Doesn’t it burn your biscuits when someone says that you absolutely have to do something without taking into consideration anything about the most important factor in the process: you? I know that it really gets under my skin, especially when not much outside of these few things matter in terms of looking good buck nekkid.

1. Eat at a calorie level that is in line with my goals.
2. Get enough protein to prevent significant muscle loss.
3. Train in a way that helps maintain/build muscle mass.

To quote the great American hero Morgan Freeman, aside from this, all I have to do is be black and die, and even those two are debatable!

But this is exactly how many people are being treated. Even in some instances where they’re paying someone a good amount of money to help them get into the best shape of their lives, all they’re getting in return is a bunch of nonsensical statements that are regarded as truth simply because they’ve been repeated often enough. Not only does this do the person they’re trying to help a disservice, but it gives the preacher of said gospel the impression that they know it all and thus no further investigation is needed.

This has to stop.

One of these often recycled “truths” is that of increase meal frequency. More specifically, folks are often told that they need to eat small meals every few hours, usually to the tune of 5-6 meals or more per day, in order to maximize fat loss. This rubs me the wrong way, mainly because I have personal experience with this myth that was downright debilitating.

As I pointed out in this post, back in college I used to be THE MAN at eating frequently throughout the day. If you earned a living by following me around and reporting back every time I missed one of those sacred meals, then you would be homeless because that just wasn’t how I rolled back then. I always sat in the back of the room in classroom so that I could maximize the space I needed for my friends – Mr. Tub of chicken and Mrs. Contain of broccoli.

I was getting leaner, but it came at a cost. If I wasn’t eating, I was thinking about when I had to eat next. If I wasn’t worrying about that, I was busy prepping food for the next day, or figuring out where I could store my food on campus. To put it mildly, I was living to eat and not eating to live. It was putting a cramp on my social life and I eventually hit a point where if this is what I had to do to look good, then it simply wasn’t worth the trouble anymore.

Then I went AWOL. Off the reservation. Off the grid. Rogue.

It was as if damns became the world’s rarest commodities, because I just couldn’t give one anymore. Overnight I stopped obsessing over how many meals I ate and when I ate them. The stress became too much and I had mentally prepared myself to let the pounds start packing themselves back on at the speed of light.

But then something amazing happened: I not only stayed lean, but I got leaner.

Was it divine intervention? Did I accidentally drink some of that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle ooze? Or was it the fact that meal frequency wasn’t the determining factor at all? I’m sure it was a little bit of ooze, but mainly a whole lot of the latter.

I don’t want to focus on the science of things today, because while I read and understand it, I want to speak to practicality and application more than anything else, because that’s the world we live in.

1. It fails to take the individual into account

Meal frequency is a completely individual issue, but when generic, blanket statements like eating every 2-3 hours/5-6+ meals a day are given, they take the power out of the individuals hands, and, if you’ve been reading this site at all, you know that homie don’t play that! What may work for a 230lb bodybuilder trying to put on a significant amount of muscle wouldn’t be appropriate for 130lb woman looking to lose bodyfat.

I also find it backwards that the standard advice given to overweight people who have physiological and psychological issues with controlling their food take that the answer to the problem is to not to eat less, but to eat more.

2. It makes failure inevitable

By nature of the fact that it removes the individual from the equation, if success is achieved at all then it is usually only by dogged determination and an unwillingness to give up. None of these are bad qualities, but with the stress and issues that people have to deal on a daily basis, their dietary success shouldn’t and doesn’t have to require so much mental and physical suffering.

It comes as no surprise to me when I hear of people falling short of the “ideal” meal frequency and, because of it, feeling like let down and defeated, which often leads to nonconstructive dietary discretion (I.E. eating a bunch of food they wouldn’t have otherwise eaten). That mindset doesn’t really make sense, but it is a reality for some thing. It’s similar this scenario: if I can’t workout 6 days a week like my personal trainer told me to, I might as well not work out at all.

With the odds stacked against us, failure and disappointment usually aren’t too far behind, but and that’s just not how it should be.

Here is the take away point: Experiment. Find what works for YOU

If you like eating 6 meals a day and it works for you, dont you dare change a thing.

If you like eating one meal a day because it lets you cut loose like a dietary beast and it works for you, don’t you dare change a thing.

But if you’re constantly falling short in your quest to get from where you are to where you want to be because you can’t follow some predetermined route, then abandon the map – you have nothing to lose and everything to gain from it.

The diet that you can stick to in the long term is the most effective one; think of it as the bed frame and the mattress of your life. Anything beyond that is simply details; the precious looking pillow covers and 9,000 thread count comforters – nice to have, but not necessary for a good nights sleep.

What’ve been your experiences with meal frequency? How has it shaped your beliefs about eating? I’d love to hear it below in the comment section. Also, if you liked this post please use the buttons below to share it with your friends – I hear this dogma preached far too often these days, often to the detriment of the people they’re trying to help.

Photo Credit: Remy_Free

“You just wait. I’m going to be the biggest Chinese Star in the world.”
– Bruce Lee

You know the best part about this? As wild as his goal was, he actually did it.

Think back to a time where you failed to achieve what you set out to do and how you felt once you realized that it wasn’t going to happen. It sucked , didn’t it? Now, let’s think about why you failed. Was it a lack of knowledge? A lack of action? A lack of commitment? Maybe it was an amalgamation of them all. Regardless of what caused it, let’s talk about how you can prevent these from becoming road blocks on the way to having a beast of a year.

Problem: Lack of knowledge

Solution: Find it

In this day and age where we can acquire accurate information faster than ever before, this is no longer a valid reason. In the unlikely event that you can’t find what you’re looking for on your own, seek out people who you know have achieved what you want to do and contact them.  Most of them will be more than happy to help you step your knowledge game up, and they can also point you in the direction of other helpful resources where you can continue your education if needed.

Problem: Lack of action

Solution: Create emotional content

If you’re not acting on your goal, then it’s not important enough to you….yet. Harsh, I know. If you consistently say that you want to lose weight but spend the free time that you have doing things that don’t bring you any closer to that goal, then you’ve just proven my point.

The good thing is this: you can change it; you can make it important to you.

Find your reason why. Why do you want to become a successful writer? Is it to prove to yourself that you’re capable enough? Is it to show your college professor who laughed at your creative work that you can do this? Is it simply a means to get out of your unsupportive environment and connect with people who support you rather than drag you down? That’s what I call emotional content.

Whatever your reason is, make sure that it puts some fire under your feet, because this is what will fuel you when your energy is low and it becomes easier and easier to give up. You should wake up every morning excited to do something that brings you closer and closer towards your prime objective.

Problem: Lack of focus

Solution: Create checkpoints

Ok, so you’ve created your emotional content and you’re raring to go, but there is another barrier in the way of your success – it’s a lot to bite off at once.

Totally understandable, but we’re not going to let this stop you. Not this year.

Think of your goal resting atop of a ladder and all that you have to do is go get it. Simple, right? Yep, it is simple, but it’s not easy. It would be nice if we could just jump right up to the top of the ladder, snatch it down, and be done with the whole process, but sadly that’s not how this works.

So you have your goal. Now, sit down and write all of the possible actions, no matter how small, that you can take on a daily basis that’ll bring you closer to it – I like to think of these checkpoints as the steps on that ladder.

If you’re prone to falling off the ladder and giving up, start with easy checkpoints that you know can easily be accomplished. By starting off with these small checkpoints, you are eliminating failure and false steps during that crucial time where you’re still trying to gain traction, and by doing so you’ll gain the confidence that you need in order to continue moving forward.

I can’t stress this point enough – make progress on these checkpoints daily. By doing so, especially in the beginning, you’ll not only form and solidify the habits that you’ll need in the future, but you’ll be able to objectively track your progress towards your goal, allowing yourself to celebrate these victories along the way.

Problem: Going it alone

Solution: Find a fellowship

I love Lord of the Rings, but let’s be honest – Frodo would have died within 5 minutes of leaving The Shire if his allies weren’t there by his side to help him in his quest.

Too often we go it alone because we think that it makes us weak if we reach out for help from others, or that it will somehow dilute the victory, but this couldn’t be further from the truth, especially if going it alone has only hurt you in the past.

This website almost ceased to exist after only 4 months back in early 2010, and if it weren’t for the urgings of a close friend to keep on writing, I would have never updated it again. I knew that I couldn’t do it alone, at least not then, and they helped hold me to my mission, which I haven’t wavered from since.

Put your goal and the steps that you intend to take in order to reach it out there. Tell a close friend or family member – anyone that you know won’t let you slack, even when you want to. Do the same for them and you’ll be surprised to find that this may motivate you even more because that person is leaning on you for strength as well.

Sexification Challenge

One of my main goals for 2011 is to connect more with my readers, because you’re the reason why I do this. I get my energy from the comments and e-mails that I receive, from knowing that what I’m doing here is helping you in some way.

With that said, here is what I’m going to do. If you’ve ever left a comment on this site, I’m going to personally e-mail you this week and see how I can help you. Do you need advice on how to tackle your physique goal for this year? We can chat about how to get you going. Want to bounce some ideas that you have floating around in your head off someone? Let’s do it. Do you simply need a compassionate individual to hold you accountable to any other goals that you have? I’ll be that dude.

If you don’t want to wait and need to get the ball rolling NOW, then write down your goals + action steps and send them to me here: roger@roglawfitness.com

Even if you only have a goal with no idea how you’re going to reach it, send me an e-mail as well and we can work together to create some action steps.

The past is done with, but today, right now, we have the opportunity to disregard it completely and take steps towards creating the future that we crave with every fiber of our being. Are you going to let this year slip quietly into the night like so many others, or are you going to make it your best one ever?

“To hell with circumstances. I create opportunities.”
– Bruce Lee

Photo Credit: Negativz

Whether you know it or not, we’re all on a cliff together.

Some are standing around idly, waiting for things to happen, while others are shuffling around, moving towards…something. They’re not exactly sure what just yet, but they have this inkling in the back of their skulls that there has to be more to life than this.

The first group, the Standers? For the most part, without a major intervention, they’re hopeless.

The second group, the Watchers? That’s where most of us are, where you are (otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this), but I don’t want to focus on them either. It’s this third group that I’m most obsessed with.

There is a difference between this group, the Jumpers, and everyone else. For them, that mere tickle is transformed into a drum beating inside their mind, beckoning them forward while others simply meander around.

They’re called Jumpers because they don’t just listen to the battle call; they answer it. They dive off the cliff and into the frightening unknown in search of what drives them.

But why the hell are they jumping? They don’t know what’s out there. For all they know, it could be a land filled with quicksand pits, poisonous fruits, machine gun toting fembots and Velociraptors equipped with samurai swords and dream killing missiles!

As someone who’s run the gamut from Stander to Watcher to Jumper, I can assure you that taking the leap of faith is not only worth the risk, but is absolutely necessary if you want to live the kind of life that you imagine yourself living.

I don’t claim to have all of the answers as I’m still making my way through this world myself, but I want to share some strategies that I’ve used to deal with fear along the way.

1. Tackling your fears may get you killed.

Havi Brooks over at The Fluent Self got me thinking about fear in a different way. First things first: we’re not going to tackle our fears head on from the jump. Why not? Because that’s a sure fire way to get taken out faster than General Tso’s chicken. That would be similar to starting a videogame, completing the basic tutorial and then waltzing up to the final boss ready for a showdown. Some fears are rational, but most are simply powerful illusions brought about to keep you on the defensive; reacting instead of being proactive. Therefore, the first step towards fear domination is not going after them right away, but simply acknowledging that they are there.

2. Become curious

If you want to piss fear off, treat it as a curiosity rather than something to be afraid of – it hates that. This is where the actual facing of your fears come into play. March right up to the beast’s den and look it up and down. Walk around; study it; learn all that you can about it.

When you notice that sense of dread creep up inside of your chest, ask yourself why you feel this way. Ask yourself as many questions as you can about why this situation or action scares you so much. Is it from a past experience that you or someone else had? Is it your imagination getting the best of you?

The more you familiarize yourself with this seemingly foreign emotion, the more you’ll realize that it’s actually not some malevolent emotion, but your friend. Your fear loves you. It loves you so much in fact that it’ll do everything in it’s power to keep you from being hurt or disappointed. Sadly for you, fear is the offspring of Professor Xavier and therefore has the ability to project devastatingly horrible outcomes of future events into your head in an attempt to keep you from breaking out of your comfort zone.

Don’t jump out of that plane – you’ll die!

Don’t ask that question – they’ll think you’re a fool!

Don’t pursue that idea – you will fail!

3. Ask “what if”

Now that you know your fear is coming from a place of love and not hate, you can get down to the business of letting it down gently with these two simple words: what if.

What if you don’t die when you jump out of that plane? What if it’s an even greater feeling than you thought it would be?

What if you help yourself and others when you get the answer to that question?

What if you don’t fail? What if you succeed? What will your life be like?

Fear, obviously, won’t have any logical response to these questions, and will respond by yelling even louder, but you’re prepared. Let fear know that you’re a grown man (or woman) and are capable of making decisions for yourself without it’s input.

4. Look to the Jumpers

Don’t ever take fear’s word for anything, unless you want to become one of the Standers or Watchers. Fear’s main job is to keep you paralyzed, keeping the impossible from becoming possible, so the only way forward is to challenge it’s claims. The most difficult part is that you haven’t done what you want to do just yet, so you really don’t have any tangible ground on which to base your hopes and dreams on.

The answer? Look to the Jumpers.

Chances are anything that you want to do has been done before, and if that’s the case then you’re literally surrounded by a wealth of evidence that you can use to counter fear’s persistent urgings. Take advantage of these resources! If you lived in Gotham City and wanted to become a crime fighter, it’d be silly not to look to Batman for advice. Want to become a motivational speaker? Anthony Robbins has already paved the way for you. Dream of writing a book on a subject that you’re passionate about? Chris Brogan and Julien Smith have you covered. What if you simply want to see as much of the world as you possibly can? Chris Guillebeau can show you how.

The best thing about this group of people is that, having once been in your shoes, more often than not they’ll be willing to help assuage any fears that you have as long as you’re willing to ask for their advice.

The Jumpers are here to show you what is possible. If it can happen to them, it can happen to you as well.

5. Just do it.

Nike had it right all along. With all of this lovey-dovey, touchy-feeley conversation going on, it’s easy to just acknowledge that your fears are there and not do anything to move past them. Likewise, I’ve seen several would-be Jumpers get stuck in the planning phase for far too along and accomplish nothing. Like my good friend JC says, planning is good, but doing is better.

You’ve gone on your quests, you’ve upgraded your weapons and armor, but sadly you’ve leveled up as far as you can without facing the boss and progressing forward.

You’re ready now, and the stakes are higher than ever.

When in doubt, shoot first and figure it out as you go. At worst you’ll fall short of your initial goal while at the same time proving that your fears were grossly exaggerated, using this experience to move you forward over time. At best? You’ll reclaim your life from the clutches of fear and take a huge step past your peers and towards your dreams.

30 day Sexification Challenge: What are your fears? What scares the hell out of you? More importantly, what do you plan to do/have done about it? Pick one or two fears that you’re committed to working on and leave them in the comment section or send them to me via-email if they’re more private. Let’s keep each other accountable and use the next 30 days to work towards crushing them.

Photocredit: Divemasterking2000

As you probably have figured out by now, I’m a huge fan of dietary freedom as long as it brings you closer to your goals. I’m also quick to whip out some flaming Nunchucks in order to lay the smack down on any dogmatic method or gimmick that stands in the way of said goals. In many fitness circles the Glycemic Index is viewed as the magic bullet that makes fat loss possible, but I say this viewpoint is pure is hogwash.

But first things first, what is the Glycemic Index? It was created in 1981 by Dr. David Jenkins as a way of helping people with diabetes manage their blood sugar levels, and this concept has been carried over to the fitness industry within the last decade. The idea behind this is that low GI foods digest more slowly and thus keep blood sugar levels in check, helping keep the hunger beast at bay. Subsequently, higher GI foods are thought to send your blood sugar levels through the roof, only to come crashing down faster than a 1990’s Mike Tyson knockout.

This may sound all nice and dandy, but in terms of fat loss, why does it matter? Answer: It doesn’t for several reasons.

1. Taken out of context

In the case of the Glycemic Index, you have a tool that was created to help people with an actual health issue (diabetes) control their blood sugar, that is now being marketed towards people with no actual health issues as a way to lose fat. When you take the index out of its original context and apply to another vastly different situation, it ceases to become applicable, especially when you consider that the GI of a food is determined by eating it in isolation and after an overnight fast, both of which are not reflective of how we eat on a daily basis. Throwing in the fact that you can raise or lower the GI of a food by adding other foods to the meal doesn’t help make things anymore reliable, either.

3. Not supported by scientific evidence

A 2008 study out of the University of Cambridge compared a group who consumed mainly high GI foods to one that consumed mainly low GI foods. The result? That the GI of a food had no effect on body weight whatsoever. There are several diet books on the market that point to the Glycemic Index as the engine behind their results, when in reality the only magic happening is that many of the lower GI foods also tend to be lower in calories, which helps in creating a caloric deficit, which in turn drives fat loss. As a general rule of thumb, whenever a diet plan or system focuses on one food group to show you that this is the reason why their plan is superior to all others,  it is pure hype and they’ve simply managed to come up with a way of convincing you to eat less than you need to on a consistent enough basis to see results. All these roads lead to the same place in the end.

3. It makes things more complicated than they need to be

One thing that I’ve noticed above all else when I talk to people about nutrition is this: they’re confused as all hell, and with such a plethora of conflicting diet information available on the internet and in bookstores, I don’t blame them. You can eat this food but not that food, or you can eat both foods but only at breakfast, and if you for some reason disregard this advice and eat both foods together after 12pm, your dog will be kidnapped and the money in your savings account will be converted to lima beans – and you hate lima beans! This is a huge problem because this categorization of “good and bad”  leads to more unnecessary food discrimination that is the major source of all the confusion in the first place.

Imagine this scenario. You’ve had some issues with losing fat in the past due to confusion about what to eat, but now you’ve finally figured out a way to eat that is in line with your goals and you are experiencing much success – sweet. You get to talking about your newfound awesomeness to a friend whose opinion you respect greatly, and he tells you that while you’re losing fat now, it is simply a fluke and that your results aren’t “official” because you’re eating high GI foods. Because you respect this person so much, you abandon what was clearly working for you and start following their advice, and your fat loss stalls as a result.

You see what happened there? Well intentioned but crappy advice was given, and this already confused person who thought they were doing great by eating some watermelon and beets instead of a Big Mac was told that their food choices suck because because they both don’t follow some nonsensical rule. Now they’re more confused than they were before, and instead of this tool actually helping them, they have to deal with the cognitive dissonance of having their favorite foods labeled as subpar. Trust me, I know a woman who loves beets with all her soul and I pitty the fool who tries to tell her that they are anything but heaven on Earth.

The take home point is that you don’t have to complicate your life with any of this nonsense if you’re healthy, active, and simply want to look good. Cut the jibba jabba and stick to the basics of eating mainly whole & unprocessed foods and creating a caloric deficit through diet and training and you’ll be well on your way to achieving maximum sexy.

Photo Credit: WorldIslandInfo

Are you living a life worth remembering?

Put another way, which do you remember more – what you had for lunch 2 years ago, or the inspiring speech you heard 10 years ago? The lunch was so mundane that it could have happened last week and you would remember just as much (aka nothing). But the speech, oh the speech! It moved you. It challenged you to think about things in a different way. It forced you out of your comfort zone and into action. But, most importantly, it changed you, and from that moment on you would never be the same again.

Well, that moment came to me during the film 300.

As much of a fan as I am for an unabashed man movie, this one connected to me on such an emotional level that is difficult to put into words. Thankfully I managed to power through that difficulty and distill a few lessons that will help take you from where you are to where you want to be.

1. Find Your Why

In 480 BC, the Persian king Xerxes sent a messenger to Sparta asking the king for earth and water as a token of their submission. If the Spartans accepted, they would become part of the empire, receiving the spoils that came along with such a distinction. If they denied, they would incur the wrath of the Persian army; their men would be killed and the women and children forced into slavery.

So, what did the good Spartan king do? He kicked that sucka down a well. Request denied!

And with that act, the gauntlet had been thrown down – the eve of war was now upon them.

But why fight, especially when the numbers are far more in favor of the enemy? They fought because they had a reason to. They weren’t fighting to protect some abstract notion such as honor, but something more tangible – the lives of their loved ones and their very way of life.

Why am I here?

This examination leads to a lot more questions than actual answers. And not just any questions, but black hole, time stealing ones the lead you down an infinite rabbit hole and serve only as a distraction from the life you’re living.

Why am I doing this?

Why do I want to do this?

These are the questions that you need to ask yourself; these are the questions that need to be answered because they lead to action, not just more reflection. If you don’t have a strong enough why, then nothing else matters. Without a rock solid reason why you’re doing something, the how you’re going to do it will either never manifest itself, or, even worse, when it does it will be so shaky and vague that you buckle and your resolve falls apart at the first sign of external pressure.

2. Cross The Point Of No Return

By sending the Persian messenger for an eternal swim, the Spartans sent a message so bold that they had no choice but to move forward. They couldn’t just go “oops, my bad” and hope that all would be forgiven. Nope. They had crossed the much dreaded point of no return, the point in which turning back is either impossible or much more difficult than continuing along the chosen path.

But this isn’t Sparta, this is your life.

By crossing that boundary, you’ve essentially gone all in and put some serious skin in the game. Are you so deep in debt that it is gobbling up all your money, time and preventing you from achieving your dreams? Then find your why, create a strategy to pay it off, and start plugging away – and keep plugging away. Eventually you will have gone so far that the pain of continuing forward will pale in comparison to that of returning to your former state of life and the state of mind that got you there. As frightening as it may be at times, this is where you want to place yourself. This is where true growth and progress begins, yet this is also the resting place of dreams; where those who choose not to continue forward abandon their aspirations and turn the other way. But this won’t be you. This can’t be you. The stakes are too high for you not to continue forward.

If not now, then when?

If not you, then who?

3. Defy Convention

With just 300 men against an army of thousands, it would have been suicidal for the Spartans to attack head on. This is exactly what the Persians were expecting, because at least that way they could easily crush this small annoyance and continue along the warpath. But the Spartans chose to ignore standard war tactics and used the landscape to their advantage by forcing the Persians into a narrow pass where their large numbers meant nothing. By defying convention, the Spartans forced the enemy to play into the game that they created.

What about us, though?

Take a look around and you’ll quickly realize that everyone more or less is doing the same thing. Because it is safe.

Because that is how it has always been done.

Because it is what others expect.

Because of rules.

These rules, whether they are written or implied, are dangerous. They confine your thoughts and they limit your actions to whatever fits within the constraints of these rules, even if the situation demands that they be tossed aside for fresh ideas.

But what if there was another way? What if, instead of simply following the crowd, following what is practical and logical, you listened to that inner voice of yours? You know, the one that still wants to test the boundaries of life and explore what is possible. You might fail, but you also might discover that the only limits imposed in life are the ones you set for yourself, and through that realization begin to shatter those preconceived notions.

And Failure? It pales in comparison to the infinite possibilities that await those who are brave enough to treat reality as their plaything and create their own blueprint.

His helmet was stifling – it narrowed his vision, and he must see far. His shield was heavy – it threw him off balance, and his target is far away. With the hurling of his spear, king Leonidas proved that even a God king could bleed and solidified his place in the books of history as a testament to when free men rebelled against tyranny. What are you doing to ensure that your legacy lives on?

Photo Credit: Pasukaru76