I was thinking of growing my glutes and growing muscle.
Absolutely!
We need more calories than we expand to build it, but how much more?.
That was my problem..
I wanted to grow my glutes so bad and my legs..
Because…
I wanted to have a curvy body and wear whatever I wanted.
Donuts, fries, hamburgers, ice cream.. anything juts to grow! Did they really helped me grow?
Those known facts were managing my mindset because even though I knew calories is what matters.. that food in specific wasn’t going to make my butt grow..
Also I needed time to grow and following my plan, which I wasn’t able because of how I thought I needed to eat..
Diet was sabotaging my training..
One thing very important to understand is that I can eat fries and still not gain weight or muscle if my calorie intake is equated in the long run..
But when I didn’t know it.. I would eat those and more to make sure I was getting more calories..
The increase of calories wasn’t helping with muscle growth. The increase of calories caused me to store fat instead. I look skinny-fat. There's only so much muscle we can grow at a time...
It actually messed up my self esteem, thinking I couldn’t control myself…
LATER..
I realized that I was conditioned to eat extra just to gain muscle (because it was my mindset)...
That moment made me realize how my thoughts were controlling my behavior because of what I knew.
I wanted to be lean..
A curvy shape..
With abs..
Nice legs..
Visible muscle…
But most important I wanted to stop working for it..
I will continue to train..
Eat healthy..
But I wanted to know progress was coming…
Be okay with it…
You know!
Peace with myself..
Accepting yourself isn’t that easy..
Because you know you can get there but you keep making the same mistakes over and over..
I know!
Then we look for the best diet..
The best exercsies…
We seek to burn a lot of calories and we have to feel like they are been used.
Nothing works because it is our programming what is messed up..
So many things we read, confusing everything we do.. and everything sounds so logic..
Like losing weight..
"The more calories we burn the more we lose".
We start doing anything that makes us use or burn calories, without realizing that if our body starts burning more calories it automatically starts holding more fat. We really cannot burn calories..
Homeostasis.. our immune system will not allow it. It causes a lot of other reactions just to make us listen. If we ignore, it pushes something else until it makes us reset… then progress really never happen..
A lot of things like this that we are unaware if they are right or wrong but they are there keeping us in the cycle of not achieving our fitness goals.
Let me tell you what I can do for you…
I have to know what you know. Our brain is so stingy that it doesn’t matter what we know is wrong.. it has no escape to change what you believe unless you are aware and use some techniques that I am going to teach you on this blog.
Unlearning seems so simple..
We learn what’s wrong and apply what we learn to be right…
But lets understand how learning occurs first..
Learning is that thing you do not think about..
It is your second nature..
It becomes the person who you are..
It is whaat manages what we do, think, and associate.
Learning happens in two different ways..
Classical conditioning: when we start getting hungry for the smell of food. A stimulus triggers a response.
Operant conditioning: consequences of our actions. We have reinforcements and punishments. Positives and negatives. In this case.. if you saw the scale going up because you ate a cake, we start associating eating a cake with gaining weight so every time you have one you will eat more because you are already eating cake or you can use it to your advantage and bring back the negative feeling so that you don’t crave it.
We learn through observation: seeing people do things that makes us do it as well. For example if you see someone running that actually looks fit you will run because that associates running with looking good. Watch out on this one. We do not know the background of the person or the real intentions.
We are prone to learn everything around us..
Even the little things we do not pay attention to.
Unlearning…
To really change your lifestyle for the best…
First of all…
Know why the lifestyle you have is not best for you…
What is wrong with your lifestyle…
Do not think of now…
What’s in the future of having that lifestyle…
You have to have a strong why
To be open minded…
Monitoring is important..
It is about paying attention to little changes we make..
One by one..
Rome wasn’t build in a day…
What feelings, thoughts and situations made you behaved that way..
Like I told you..
Mine was the wrong information of what progress was..
We have to make sense of the data.. to know if what we know or think is right you have to switch to believe the exact opposite.
Build information on what is not truth..
It’s a lot of homework but is doable.
Information from well researched sources..
In this case is important to have a well basic foundation.. you have to be well informed before all so you know what sources to chose from…
Not all behaviors are bad or good..
All behaviors are reinforcements or punishments.. positives or negatives.. all of them build up to what we learn or who we become.
Lets start with systematic desensitization: afraid of eating carbohydrates for example.. or afraid of eating more food..
Another example was me… when I finished my first bodybuilding show. I associate doing cardio everyday with being lean that when I was not prepping I continue with cardio but like I wasn’t seeing results because I was as well eating more and uncontrollable food (my body was tired) I was afraid of stoping cardio..
With systematic desensitization.. you slowly add carbohydrates to a diet.. or calories, until I went vegan… I stopped the fear of carbohydrates and slowly had more calories. Reverse dieting!
With cardio I slowly stopped doing cardio.. 4 times at week to 3 times week to 2 to 1 to none…
This helped my body get back to normal while also getting my mind of thinking I needed to do cardio to be lean..
Aversion therapy.. this is why is so important to pay attention to what we do.. I use to binge on Chinese food. You all know buffet! Well, every time we went and binged or ate, I got a really bad stomach pain with pizza as well! I associate those symptoms with my behavior (binging) and the type of food.. so my body started rejecting those behaviors from me.. it wasn’t me.. it was actually my body that remembered how it felt that I didn’t wanted it anymore. We allow that negative feeling be our behavior driver for next choice. We stop eating when we are full because we know how are we going to feel. It takes several times.. bring it back to memory and practice.
Flooding: I use this one when we normally eat more when we are around people. You have to think of you being around people and imagine yourself eating. Eat! Eat more.. is that good. Sometimes this unaware anxiety is what drives our choices.. or as when we are at home.. we associate not doing something with let’s find something to eat. Imagine yourself at home and be you! Just normal and okay.. another situation is something that makes us feel bad.. we feel bad and we eat.. stop and listen to what you feel.. switch what you feel for what you want to feel. Focus on what you want..
Those three techniques require of your attention. Be aware of how you feel and what you do so you can correct that behavior.
Most important..
i believe..
is to not forget that we are humans..
no perfect just trying to live the best we can live..
