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Go shawty.. it’s a lifting day…
We’re gonna party like it’s a lifting day…
We’re gonna sip protein shakes like it’s a lifting day…
And you know that we don’t give a f*ck ‘cuz it’s a lifting day…
-50 Cent (probably)
Happy Friday, Coach J here from Anyman Fitness – and welcome to the latest edition of The N.W.A. Newsletter.
Each Friday’s N.W.A. Newsletter will have 3 parts:
- A Nutritional Tip to help make your diet healthier and easier to stick to.
- A Workout Tip to help make your training sessions more effective and fun.
- An Attitude/Mindset tip to help you strengthen your greatest asset – your mental toughness.
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I will also give you my single favorite piece of social media content from AF over the past week and link to it on either Instagram or Twitter.
Without any further ado… let’s get started, shall we?
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N.W.A. Nutrition Tip Of The Week:
You can’t sprint until you can jog.
You can’t jog until you can walk.
You can’t walk until you can crawl.
And you can’t crawl until you can roll over.
That may be a bit too far to take that analogy, but I really want to drive home a point for you today.
Far and away, the BEST thing I EVER did for my fat loss and nutritional science understanding is simple:
I started tracking my intake and I did it religiously for 3 years.
Nearly every day, I would jot down my macronutrient targets on a small Post-It note and put the note on my fridge so I could update it as the day went on.
Nearly every night, I would plan the next day’s meals and make sure my menu was prepped and ready to go.
Every weekend, I would make sure I had all the groceries and food for the next week fully stocked so I didn’t skip a beat.
“Intuitive dieting” is red-hot right now, and it’s easy to see why.
“Intuitive dieting” means you should listen to your body’s cues and react to them appropriately when it comes to nutrition.
You should try to use moderation at all times and stay in a proper calorie deficit when attempting to lose weight, but tracking your intake isn’t a part of intuitive dieting.
In fact, those who shill intuitive eating often claim “You don’t have to track anything – just diet intuitively and you’ll do great!”
To which I promptly call BULLSHIT.
Our hunger cues have been utterly hijacked.
True, if all we were eating was animals and plants, we could just listen to our bodies and ‘eat intuitively’ and be fine.
If you think you can do that – eat 100% plants and animals with ZERO processed food – then intuitive eating may work in your favor.
But I’m a Coach, and I coach actual humans.
As such, I can’t expect you to do that.
That’s not real life; that’s a nice sounding clip you saw on your favorite IG-guru-account (Liver King, anyone?).
I tried intuitive eating for YEARS, and failed every time I tried it.
I wasn’t very good at listening to my body.
My eating patterns were totally disjointed, with me regularly snacking on processed junk.
I didn’t have the money, the time, or the knowledge to make tasty meals out of 100% whole foods, so there’s no way that was going to work for me.
But once I started tracking macronutrients diligently, everything started to change.
I stopped snacking so frequently, as it was impossible to hit my macros properly while snacking (there’s a lesson in there…)
I started thinking of foods in terms of fullness and satisfaction, and actively sought out foods that were filling and I would enjoy.
I started to realize what foods should be “every day” foods, what foods should be “occasional” foods, and what foods should be “very rarely or never” foods.
In the short term, the benefits were obvious.
RAPID fat loss, reduced hunger, sky high energy levels, and mental clarity.
I was so glad I bit the bullet and finally went all in.
I had resisted tracking my intake for years due to thinking it would take up too much time.
And perhaps it was frustrating a bit at first, but after a few weeks, it was pretty simple.
If you can understand basic fractions (or just use Google), you won’t find it difficult, either.
And the best part?
After about 3 years of diligent tracking, I started taking the ‘tracking training wheels’ off.
I would go 3-4 weeks without tracking to see how I did.
I would occasionally need to do a “one week spot-check” and track my macros diligently for a week to be sure I wasn’t slipping.
Over time, the wildest thing happened.
One day I realized I hadn’t tracked for MONTHS.
And I was still lean.
I was still getting in enough protein.
I was still feeling energetic with mental clarity…
All of a sudden… wait for it… I was “Intuitive Dieting”!
I was actually doing what I had tried to do for so long, many years ago!
But the difference was simple… I had EARNED the right to “diet intuitively”.
I no longer snacked.
I ate primarily whole foods (a BIG change from the old me).
I drank much less alcohol.
I knew what foods were calorie-bombs, and what foods were solid choices.
I had the confidence to go into any restaurant and find something that would be reasonable, while also tasting delicious.
I had done it.
I had first learned to roll over…
Then, I learned how to crawl…
Next, I learned how to walk…
Soon, I was jogging…
And finally, I was sprinting down the road, full steam ahead.
But it didn’t happen by accident.
I KNEW tracking macros would be hard-ass work.
And I also knew if I sucked it up for a short amount of time, I could eat whatever I wanted and not have to worry about my weight for the rest of my life.
It feels good to be right… 🙂
If you’ve been trying to diet without tracking, and it’s not working, it’s time to meet the challenge head on.
Get out your tracking apps, or your Post-It notes if you keep things old school like me.
Learn about proper nutrition through proper tracking.
And EARN the right to never track anything, ever again.
N.W.A. Training Tip Of The Week:
Your best results will come from getting a solid weight training program and running it for as long as you possibly can.
One of the worst things you can do is bail on a program before you’ve properly milked it for all it’s worth.
“Muscle confusion” is 1% truth and 99% marketing, and as such, you should avoid changing workouts just for the sake of novelty.
When you start a training program, the first 1-2 weeks, you’re trying to find appropriate weights for your strength level.
On weeks 3-8 (possibly longer), you’re linearly getting stronger every week, and adding 5 pounds to the bar on most exercises.
At some point, the 5 pound jumps become impossible to manage each week.
This is a GOOD SIGN!
This means you’ve found your current, natural strength limits.
Which means it’s time to find another gear, and raise your abilities through hard work and determination.
But sadly, this is the time when most people say “it’s too hard” and they want to mix it up…
No bueno, amigos, no bueno…
Once you stop making those 5 pound jumps every single week, you’re going to have to fight for every extra rep from there on out.
Lifting becomes grueling at that point.
Building strength is a difficult and time consuming process.
You’re not going to gain 5 pounds on every move every week forever, or the world would be full of people squatting thousands of pounds.
Once the 5 pound jumps slow down, it’s time to fight for reps.
You don’t move back down in weight, either.
If you’re benching, and you’re trying to do 200 pounds for 3 sets of 8, and you get 7 reps, 6 reps, and 4 reps… most people think they should drop the weight for the next session.
Nope, that’s not how this works.
Instead, you record your 7 reps, 6 reps, and 4 reps.
And when it’s time to do that workout once more, you try to beat those reps.
Maybe you get 8 reps, 8 reps, and 5 reps this time.
Much better! Excellent progress! But it’s still not time to move up to 205.
The following week, load that bar up with 200 again, and try to get 3 sets of 8.
This sort of a methodical, slow, incremental improvement requires too much patience for most people.
Most people want to move up in weight every week, so once it gets tough, they’ll switch workouts, start over again, and they’ll be “happy” because they’re now moving up 5 pounds every week once more.
They simply don’t know they’re missing out on real results, and serious gains by quitting their program once the going gets tough.
I usually use one training program for 6 months, minimum, before moving on to something else.
I started my current training program in January. I’ve been using it for almost 11 months. And I will likely use it well into 2022.
I’m improving every week, lifting more weight, rep by rep.
As such, there’s no reason to fix my training.
It’s not broken!
If you’re the type to jump from program to program and you’re ultimately not happy with your results, perhaps repeating workouts more frequently is the missing piece to your puzzle.
It’s certainly worth a try to find out if it’s what you’re missing.
N.W.A. Attitude/Mindset Tip Of The Week:
What would you do if your friend messed up on their diet and told you about it?
What if they said, “Oh my gosh, I’m such a loser, I totally pigged out on pizza last night, I have no willpower! I may as well just give up now…”
What would you say back to them?
Would you tell them, “Yeah, man, you’re f*cked. You’re destined to be fat forever. You may as well stop this healthy eating bullshit and head to the Asian buffet. Enjoy, bro…”
Of course not.
That would be insane.
So, why do we do this to ourselves, then?
We’ve all been there before.
We make one, small mess up, and soon, we have a case of the ‘f*ck its’ and we’re ransacking our pantries for potato chips and cookies.
Sometimes, these mess ups can last for days, or even weeks.
And by the time we snap out of it, it’s too late and the damage has already been done.
You have to have a short memory when you’re dieting.
YOU ARE GOING TO MESS UP!
You’re a human.
You’re not perfect.
I’m not perfect.
Nobody is perfect.
One of the best mindset shifts I’ve made is to totally separate my diet, eating, and training habits from my self worth.
Lifting weights doesn’t make me better than you.
Eating healthy doesn’t make me better than you.
And if you lift more than I do, or eat healthier than I do, guess what?
It doesn’t make YOU better than ME, either!
Fitness doesn’t have morality.
You’re not “good” if you have a good day or “bad” if you have a bad day.
Too often, we forget this.
And when we make a mistake, we quickly sink into a spiral of despair and self-loathing.
Learn to make mistakes quickly and forget about them.
You know you’re going to mess up.
So when you do, accept it for what it is, and move on.
That’s a REAL superpower – to be able to mess up, forget it, and get right back on track the following day.
You can mess up.
Just don’t mess up twice.
Mess up once, forget it, and get back on track.
The quicker you do, the better your results will ultimately be.
One Favorite Social Media Post Of The Week:
You’re always one meal away from being back on track with your diet.
You’re always one workout away from being back on track with your training.
You don’t throw away your car when you get a flat tire, so stop causing further damage when you f*ck up.
Get over it and move on.
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I hope you enjoyed this edition of the Anyman Fitness N.W.A. Newsletter.
I’ll be back next week.
Hope you have a wonderful weekend.
Best,
Chuck-D-Coach-J
Anyman Fitness
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In the rap world, there are frequent collaborations.
A “renegade” is when a rapper has a guest rapper on his album for a song, and the guest rapper totally destroys the rapper who invited him onto his album.
My favorite “renegade” is (ironically) “Renegade” by Jay-Z and Eminem.
This track was on Jay-Z’s album… but man, Em’s flow just kills Jay’s flow on this track…
Here’s the link to check it out. (NSFW – language)