What’s better than reading Rog Law once a week? I can think of many things: koala bears gnawing on eucalypt leaves, free rocket packs, and being able to turn brooms into lightsabers on command, but sadly you’ll find none of that here (well, except for the last one).

 

I do have the next best thing though: I’ll be posting three times a week now – Monday, Wednesday and Friday – oh snap!

Monday will still be the day devoted to the fitness and lifestyle related content that you’ve grown to love.

Wednesday will alternate between a few on-going light hearted series that I’ll announce this upcoming week, so stay tuned.

Glorious Friday will be devoted to the random goofyness that makes up the entirety of who I am and just wouldn’t fit much into my Monday posts. This could range from rants on topics completely unrelated to fitness, informative links and videos that I’ve come across during the week, and a host of other fun stuff.

Which brings me to today.

I’m a big fan of mimicking accents and famous voices, so much so that when driving I often practice new ones using dialogue from movies that are floating around in my head. Now here is where you, my awesome and fantacular readers come into play.

What accent and/or famous voice do you want to hear me shamefully try to mimic (or butcher)? Do you want to hear me recite a particular line from a movie you love, or do you want to hear Sean Connery say something that comes straight from the space between your ears?

Leave your suggestion in the comment section below and I’ll pick one every other week to perform, complete with internet street-cred ruining video.

I reached my goal body composition a month ahead of schedule – so now what? For that answer, I need you to hop into my time machine and travel back to the greatest period of time in the world: the 90’s (don’t worry, denim jackets will be avoided at all costs).

In the early 1990s, Martin Lawrence was straight crushing it: House Party, Def Comedy Jam,  and Bad Boys – just to name a few of things he played a huge role in. Not only that, but he also created and stared in his own sitcom entitled Martin.

One of the most memorable characters on the show went by the name of Bruh Man, and his ridiculousness can’t be put into words, so this video will have to do:

The most important thing to know about Bruh Man is this: whenever you asked him what he was doing, his answer was always the same – nothin, just chillin’. In order to even begin to  comprehend the depth of this life philosophy and how it applies to us, we must first arrive at a basic understanding of what chillin’  actually is.

To be in a state of prolonged satisfactory being, not regarded as being bored but not in the process of doing anything worth elaborating upon.

When it comes right down to it, most of us have the goal of simply looking good naked or in various states of undress, and as long as you’re consistent and are not doing anything too goofy with your nutrition and training, you will undoubtedly get to that point.

Game over – you win.

But what happens next? Do you aim to put on more muscle or do you push to lose even more body fat? Regardless of the road you choose, it’ll eventually (hopefully) lead to a place where you’re happy with the body that you’ve created and, aside from minor tweaks here and there, you have no desire to put in more effort to change it.

As Leigh Peele so eloquently put it, the end is the beginning. At some point you’re going to arrive at a place where the goal isn’t to keep pushing further and further, but to simply enter a state of maintenance, aka chillin’, where you enjoy the fruits of your labor and invest your energy elsewhere.

That’s where I’m at now, and it’s a beautiful place. And the sooner you reach your goals, the sooner that you can be there as well.

Photo Credit: Bfishadow

Reality is a harsh and cruel mistress, but she’s always fair.

Mark Young, a fellow fitness professional and human flag wrote a post here that really got me thinking about the nature of goal achievement. When it comes right down to it, most of the times when we’re chasing after a particular goal we’re living in our own heads, and it’s straight up kills any chance that we have towards making real progress.

Think about it this way: how many times have you encountered someone trying to lose or gain weight? Pretty often I bet. Now how many times have you heard that same person swear to the high heavens that they aren’t eating “that much”, or that they’re eating like a pregnant giant yet can’t gain weight? Probably a good 90% of the time – and these are the people who will spend most of their days spinning their wheels; the physical embodiment of the phrase “traveling without moving.”

So what gives? Their continued execution deserves some props, but they have no objective tools by which they can measure their progress, and they’re going nowhere because of it.

Girth measurements? Objective.

The way your clothes fit? Objective.

Tracking your food intake & strength gain numbers? Objective.

Guessing how much you do or don’t eat? Hell naw!

Having tools like these at your disposal isn’t only recommended but downright necessary because they tell you the most important thing ever: are you moving closer to your goal? It’s like the ultimate flow chat to awesomeness.

No matter what formulas you follow or other people tell you, if you aren’t making any progress towards your goal, you need to ask yourself a few questions:

1 – How is your execution? Are you handling your business and doing what you need to do?

2 –  Have you done #1 consistently?

3 – Have you given it enough time to work?

If you answer yes to the above questions then you need to change something. Don’t continue banging your head against the wall of defeat out of some false sense of commitment to a plan that isn’t working. Despite your inner voice telling you that it should be working, the reality of the situation is that it isn’t. Adjust your course of action and begin using some tools outside of yourself to track your progress. Rinse and repeat until your awesometicity quotient increases by at least 172%.

If you answer no to those same questions, you might need to change things up but guess what? You have no idea if you do or not. Your execution and consistency is all over the place, plus you haven’t given enough time for the fruits of your labor to grow, so even if you do switch things up you’ll probably end up in the same position as the one you just left, constantly stuck in the should be loop and not addressing the root of what is. Until you meet those three basic requirements you have no frame of reference to base your changes on, so anything you do is pretty much a shot in the dark.

I wish someone had told me this when I was younger, but sadly I had to get it dropped on my head in a song for it to stick:  a movement in any random direction is not progression.

Have you ever had the feeling that things were going too good? Not just regular good, but good to the point where it didn’t feel like you were living your life anymore? If this were a typical day in the life of you, the big fail beast would be racing down the street at a breakneck speed to trip you up before you started to get too full of yourself.

That’s what went down in my life this week.  Since last check-in, I’ve been 100% compliant with my workouts and nutrition with no struggle at all. I was so on point with everything that I was within 1lb of my goal weight 5 days ago.

But then it happened. On purpose.

I failed in a big bad way, and I loved every minute of it.

After a pretty decent workout, I decided to go on what will go down in the history books as a roaring rampage in the supermarket. Mac & cheese? Yes please. Cookies? Don’t mind if I do. Cake? Oh you’re far too kind! I still got in my regular amounts of  fruit, veggies and protein, but when all was said and done I consumed over 5,000 calories. I was bloated and groggy for the rest of the day, and I wondered how bad the damage would be the next day.

Plus 7lbs from the day before. Perfect.

I know that it seems asinine to purposely mess up a good thing; that would be like stopping to do the James Brown 5 yards short of a game winning touchdown, but let me explain. It’s easy to be upbeat and positive when life is filled to the brim with sunshine and unicorns and you’re knocking out your objectives with a 1990s Mike Tyson level of ferocity, but what happens when you make one little mistake that deviates from your master plan?

You stumble. You begin to question your abilities and your resolve to achieve what you set out to do. You may very well even pack it up and call it quits right there.

If you’ve never seen a grown man beg then prepare to be stunned and stupefied because here it comes: I beg of you NOT to do this.

As with many things in life, looking at a situation in a different way is sometimes all you need in order to overcome it. Instead of treating failure as something that marks the coming of your doom, view it as a tool that will bring you closer towards success, even more so than always staying the course.

It’s inevitable that you’re going to one day fall short of the mark that you set for yourself. You’re going to miss some workouts, you’re going to not finish your product by the deadline, and you’re going to screw up on the path to greatness – a lot. You’re not perfect and if you were life would be no fun to live anyway, so it’s best to accept this fact right now because it leads to the next, most important piece: The horror of failure isn’t in the act of falling, but staying there.

When you find yourself down there on the floor of life, ask yourself this question: Will this kill me?

If the answer is no, which it always is, then stop feeling sorry for yourself, stand back up and start moving. Don’t put it off for later, because later never comes. Do it then.

Falling shows that you’re a human with faults.

Staying down shows that you’ve allowed yourself to embody and become those faults.

Getting back up again and again shows that you’re not going to allow these moments of imperfection to define and guide you; you’re better than that and you’re gonna prove it by moving forward and succeeding.

You learn more about yourself in failure than you ever will in victory, and failing on your own terms is one of the most powerful tools that you have at your disposal. By doing so you condition your mind to become that of a winner so that when the real thing comes you don’t even have to coax yourself to get back into the game, because now it’s automatic. – you’re back on your feet before your right buttcheek even hits the floor.

You’ll have trained yourself through experience to know that the world won’t end if you falter. As long as you choose to rise and continue to move forward with a purpose, you will get there. Anyone who tells you otherwise is probably sitting on the ground, nursing their wounds as they watch you walk by.

“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.”
– Samuel Beckett

So, faithful readers and comrades, when have you failed and how did you handle it? Did you rise, and if so how awesome did it feel?

Weight: 183.4

Photo Credit: Mykl Roventine

For some weird reason, I look forward to the familiar person dressed up in a Statue of Liberty garb trying to entice me to get my taxes done. Even though it never works, it sooths my soul to know that with all that’s changing in the world today, I can still expect to see the familiar site of someone dressed up in a toga waving at me like I’m riding a dragon down the street.

I drive up and down this stretch of road every single day, and up until now I hadn’t noticed one critical detail about my torch wielding friend – she wasn’t human.

At some point down the line, whatever business that person worked for decided that they were so unnecessary to the company that they could be uprooted, eliminated and replaced by a machine, and I didn’t even notice that they went missing at all.

And that right there is the risk you run when you’re just good enough.

Being good enough doesn’t get you noticed.

Being good enough doesn’t move you forward in life.

Being good enough is the quickest way to ensure your downfall.

As time passes, you become expendable. Today’s good enough is tomorrow’s obsolete, and the only way to ensure that you aren’t gobbled up by the machine is to run. Run as fast as you can from good enough and towards redonkulously awesome. The closer you get towards this end of the spectrum, the less likely you are to be so easily replaced.

Nobody can replace Batman because he’s the best at what he does, but what about Daffodillia who holds the power to, you guessed it, grow daffodils on command but spends her time working at a coffee shop that she hates? Not so much – there are a ton of people who could do that.

The problems that we’re each facing in our lives can’t be solved by being good enough. Actually, being good enough will only buy you just a little more time to sweat before the axe inevitably drops. So instead of waiting, decide to become awesome. Push against being average and challenge yourself to become better than you ever thought you could be, and you will be rewarded for it.

“To be a warrior is not a simple matter of wishing to be one. It is rather an endless struggle that will go on to the very last moment of our lives. Nobody is born a warrior, in exactly the same way that nobody is born an average man. We make ourselves into one or the other.” – Carlos Castaneda

Are you going to settle for just being good enough?

As I’ve mentioned before, Sexification isn’t just a physical state of being, but a mindset and a way of living that opens you up to the best that life has to offer.

I was speaking to a client of mine yesterday about her progress (she’s totally crushing it, by the way) and she said something to me that bounced around in my head for the rest of the night: “I finally feel like this is going to happen; it’s not a matter of if.”

It’s sounds simple, yet it’s a statement that’s powerful beyond measure.

There are many people out there, myself included at times, who treat success and goal achievement as if it’s something mystical that only those who have been pre-ordained by the powers that be can obtain, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.

Success is not an option, but a choice.

Success is not an option, but a choice.

Success it not an option, but a choice.

Let this marinate for awhile, because it’s absolutely critical to whatever you want in life, whether it’s to start a business, become a better parent, rid yourself of Flubby McFlubberson or get out of a bad relationship. The longer you treat your success as just an option, the longer you’ll stay just where you are, forever just out of reach from what you want.

Once you internalize the realization that what you have or don’t have is because of the choices that you’ve made, you move from being a victim to becoming your own hero; you move from thinking something might be possible to knowing that it is. By doing this and truly believing in it, your mind hardens and solidifies around your goal and will do everything within its power to get you there – if let it.

This is how it’s gonna be. You can’t be stopped. No questions asked, no excuses, and no Plan B. What’s the point of coming up with a contingency plan if you know that Plan A is going to be a success?

If there’s anything that I’ve really connected with so far during this 8 week challenge is the fact that there is such a redemptive power that’s unleashed once you decide to make a decision and commit to it, so do it. Not now, but right now.

Make the choice.

If you got anything out of this post, please pass it along via Facebook, Twitter, e-mail, or carrier pigeon. The more people that make a choice, the better off we’ll all be.

Paste the following into the comment section below: I AM going to (insert your own goal or goals here).

On Friday I’ll choose 2 commenters who will receive a free 30 minute phone consultation about whatever they like.

Weight: 187.4

Photo Credit: Tomas Sobek

“We do not rise to the level of our expectations. We fall to the level of our training.” – Archilochus

You’re riding the fastest, safest train ever built and your ride is going smoothly. All of a sudden, you go from reading the latest Dan Brown novel to being tossed around the cabin like nobody’s business.

Arf? What happened?

Welp, unbeknownst to you, the rail that you were riding was experiencing a technical engineering gap between conception and implementation, aka someone forgot to finish constructing it.

In this situation, it didn’t matter how awesome the train that you were riding was – it could’ve been powered by baby farts and unicorn magic for all I care – because you would have run into the same problem: lack of rail = the train stops moving forward (under it’s own power, at least).

This is your limit. Regardless of where you are in life, there is always something holding you back from moving forward, and until you can identify and correct it, progress will come to a screeching halt.

I had a conversation with someone recently who had no problem sticking to a diet during the week, but once the weekend hit all bets were off and the progress that they worked so hard to make over the last several days was completely wiped out.

What was my advice to him? Assemble all the resources that he could possibly muster to make it from Friday evening to Monday morning. If he can simply come up with strategies enabling himself to power through the wicked weekend, the bottleneck that he needs to pass through if he wants to make any real progress towards his goals, then it’s smooth sailing from that point on.

This is his limit break, and it applies to everything.

One of my favorite video games of all time, Final Fantasy 7, highlights this term perfectly. After taking enough damage, at a point where defeat seems inevitable, the character is able to perform a powerful attack of desperation which turns the tide of battle in his favor.

The best part is that we too can harness the power of limit breaks in our everyday life. The first step is to identify the point or points that always seem to trip us up, then do whatever it takes to keep our feet firmly planted into the ground in order to pass those points.

Need knowledge? Acquire it.

Need motivation? Find it.

Need help? Seek it.

What are your current limits and how do you plan to break through them? Leave a comment in the comments section and let’s see how we can help each other through to the other side.

Photo Credit: indy_slug

Fat loss is a lot like being a super secret spy, flying a super secret plane, on a super secret mission.

Yeah, I know that I’m crazy, but there really is a method to my madness.

So you’re on a top secret mission from the government, commissioned with the task of flying into enemy territory and taking out as many bases and strongholds as you possible can. Where are you headed exactly? No idea –  that right there is classified information. What you do know is that the odds off success aren’t stacked in your favor. Time is limited and failure is not an option.

Luckily for you, you’re piloting the most well-armed aircraft that the world has ever seen. Her name is the X14 Aunt Esther, and she’s a bad mama jama. Even with her plethora of laser guided rockets and time-space continuum warping bullets, there is one major flaw: she has the armor of a marshmallow and can’t take nearly as much punishment as she can dish out.

Tactics will play a critical role in your mission’s success. So you fly in above the cloud cover, just high enough to avoid their radar while at the same time getting a feel for the landscape.

And then you strike.

You make a nose-dive right into the heart of the enemy’s base with guns blazing, leaving destruction in your wake. You take one hit, they take twenty. More and more enemies are starting to lock onto your position though, so you disengage and take cover above the clouds to recover. Then you swoop down and hit them again, and again, and again.

And then you win. Mission complete.

A lot of people do the exact opposite, though. They spend most of their time above cloud cover (a caloric surplus) with only brief dives into enemy territory (a caloric deficit). When they do decide to dive in, the enemy fire is so great (fear,hunger, emotional eating, old destructive habits, etc) that they retreat high above the clouds again before any real progress is even made. This is how some people end up trying to lose the same 10lbs for years on end, and I hate to see this.

Fat loss should be a high-octane push towards the finish right from the start. Commit to nothing but success, arm yourself with the knowledge and foods you’ll need and dive in for the kill, staying there as long as you can. Take a break when you can’t handle the heat anymore, but only long enough for you to recover and prepare for another descent.

Get in and get out.

Everyone can’t adhere to the same harsh deficit due to a wide variety of lifestyle factors that have to be taken into consideration, but what they CAN do is make the decision that they’re going to spend more time fighting the enemy than running from them. By doing this, it’s only a matter of time before victory is achieved.

This is my declaration of war. I’m publicly committing to getting leaner than I’ve ever been right before your very eyes. For 8 weeks, every other week I’ll update with pictures and share with you what has worked for me along the way, showing how you can apply it to yourself as well.

The goal is to reach a minimum of 180lbs while maintaining my strength and muscle mass.

Starting weight: 190.6lbs

If you’re tired of having your fat loss goals evade you, then I encourage you to enlist alongside me in this battle as well by leaving a comment in the comment section. You don’t have to post pictures of yourself. Committing to yourself and moving forward towards your goal is all that’s required.

In 8 weeks you’re going to either be the same, better or worse off than you were before – which path are you going to choose?

Do you remember when being active used to be fun? I don’t know about you, but I’ve never had more of a blast being physically active than when I was back in middle school.

I was never a particularly active kid. I’d always much rather play an awesome video game than go outside and ride my bike, so anytime I got off my butt to do something there should have been a multi-day parade thrown in my honor. Despite the sad and depressing fact that these parades never materialized, I’ve managed to stay strong over the years and fight through this emotional pain.

Gym class was pretty dope. I wasn’t really good at any of the activities that we did such as basketball or volleyball, but I wasn’t the worst guy out there either, so that helped keep me from letting the emo set in and going to sulk on the locker room benches. Above all else though, there was one game that I looked forward to more than anything else in the world: dodgeball.

It was fun enough playing with other members of my class; you know, those whose strength, speed and coordination levels were similar to my own. Sure there were those who were a bit better in one of those area than the rest of us, but not by an embarrassing amount. While those days were cool, they weren’t the ones that nearly pushed my mind off the edge and into the dark abyss of insanity.

Every once and awhile, for some sick and twisted reason, our gym teacher picked a side to join and jumped into the fray. His name was Mr. Avery, and he was a monster.

When he was on our team, we felt invincible, like we couldn’t lose; to a bunch of kids it was like having Superman on your team. But when we were on the other side of the half court line wondering if would make it home for dinner that night, the game took an entirely different tone.

Folks were getting taken out left and right; a 12 year old body just isn’t built to handle the blunt force trauma caused by a grown man hurling a rubber ball towards them at the speed of light. I’m usually motivated not by any intrinsic reward, but from the avoidance of shame and embarrassment, and there’s nothing more embarrassing than getting your chest caved in in front of all your homies, regardless of your age.

But hot damn those days were fun! I used that nervousness to my advantage – it kept me sharp, on the edge, where I needed to be. You would’ve thought that I had hornets in my pants with the way I was running around like a certified fool trying to avoid ending up in a body bag. Resistance was futile, so the goal was simple: keep moving or get moved. I’ve heard stories that one fateful day some kid caught one his balls and survived, but I won’t believe it until I see some grainy Youtube footage.

Alright alright, so what was the point of that little trip down memory lane? It’s simple: have some fun.

You’re more likely to be active and stay active if you like what it is that you’re doing. And besides, the journey towards your goal is a lot more interesting when you’re having fun along the way.

Intervals will never hold a long-term spot in my life, but walking on the treadmill will. So will playing the Dance Central game on the XBox 360. Why? Because they’re fun to me. Because I can do them everyday without mustering up some serious mental preparation. I love that it allows me to think, read, and generate new ideas while I’m burning some calories that I otherwise wouldn’t have.

And I’m going to successfully get lean while having one hell of a time doing it.

These methods might not be fun for you, and that’s totally cool. Whatever activity it is that you love and find fun, just make sure to do it and do it consistently – you’ll be so much better off for it, not only physically but mentally as well.

What fun ways do you manage to sneak activity in during the week? Drop your creative methods in the comment section below. If you like this post, please share it those grumpy faces in your life who think that fitness has to be guts and glory all of the time.

Photo Credit: Jinx!

I recently came across a book by Chris Guillebeau called The Art of Non-Conformity, and to say that it changed my life would be an understatement. The gist of the book is this: the life you lead is yours and yours alone – you don’t have to live it carrying the weight of the heavy expectations that others place on you.

I picked this book up on a whim, not sure if what I was getting myself into was more of what I was used to: another self help book that simply repeated what I already knew. Unlike other books though, it connected with me in a much different way, and not only did it show me a bit of the “how” but, more importantly, it also inspired me to do more, to be better.

I bought several copies for family members during the holidays, and even gave my own copy away to a friend as a way to pay it forward.  I just wanted to spread the message. So of course when I found out that Chris was hosting a summit in June filled with like-minded people, I knew that I had to go. Sadly though, the choice had already been made for me.

World Domination Summit has now sold out

I was in the middle of writing a blog post when I found out the news, and it took the wind right out of my sails, so I shut down the computer and went to bed defeated. The next day though was a different story entirely

I sat there telling myself that while I’d missed out this time that there was always next year, but the more I tried to convince myself of this, the more upset that I became.

What if there is no event next year?

What if  there is and I can’t make it due to unforeseen circumstances?

No. I couldn’t wait until next year, because I know that if i did the chances of it actually happening were slim. Dreams and goals are funny like that; they’re malleable things. The longer you wait to get started towards achieving them, the more that you begin to compromise, the more those dreams begin to change shape, so much so that before you know it they’re no longer recognizable to you.

So I said screw it and bought my plane ticket to Portland. If it was going to happen at all, it was going to happen now.

I have no idea how I’m going to get into the summit, or even where I’ll stay once I get there, but I do know one thing: there is 100% chance of me not attending if I stay at home and sulk. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

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