

[00:07:08] When you want to lose body fat or build some muscle it's easy to bite off more than you can chew. When we decide to make a change it's easy to get excited about all the new stuff you're going

[00:07:17] to do but we often underestimate how much we can actually change in the beginning. So start small. When you are creating health habits changing no more than one or two things at once is super

[00:07:30] important. When we over commit it's easy to feel overwhelmed and with the overwhelm comes stress and anxiety. Training and eating better should be fun. It shouldn't feel like a chore. When you try

[00:07:43] to do 10 things at once you'll probably quit all of them. A quick example is a person who wants to change everything at once. They go from inconsistent training to a six-day training

[00:07:54] program. They do well the first week or so when motivation is high but six days per week is hard for anyone to follow. Miss a few days here and there and it's easy to go from feeling confident

[00:08:06] and in control to like a failure because you couldn't keep up the commitment. Start with something small at first even if it means training only one, two or three days. Once you get into the

[00:08:18] routine and a better habit of hitting the gym increase your training days when it makes sense. Start small. Create some small wins and then build on those over time. Action step. Read my article

[00:08:32] about health habits and get familiar with how to create habits that stick. Then make a decision to get to work and build habits that serve you forever. Don't compare yourself to others. Stop looking at

[00:08:45] all the perfect angles of the so-called perfect physiques of Instagram. It may serve as inspiration but many times it can serve as a means to only feel badly about yourself. Disclaimer. I know not

[00:08:59] everyone feels the same so if you get motivation from the mirror selfies and training shots on Instagram, great! Keep looking at them. If it only makes you feel inferior or bad about yourself

[00:09:10] then stop. But know this. No one got in great shape looking at photos of other people all day. They got in shape by setting a goal to exercise more, eat better and put in the work consistently

[00:09:22] over time. As humans we're all prone to the promise of a shortcut. The pull of instant gratification is rampant. Just look at all the ads promising you six-pack abs in as little as 30 days or look

[00:09:35] at all the seven-day diet detoxes promising you fat loss, muscle gain and mental clarity. We live in the age of Instagram or Snapchat or whatever your favorite addictive attention-hoarding social media platform is and getting information as rapidly as we get it now has never been so easy.

[00:09:55] Remember that all of your favorite physiques weren't built overnight. It's a long, slow and steady process. If you're always comparing yourself to others and only focusing on your perceived flaws you're bound to be miserable all the time. And if you're miserable all the time

[00:10:12] you probably won't be willing to stick with training hard and eating right for long enough to actually realize your fitness goals. Action step. If you're constantly checking your phone for motivation by looking at others' bodies but it only makes you feel badly, unfollow those accounts

[00:10:29] or delete the app altogether. Gasp! To be continued. You just listened to part one of the post titled Fitness Motivation. How to never lose your motivation again by JC Dean of jcdfitness.com

[00:10:48] and I'll be right back with my commentary. Dr. Neal here for my commentary. What's so great about JC's advice particularly when he talks about journaling is that journaling can be applied to

[00:10:59] other areas of your life not just fitness and eating habits. I mean I've said a hundred times on this show how important journaling can be when it comes to eating more nutritious foods. So instead of driving that point even further into the ground I'll use a different example.

[00:11:14] My brother Justin of Optimal Living Daily got me an audible subscription. Thanks again, Justin. One of the first books I started listening to was The Next Millionaire Next Door, a sequel to 1996's

[00:11:27] The Millionaire Next Door, a bestseller at the time and one of the most influential books I've ever read. Both books are written by PhDs that conducted research for decades on the habits of people that have accumulated wealth. Do you want to know which habit the authors found most

[00:11:43] predictive of wealth accumulation? Well to answer that I can quote today's author JC Dean here. What gets measured gets managed. Again after decades of researching those that have reached millionaire status the authors found that a common trait among all of them is they take note of their

[00:12:02] income and expenses. The authors call this being conscientious. So if we get in the habit of journaling or being more conscientious of our habits whether it's workouts, diets, or even where

[00:12:15] our money comes from and where we end up spending it we may be more likely to reach our goals. And again those goals could be feeling our best or simply increasing the amount of money in our rainy

[00:12:28] day funds. Alright that ought to do it. Thank you so much for listening today. Thank you for listening every day and I'll be back here tomorrow to finish up this post so I'll see you there where your optimal life awaits.