Ok, so I am not an expert nor will I ever be. I been reading here non-stop for quite a few months.
Now the thing that holds most people back is stress. Right? I mean, I continually see questions about perfect workouts, timing, scheduling, consumption, creatine loading, blah blah blah.
Well all this can be disheartening. Someone like myself sometimes feels like if I can not do it perfect, why do it.
So now my new philosophy to keep myself steady in working out, etc are:
If you workout on a somewhat regular basis, it’s still good for you and you’ll see results! Consistency of some sort is important.
If you eat with common sense, plus or minus the calories. Good fats, proteins, carbs, etc - you’ll still be fine and see results. If not in weight loss, then in how you FEEL.
Any exercise at all, even done poorly at times (oh hell, Ill say half assed) is still better than eating a Ben & Jerrys on the couch and saying “Fuck it”
Supplements are great, but arnt the end all to fitness. There is no mystery to creatine, take 5g a day if you want. Its part of food. If you miss a day, so what. If you miss a week, so what. You can start stop, reverse. Whatever. Im pretty sure that can go with other things. Protein powder? Its just food. Take it if you want it.
In general, my rant is… just to give a boost to those new people (including myself) that nothing has to be perfect. There is a level of perfection in imperfection. If you get off your ass in some manner and go through the motions - you will feel or see results. Nothing has to be optomized, cause in the end - that will only cause you to stress and bail out of a program.
Any agreements, disagreements, am I making any damn sense? Is anyone picking up on this? Am I alone here?
I tend to agree with you on this topic. It amazes me that people will get bogged down in the minutiae of training without getting the fundamentals down first. Personally, I am not a food log/macro nutrient calculations kind of guy - that just strikes me as excessive, but it works well for others. Good times for them - just a hassle for me. But then again, I have a fairly good idea of how much I need to eat to gain and how much I need to eat to lean down.
Anyway, you raise some good points that any beginner should take into account instead of just stressing out that they actually had (GASP!) carbs AND fat in the same meal.
I needed to see this thread. I just ate a whole bag of fat-free popcorn (granted, it’s only 218 KCAL but gasp 55 g of CHO). I then spent a moment reflecting on this. Only someone teetering on the edge of OCD, or a die-hard, stressed out nutrition addict, would actually feel guilty about this. And I almost was.
I’ve also been thinking about the concept of a “cheat day” or “cheat meals.” The longer I’ve been at the iron game, the more I’ve come to realize that extreme, rigid adherence builds extreme behaviors, which in the long-run, can be detrimental. I think the Anabolic Diet is a perfect example of this.
I’m sorry, but I think gaining six or seven pounds in a day and gorging yourself on food is not a healthy way to live. Granted, the science may contradict this point, but for me personally, I was very unhappy “waiting” for my day to cheat when I was on a low-carb diet similar to it.
In just the past few weeks, I’ve really adapted, and thrown out the idea of cheating. Rather than saying “okay, I need to hit X&Y&Z macro and I can only have these foods in these combinations in these quantities at these days,” and sticking to this rigid schedule almost obsessively, I’ve begun to approach eating in a much healthier fashion. If I want a bowl of whole grain cereal with skim milk in the evening, I have it when the craving hits. Obviously I make sure I really want it, by downing 40g or so of Grow! powder and then brushing my teeth. If the craving is still there, I indulge.
I find that indulging at the time, rather than building up this immense amount of stress over a single MACRONUTRIENT over the course of a week has led to positive psychological and health benefits. I find the need to gorge or binge disappears. I’m satiated and my brain shuts off and feels happy and life goes on.
Most of my cravings are for good foods anyways, and they happen fairly infrequently (once every 3 to 4 days). I think JB is spot on with his 90% rule (10% transgression isn’t going to unduly effect your progress). Good thread guys. I think there’s a distinct lack of discussion concerning the psychological and mental effects of our lifestyle choices, which demand far more discipline (we’re literally fighting against our natural instincts at every turn) than 97+% of the population will ever experience.
