Jersey Boys

Better Yourself
by the Precision Nutrition Coaching Team 
 
“…when we strive to become better than we are, everything around us become better too.”

Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist-

BETTER YOURSELF EACH DAY

If we break the title phrase from today’s lesson down, what does it really mean? 
“Better” - improve upon the current
“yourself” - YOU!… that’s important
“each” - every… not just one. Continuous, long term stuff here!
“day” - not yesterday, not tomorrow or next week… today.
It may seem juvenile to go through that exercise, but you’ll see why it is important.

BE SELFISH (which is NOT a four-letter word)

When we are children, we unknowingly do things each day, each hour, each moment to better ourselves. We are very self interested and self driven at a very young age. Then somewhere as the years go on, our attention is diverted from our own interests and betterment to those of others - our partner, children, siblings, parents, co-workers, neighbours, community members and even complete strangers. We put ourselves on the back burner - including our health, fitness and overall well-being.

“No time”, “no energy”, “no matter”, are often the reasons we list for not making the foods we know we should eat, the workout we know is good for us and rest we know our body, mind and soul desperately wants and needs.

Eventually we lose sight of the fact that taking the time to better ourselves each day will carry over to all those other people that we put ahead of ourselves. If we cannot be healthy and happy first and foremost for ourselves, then how can we be there for everyone else? By focusing on YOU and the little things that make YOU better, everyone and everything around you improves also.

So now that you are convinced we need to be selfish adults as we were selfish children, how do we practice this?

Putting yourselves last and going through the mundane, meaningless or selfless details our of our daily lives is such an ingrained habit that it is not easy to switch to a different mode of thinking - a selfish or self betterment way of thinking.

Here’s a handy list to get you started:

1) Be Present

“If you pay attention to the present, you can improve upon it. And, if you improve upon the present, what comes later will also be better” —Paulo Coelho
We spend most of our thinking energy and time worrying about future or regretting the past. Remain present and you will be a better position to observe all the personal betterment opportunities around you and to make yourself a priority. As soon as you notice you are in past or future thinking, stop and get reacquainted with what’s going on around you at the present moment. It gets easier and easier like any practiced skill or learned behaviour.

2) Make Yourself A Mental First Priority

Start making yourself a priority as part of your decision making process. When someone asks you to do something for them, ask yourself: 
Do I want to? 
How will this better me?
Will doing this help me toward my goals 
Why do I want to agree to do this? 
Usually, we know whether we want to do something or not and then we respond different for a variety of reasons (e.g., sense of obligation, fear of rejection, fear of hurting others, concern about what others might think of us) and may later feel bitter or resentful for agreeing to do something we really did not want to. By making yourself a priority in your decision making process, before everyone and everything else, you are going to make the decision that moves you towards your goals.

3) Redefine “Selfish”

We have been brought up to believe that selfish is very negative character trait. Many people stop themselves from getting personal training sessions, joining a gym, going away on a health retreat or signing up for Precision Nutrition or the Lean Eating Program for fear of being seen as selfish, or in labelling themselves as selfish. We need to get rid of the thought that self-betterment behaviours are selfish behaviours. Or we simply need to redefine “selfish”.

A selfish person takes care of self first and foremost with the understanding that when you improve yourself, everyone and everything around you improves.

HABIT REPLACEMENT

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
An example of someone practicing selfish thinking for the sake of personal betterment.

Another strategy for bettering yourself each day is to examine your habits and lifestyle. Once you have done a personal inventory of your day to day life and activities, replace the “bad” with the “good” and banish the “ugly”.

Here’s an example:

Your morning ritual is to wake up, turn on the radio to hear the morning news (an attempted abduction, a 3 car fatal, house market is rapidly declining followed by a commercial for a intestinal detox that promise you will lose up to 20 lbs in 7 days), make yourself a coffee with hazelnut toffee liquid creamer and a packet of aspartame, read the latest “Men’s Health” or “Shape” magazine (and making a mental note that it says in there you should be eating 3 grapefruit every morning if you want to avoid cancer and that Tom Cruise has a six pack year round and only does hot stone Pilates 3x a week / Jessica Simpson has killer legs but reports eating nothing but sugar free yogurt all day) while watching the birds the feeder in the back yard before heading downstairs for 15 minutes of intervals on the stationary bike.

The “Good” - Making exercise a regular part of your day and getting it in early so you can check it off your list. Taking the time to reflect on your day to come and share some time with the beauty around you (the birds in your backyard for example).

The “Bad” - Reading magazines that promote negative body image, are designed to get you to buy them in the first place and are filled with articles and advertisements virtually devoid of scientific backing and are certainly not written with your unique goals or circumstances in mind.

The “Ugly” - Liquid non-food creamer made with hydrogenated palm oil, high fructose corn syrup (“but it’s only 6 calories per serving”) and chemical-laden aspartame.

Little changes can make a big difference towards your personal betterment!

• Replace that morning chemical-coffee installment with a mocha protein shake (1/2 coffee, ½ milk or milk substitute, 1 scoop protein powder, Greens + cappuccino flavour, ice cubes) 
• Replace Men’s Health or Shape with printed copies of articles from Precision Nutrition or magazines that do not contain more advertisements than articles such as Nutrition Action, Milo Magazine or Spezzatino. You want to surround yourself with things, people, places and behaviours that help you towards you goals which includes your reading material. 
• Maybe enjoy the protein shake on your back porch so take in the sounds and smells around you and keep the radio and morning news off. While you are at it, think about what meals you have prepared and what you need to prepare or purchase to have a beautifully PN-compliant day.
What about helping others?

If you are successfully able to be “selfish” (your newly defined version), are able to make yourself a priority and are replacing habits on a daily basis all towards personal betterment - THEN you are in a position to help others do the same.

When you make yourself a priority and start reaping the countless benefits of operating from this mode of existing, those you come in contact with every day will benefit also. You will make an impact - a positive one. But this cannot happen if you are still putting everyone else’s needs, wishes, desires and demands on you ahead of your own. You cannot grow and improve. When you cannot grow and improve, then life become stagnant and nothing can grow around you.

When you begin operating from a position of personal betterment, THEN growth becomes synergistic and exponential.

The bumpy road to personal betterment

Deciding to make yourself a priority and practicing personal betterment each day, does not mean you will not encounter difficulties. We often associate a selfish lifestyle (the negative definition) with an easy lifestyle where it’s all about you, you step on anyone who gets in your way and care about no one but yourself.

Within your newly defined “selfish” life, this is not the case at all. The proof that you care about others is that you make yourself a priority. Because again, you can’t optimally help others if you are not healthy, happy and able to function optimally as a human being.

Once you start making yourself a priority, you will learn about yourself, about your journey, about your challenges and obstacles that you must overcome. This is the difficult part. But remember, from the greatest challenge comes the greatest rewards. This simple act of doing something (or omitting to do something) to better yourself each day, will lead over time to HUGE and significant discoveries about yourself - one turning of the radio, next level workout, PN-compliant meal, unsweetened coffee… at a time! 

ARTICLE

Meeting the Jersey Boys

Like this week’s nail polish asks, “Who’s She?” A dancer and an athlete who discovered strength. Everything I’ve done in the past has led up to the intensity and satisfaction of what I’m doing now. It feels perfect.

This week, I visited a strongman gym in New Jersey where I trained with the actual equipment I will be using in the June contest and with the other competitors. The experience was just what I most enjoy in training.

I love the simplicity and rawness. We were in a warehouse, nothing fancy, surrounded by dirty tractor tires, gritty Atlas stones, and a 600lb, rusty ship’s anchor-chain. For all this luxury, there were no contracts, swipe cards, get-in-shape-for-summer programs, or rules against grunting. In fact, the rules – all five of them – were typed up on a sheet of paper taped to the door. For all the enormously expensive equipment in most gyms, one can’t get a better workout than with the kind of basic, cheap equipment I use -those heavy tires and stones, as well as kettlebells, logs, and dragging a sled. Just these basics can be very refreshing.

Similarly, there was an honest comradery with the other people there, some of whom I will be competing against in June. The guys didn’t treat us any differently for us being women or newcomers. Instead, they stopped their own workout and gave me some pointers. Everything about strongman training, including the hospitality, is real.

With everyone so supportive I accomplished more, working out with them, that I have done so far. I flipped the 450lb tire. I picked up a 160lb stone. All around, it was a rough and wonderful day. I was covered in dirt. I didn’t want to wash it off; I wore it like a badge of honor all day long.

My day in New Jersey was all about why I train for strongman and run a Punch Kettlebell Gym. The results are awesome – strength, confidence, health, and a lean body – results available to anyone and everyone who tries. It’s all so simple. When any of us works out at Punch, there’s just the individual and an open space. It is all basics. We use simple equipment and get solid results. That’s what makes it cool and so much fun. Along with red nail polish, meditation, and jewelry, that’s “who she is.”

SPECIAL FEATURE

Very shortly we’ll be starting a nutritional section on the art of strength website.  There you will find different avenues to success through proper eating, dieting etc.  By now you’ve all seen the articles from Precision Nutrition, in our opinion one of the best preparatory eating programs available, well now we’re bringing you a different, and no less important, eating plan.  Isagenix, one of the world’s best nutritional cleansing educators, are teaming up with Art of Strength to offer all of you the opportunity to discover what countless others have already found - that Isagenix works!

Recently Valerie Pawlowski, from Punch Kettlebell Farhills (New Jersey), finished her 30 Day Isagenix Cleanse.  Here’s what she had to say followed by her before and after pics:

My Isagenix story:
 
Last summer 2008, my client Pam, exhausted from trying to workout, spin, run, swim and diet off weight that wasn’t budging told me she was doing Isagenix, a 30 day nutritional cleanse.  My reply was “I don’t know anything about it so just be careful”.  Actually I wasn’t too worried because Pam is completing her Masters in Nutrition and has excellent judgment.  So off Pam went for the summer to her home at the Jersey shore. During my next visit I was truly amazed at how Pam’s body had noticeably changed in such a short time. Upon Pam’s return from her summer at the shore, I then realized that these results were very real and lasting as she experienced even further progress. When another of my clients, Lisa, who had great success reducing inches and releasing weight with kettlebell training, hit a plateau this winter I knew we had to get on a program right away.  
 
Even though Lisa exercised intensely on a frequent basis the inches and weight started to return.  I thought back to Pam’s experience and headed to the Isagenix web site to determine if it was suitable for Lisa. After checking more thoroughly and investigating the program I realized this was just the thing to do. I volunteered myself and Shari as test subjects to join Lisa to see what good it might do for all of us. After only 2 weeks magnificent results occurred that were extremely noticeable and we were amazed along with everyone else. As a competitive body builder it took me 4 months to get competition ready. In only 3 weeks with Isagenix I xperienced excellent results; I am so much stronger and more energetic than ever before. After 30 days I ad released 9.7 lbs and 16 inches. I just completed a half marathon with a personal best feeling fantastic.

So here’s the deal. At the conclusion of our March certification Anthony cornered Valerie and asked what she had done to tone-up so quickly.  Anthony had a video shoot coming up and was looking to shed some extra bodyfat - something that had become increasingly more difficult since be stricken with cancer a few years ago.  After explaining Isagenix to him, Anthony, after much research, decided to “give it a shot”.  “My main concern was doing the cleanse and losing strength, if I noticed any loss at any level I was going to stop immediately.”  With his 30 days now complete Anthony is not only leaner, but he’s stronger and noticed huge gains in his endurance.  Check out his breakdown as well as his before and after pics…

Here’s the breakdown:

March 28th - Started the 30 day cleanse
April 20th - Shot Video
April 28th - Took the “after” picture below 

FIT TIP

Still think the kettlebell is the best workout on the block?  Try switching the kettlebell for a dumbbell or barbell on your next Turkish Get-up.  You’ll be amazed at the difference.  As a matter of fact - the original Turkish Get-up was ONLY performed with a Barbell.  Give it a shot!

STACI PICK

This little gem has made it to the top of staci’s wish list.  New from jcrew this necklace is “perfect with my new jcrew tee”  Although she admits she doesn’t need or want a gift, “it is nice sometimes!”  Hopefully we’ll see her wearing it at the next certification meet and greet.

FOOD

With picnics and cookouts weather not far around the corner we thought we’d get you in the mood with this tasty little recipe straight from one of our toughest and fittest trainers, kim, of Punch Kettlebell Gym Seekonk.  Roasted Sweet Potato Salad

Ingredients
Sweet Potatoes
fresh rosemary
¾ cup dried cranberries
¾ cup diced walnuts
1 ear of corn – husked
green onions
olive oil
balsamic vinegar

Roast sweet potatoes with olive oil, pepper and rosemary until tender. Transfer to bowl and add remaining ingredients.

STEF TIP

Don’t be afraid to lift heavy. It won’t make you bulky. If you want to have a lean body, you have to build muscle and light weights just

won’t cut it. If lifting heavy makes you bulky then I should weigh 300lbs. PICK IT

UP!”