There’s a simple analogy that I often give when teaching my spinning classes: The Brain is the general and the Muscle is the soldier – if the general doesn’t give the right order the soldier doesn’t do the right thing.
Weight management is pretty much the same thing: if you don’t stick in your head precisely what you want to do, you will get nowhere.
Some days are easier than others: you are well rested, your body responds optimally, your stamina is great and everything goes better than expected.
Normally that is the exception, not the rule. Most of the time your legs feel heavy and/or you didn’t sleep well and/or you can’t concentrate and/or you skipped a meal and/or… the list goes on.
It happens that there are a lot of variables over which you have no control, but there is one variable that only you can control: YOUR ATTITUDE!
It is totally dependent on you whether you have positive or negative attitude. Attitude is a way of looking at situations in life.It is up to you to see the exercise as a chore or a step closer to your goal.It is up to you to make the best that you can with whatever you have. It is up to you to have a winner or loser attitude.
You attitude is not dependent on your genetics, income, gender or the weather.
I know it sounds simplistic, but it actually is very simple, as simple as driving: you keep your attention where you want to be, not where you were or where you don’t want to be.
Attitude can go both ways: you look at your blubber and the more you think about it harder it is to get rid of OR you look at the dumbbells and you get it into your head that you will finish your set and before even starting you are a step closer to finishing it already.
Karch Kiraly was the first athlete in history to win gold medals in two different sports:volleyball in 1984 and 1988 and beach volleyball in 1996. In volleyball he is the equivalent of Pele or Gretzky or Jordan, and when asked how he accomplished so much, his answer was simple: “You win a game playing one point at the time.”
That is precisely the same approach that you have to have when trying to improve your body composition: have a clear goal and stick in your head what you have to do in order to get it.
Before every work out remind your self why you are doing what you are doing, whenever you plan your meals think about what you want from them: taste, quality and nutrition.
Keep your goal in mind and that will push you forward and you will get what you want faster.
You probably won’t win every point, you probably won’t win every set, but you will do whatever takes to win the game!