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I got bros… I got brooooooooo-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-ohhhhhhhhs….
In different area codes…
Area codes…
-Ludacris (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:
Today’s nutrition tip may seem a bit strange… and I’m bracing for the replies on this one…
Today is the day after Thanksgiving.
I hope you had an incredible holiday with your friends and family and were able to unplug, unwind, and eat some amazing food.
But… all those leftovers… they can cause some issues if you’re not careful…
Which leads me to what I would suggest you do today.
I fully suggest you throw away any desserts or junky food from yesterday that’s still sitting in your refrigerator.
I know, I know, that’s wasteful and there are starving children in Africa.
I get it.
It’s tough to throw away food – we feel guilty when we do this.
But I’d like to make the argument that it would be a net positive for you and your health.
The idea to not be wasteful is a good idea at its core.
Specifically in America where we tend to be more wasteful than most.
Perhaps it’s an unintended consequence of capitalism, but we also find it difficult to throw food away that we’ve purchased.
When we do that, we emotionally feel as if we “lost” more money since we bought the food and now we’re throwing it away.
It really does sting to throw away perfectly good food, so I understand your hesitancy if you’re crinkling your brow a bit at the message here.
But let’s think logically about this.
Let’s say you have half a pumpkin pie left over and there’s some extra ice cream and whipped cream as well.
Let’s also assume you have a current fat loss goal, or at least you don’t want to put on any additional weight during the holiday season.
Now, let’s take a look at the cost/benefit analysis of throwing away the leftover desserts versus eating them.
IF you eat the dessert, the pro is it tastes good.
That’s literally the *only* pro.
Eating the pumpkin pie will not put the money you spent on it back into your wallet.
Eating the pumpkin pie will not help hungry people from Africa put food on their table.
Eating the pumpkin pie won’t do a darn thing – other than taste good and add calories to your diet (and possibly inches to your midsection), which isn’t a pro, it’s a con.
IF you don’t eat the dessert, the only con is that you didn’t get an extra piece of pie.
Again, there are no other cons.
In fact, everything else is a net positive for you.
You’ll consume less sugar and processed nonsense.
You’ll eat fewer calories overall and feel better about yourself in the morning.
You’ll likely end up eating foods that are more nutritious and filling than a piece of pie, and those foods will fuel your workouts more efficiently.
Yes, you may feel a twinge of consumerist guilt if you decide to clear your fridge out and toss away the calorie bombs from your food fest.
But remember the message from the NWA Newsletter from a few weeks back:
“The Holidays” aren’t what causes you to gain weight during this time of the year.
“The Holidays” are only 5 days:
- Thanksgiving
- Christmas Eve
- Christmas Day
- New Year’s Eve
- New Year’s Day
The REAL cause of holiday weight gain is all the *other days*.
And if you choose to turn Thanksgiving into a 4 day food fest and eat the “feast” 3-4 times this weekend…
Well…
That just isn’t going to end well.
You had your fun yesterday, as did I!
I feasted on some turkey, stuffing, and potatoes, and finished up a killer plate of pumpkin pie crunch.
But Thanksgiving is now over.
Let’s turn the page and get back to business here.
Your waistline and your health will thank you, no doubt.
N.W.A. Training Tip Of The Week:
Do you have sore wrists from pressing?
Do you ever feel pain in your wrists from doing bench presses, incline presses, shoulder presses, or even push ups?
If so, there’s an excellent chance your wrist is at an improper angle when you’re pressing.
Your wrist should always be in a position of neutrality and strength.
You want to pretend like you’re going to punch someone in the face when you’re gripping the bar.
This allows your forearm and wrist to make a straight line, instead of being flexed.
Take a look at this visual to see what I mean:
Notice the unnatural wrist angle of the lifter on the left.
If this bar had any kind of weight on it, the lifter would feel a great deal of torque and pain in his wrists.
Contrast this with the lifter on the right.
His wrist is perfectly neutral and unflexed, in a position of power and strength.
If the guy on the left punched someone in the face with a fist like that, he would break his wrist.
But the guy on the right… well… he would break your nose most likely if he punched you properly.
He has much more potential for proper force production and his wrists are in a position of power.
The next time you grip the bar, be sure your wrists aren’t flexed.
It’s a common mistake I often see in the gym, and it’s easily correctable.
Once your wrist is in the proper power position, you’ll alleviate any pain you have in your wrist, and you’ll end up lifting more weight as a result as well.
N.W.A. Attitude/Mindset Tip Of The Week:
Dieting is a skill.
It’s important to understand this if you ever want to get better at dieting.
A skill is the learned ability to perform an action with determined results and good execution.
Skills must be learned.
Few of us have the natural ability to pick up skills and be fluent with them on the first try.
We always need to remember this above all else when we set off on a dieting attempt.
We’ve all picked up various skills over the course of our lifetimes.
Think back on when you first learned how to ride a bike, or play the piano, or speak Spanish.
Think back on those very first lessons where you had training wheels on your bike, or you were playing “chopsticks” on the ivories, or you were first learning how to speak conversational Spanish.
You weren’t very good at those skills on the first day, most likely.
You stumbled.
You became frustrated.
You fell off your bike and skinned your knee.
Or you stumbled through your words and the person you were talking to barely even knew you were attempting to speak Spanish.
This is all normal and comes with the territory when you’re trying to learn a new skill.
But dieting is different.
Since we equate our size and bodies with our self worth, we feel badly about ourselves if we “fail” at dieting.
We feel as if we’re somehow immoral, lazy, or we just don’t “want it” badly enough.
We feel like we need to somehow find more “motivation” and “willpower” and we think something is wrong with us if we slip up even a little bit.
This is the wrong way to view dieting.
If we know dieting is a skill, and we mess up, does that mean we will always mess up?
And we won’t ever become better at dieting?
No, of course not, that’s crazy talk.
After all, if you gave up speaking Spanish the first time you made a mistake, you wouldn’t be speaking Spanish for more than a minute or two.
If you gave up riding your bike the first time you fell down, you still wouldn’t have learned the skill to this day.
Instead of thinking it’s the diet’s fault you messed up, instead, realize what you’re doing takes time to learn and master.
It’s not easy to stay on point with your diet – and it’s really easy to become sidetracked.
When you mess up dieting, be kind to yourself.
Instead of feeling like a failure, think analytically instead.
Ask yourself the real questions…
- What was the situation that caused you to go off plan?
- Did you prep your food that day, or did you “wing it”?
- Did something crazy happen at work or in your family life to trigger a bad day?
- How was your sleep the night before?
- Did you eat out of hunger, or out of boredom?
- How might we improve our chances for success the next time this scenario presents itself?
Changing our approach from emotional to analytical is key to making steady progress month after month and year after year.
Think of yourself as the CEO of “Your Body, Incorporated”.
You look at your results, think about your inputs and efforts, and always seek out ways for improvements over time.
Dieting is a skill you can get better at over time.
Always remember this and keep it in the forefront of your mind.
One Favorite Social Media Post Of The Week:
Reasons your weight spiked this morning:
✔️Increased sodium
✔️Ate dinner late yesterday
✔️Hard workout yesterday
✔️Less sleep than normal
✔️Inadequate hydration
✔️Turd on deck
✔️More carbs yesterday/water weight
Most of the time, it’s not that you gained fat.
Chillax, 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,
Coach-Luda
Anyman Fitness
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Everyone needs to have a go-to karaoke song.
Back in high school, this was mine.
I used to know every single word of this 14 minute song.
And for a change, this one is totally safe for work – enjoy.