30 Day Cutting Challenge.

To be honest over the past month or so I keep cutting on my food for a few days then going back to eating a lot the next few days and repeating it.  The last couple weeks I have been doing good on cutting but did a couple cheat days which I guess my body doesn't handle very well and takes me almost a week to cut that fat.  It is amazing for my muscle growth, my muscles have been growing faster than ever the last few weeks but so has my stomach.  So I thought I would be honest on this blog because this is a journey, and I am in no way perfect and I feel even worse because I keep talking about how I need to cut and I go half in and half out and that isn't what I like to teach, so this is me coming out and saying what I'm going to do until April 28 which is my birthday because that is one month from today.

What have been my biggest struggles for not maintaining low body fat?

I am one of those people who can eat and eat and eat and eat.  That being said if a food I love is put in front of me I have a hard time not eating it.  I notice even if I am full I will feel hungry if a delicious food is sitting right in front of my face.  Now luckily  I don't have trouble with turning down junk foods like pizza or anything, but its the healthy stuff that I have the most trouble turning down because if someone makes a yummy smoothie I'm going to want one to and because its healthy my mind says "oh you can eat it you won't get fat, its healthy".  And I end up being weak and giving in to the temptation. (As you can tell I have been eating too much and there is almost no outline of my abs left and this is going to change within the next month!)

Eating a lot is my biggest mistake and struggle I am going to overcome.  We live in a world where we have an abundance of food but our DNA is still wired to think food is scarce so it its was to want to load up ones much food as we can.

My goals.

Over the next month I plan on eating enough protein carbs and fats to still grow at least some muscle but maybe not at the same rate as I am at the moment.  I currently weigh about 123 pounds as I am writing this and my stomach is slightly bigger than it was before and my abs are hard to see now.  I am going to eat 1300 calories on my non workout days, and 1600-1800 on my workout days.  This may sound insane but for my bodyweight over 2000 calories a day is kind of overkill and is the reason why, even though 6 out of 7 days I eat completely healthy I am gaining fat.

I did the calculating and staying within calories should be easy for protein and fat, but carbs may be a little harder for me to get with such low calories.  My food I will be eating will be boring and mostly the same foods every day like cod, eggs, and maybe some chicken. The reason being is because protein is high in all of these for calories especially cod, and they are pretty cheap and I feel I can have fun with them making meals or salad and such.  Cooking and designing different meals is FUN!

I may even take a couple cheat days but instead of eating all junk I may eat an extra 1,000 calories.  I don't yet know if  I will or not, and if I do it will only be 2-3 times.  I love smoothies but they are very calorie dense, so on a cheat day, if I have them, I will have a smoothie as my treat.

The calories I eat are not set.  There may be some days I eat less than what I am supposed to for that day.  My biggest concern is if I lose too much muscle and have to bump up 100-200 calories for each day.  This I will keep you informed on if I do have to increase calories and won't really know for a week or 2.

Why am I doing this cutting challenge?

Cutting is one of the hardest things for me to do.  As a guy who is skinny fat, having a low amount of muscle is easy but getting rid of my fat can be hard while maintaining muscle, and even growing muscle.  I want to prove to myself that I have the strength to eat the right amount of food every single  instead of consuming to much.  But even more importantly my goal for this cutting challenge is to impress upon you to do a similar challenge for yourself.

I know if I am successful on cutting and maintaining or even growing muscle during his next month I am going to want to help many others do the same.





What would you guys like to hear?

I was thinking of either having a daily or a weekly update and a short post on how the cutting is going.  I would like to also be able to help you along the way as well.  And would love if you start a 30 day challenge of your own!  Do you need to bulk up or lean down?  Leave your comments below so we can connect and help each other achieve our 30 day goal!

How To Have Better Communications Skills. (My Social Journey So Far)

How are your conversation skills?  If you clicked on this blog chances are they need some work.  A little about me if you don't already know or are someone new.

I am someone who is an extreme introvert.  I am taking a journey of self improvement in many different areas of life.  In this case it is communication, and conversation skills.  I am slowly breaking out of my shyness every single day.  The journey is hard but with each small step comes sprints.  Many of the things I will be listing here are things that I struggle with still to this day, but I am sharing them because they are all things I am working on and have some experience with.  So if you are shy or even just want to improve your conversations this is for you!

Eye contact:

Eye contact is something that used to be a struggle for me, now it is pretty normal.  However, my eyes do still shy away sometimes, and for some reason it happens more when I am recording a video than when I am talking to someone.  I find eye contact to be the biggest key, and thats why I listed it first.  It is the staple for a couple other communication skills I am working on that I will talk about more in depth later in this post as you read.

So why is eye contact important?  Well if you have ever had a conversation with someone who isn't looking you in the eyes and is looking at the ground or somewhere else, even if they aren't distracted it can feel like the person isn't listening.  Not even that but if you are the one with poor eye contact people aren't going to want to talk to you as much for that reason because they are going to feel you aren't listening.  Eye contact has been a key for me along my journey and I am practicing it every single day whenever I am talking to someone.  It will feel awkward at first but in reality it is less awkward than not looking someone in the eye when you are having a conversation.

Slow down your speech:

If you guys watch my youtube videos you know what I am talking about.  There are videos where I am talking as fast as a bullet train.  It becomes very hard to follow and you can tell that I am nervous to be on camera instead of fully happy.  However over the time I have been making videos I have been practicing this a lot and slowly over coming it.  If you are trying to communicate with someone, remember to slooooowwwww dooowwwwwnnnn.  You and the person you are talking to will both have a better and more enjoyable conversation.

Better at listening instead of talking:

Oh, how I struggle with this one.  I used to be the guy who wouldn't pay attention to what you say and wait for you to get done talking so I could say my point.  I may even still do this (oh no!).  Through my journey I have heard many people saying to listen to what the other person is saying instead of what you are going to say next.  I can say that this advice helps! As an introvert I find myself always stuck in my head about what I am going to say next, and not focussing on what the person that is talking to me is saying.  I know I have gotten better, and I realize people are more open to talk to you when you listen to what they are saying, and instead of saying what you have been waiting to say for the last 2 minutes you actually listen to the other human being and make a comment on something that person said, and they will be even more happy to talk about themselves.

Don't multitask while talking (be present):

 Have you ever been talking to someone and all they are focussed on is their phone or something other than you?  I think we have all been there and you feel as if the person doesn't want to hear what you have to say or isn't even listening.  I still do this from time to time and regret it.  Chance are if you are shy you do it as well.  I find that being completely present with the person I am speaking to also goes into play with listening.  To be present with someone we must have patience.  If we don't we will ignore what they are saying and find more enjoyment in our phones instead of the person.  A great way to help be more present with someone is to practice meditation daily.

Speak with life not monotone:

This is the hardest one for me to overcome.  When I am happy I sound the same as I do sad a lot of the time.  When I make a joke it can sound serious.  For whatever reason I struggle so hard with adding energy to my voice even when I am happy or excited.  Maybe you do to.  If you are monotone it is harder to capture peoples attention and also hard for people to grab onto what way you are saying it.  It may seem like you are being mean even if you say something nice just because your voice has no up or downs.  I have been practicing and the way that has helped me to slowly stop doing this is to notice when I am monotone and switch to being more alive.  Don't fake aliveness in your voice but embrace it when it is true!

Did you like this post?  Share it with a friend!

If you are and introvert or have trouble with talking to people check out these books.

Why You Shouldn't Talk Family or Friends Into Starting Their Journey.

How's it going guys?

Have you been on your path/journey to mastering your life for a while now, or even just recently started to try to master and grow your life to become your greatest version?  If you have I know you have been enjoying the process, and see yourself improving everyday.  Most likely you want your friends and family to start some form of improving themselves to right? Why wouldn't you? We all want to see those we love and care for winning in their life and having fun every single day!

What if I told you trying to talk to your friends and family about starting their journey wasn't the best idea, what would you say?  You would probably think that I am crazy right?  On paper talking friends and family into starting their journey sounds like the best thing you can do because we all want those around us succeeding and growing, but I have noticed something about doing this that isn't good.

The more I try to get someone to improve their life the more it seems to aggravate them, which is a lose-lose for both of us.  Now why is this?  Why would this aggravate people if you want to see them succeed?

If you are on a path to mastering your health, imaging someone keeps trying to get you to eat Big Mac's or drink Coke.  How are you going to feel about this?  Most likely it would be aggravating because you are trying to do one thing and others are telling you to do another, and your obviously not going to eat the Big Mac.  It is the same for if you want someone else you love and care for to make a shift and you keep saying it everyday to them.


They will start when they are ready.
You may find that no matter what you say or do those around you won't start their journey.  This is simply because they are not ready and no matter how much you nag at them to start they never will until they decide to.  Why am I telling you this?  Do you just give up on them?  No of course not but you must give up on the idea of them starting right away.

Chances are it took you years to start and make a shift and notice what old habits you had weren't serving you.  We are looking to help, but with this instance they can only help make themselves and make the realization to change their life, until then it would be as if someone the opposite political party as you is telling you how great that the party they like is.  

Be patient, not everyone has to start when you do, it would be nice, but most likely it won't happen.  When they are ready you will be there to help along their journey as well as they will be able to help you along yours!

Not everyone will start.
The fact that not everyone will start can seem to bug us, or is that just me?  I don't know about you but I would love to see a world where everyone is on their journey doing things everyday to improve themselves, but the sad, horrible truth is that not everyone will start their journey.  Many of your family and friends won't even start!  This doesn't mean to pity or shame them, because they may just see things differently than you do and thats ok.  Like I was getting to in the last paragraph  I will say in this one as well.  Don't try to control everything in your life or in anyone else's.  The more you try to control the less control you will have over the situation.  You must know that not everyone will start their journey in the same way!

Closing thoughts.
I hope this blog post helped you guys,  I know from my experience that I want everyone to win and start their journey to creating a better life, but many will, many won't, and some will take longer than others to start.  Just remember that this is ok, the only person you can control is yourself, and the more you try to control the less control you will have, and we shouldn't try to control family or friends anyways.

Have a nice day, I will talk to you on the next one,
Brian 

How I Prevented a Cold in Just a Few Hours.

Does this title sound insane? Well it should!  This is insane and I can't believe I actually prevented myself form getting sick just by the foods I was eating and the way I was taking care of my body.

So Friday and part of thursday night I started to feel a cold coming on.  Nothing to drastic, but I knew I could at least try to prevent it, and lo and behold, it worked!

What did I do to prevent the cold naturally from getting worse?  I would say the biggest thing was my diet.  I did however work Thursday and Friday, which may not help, but I was still able to prevent the cold form getting worse.

In the middle of work on Friday I was probably feeling the worst, I was even feeling a little lightheaded and warm like I had a fever, warm to the point where at work it was 76 degrees and I was shivering with goosebumps!  I decided to get 2 amazing probiotics, one I have been drinking for a while now, the other I just started drinking the last week or 2 and fell in love with it.  The first is kefir, which has a sour taste (because its fermented), but also tastes like yogurt.  I usually use it for protein and the taste but knew it would come in handy to fight my cold because it is a probiotic so why not have a "medicine" I enjoy?

Kombucha tasted a little bit weird at first, but I can't say what made me like it?  I originally tried it because I heard that it would increase energy.  But in the situation I was in with my cold I remembered "this is a fermented beverage, I can use this for my immune system!" and that I did and I'm glad that I did.

I drank a whole bottle of kefir and a whole bottle of kombucha within 30 minutes to 1 hour, and it didn't take long for me to feel better.  The only downside was that a few hours later I was feeling a little sick again! I wasn't as bad as before luckily, but I decided to look up a other things that would help fight off a cold, and found that beef, turmeric, and greens can help fight a cold as well.

Before I went to the store I took a warm shower, showers when you have a cold or are sick in any way feels amazing.

I was going to make some grass fed beef anyways for dinner so that worked perfect.  I went to Whole Foods picked up the grass fed beef and while I was walking I noticed the tea section and went to look for a second, and found this tea called Rishi which this particular tea has turmeric in it so that solved my problem there.  I already had spinach at home so I made some ground beef tacos with soft corn tortillas, and after I ate that I made myself a plate of spinach and a cup or 2 of the tea.
Not surprisingly after I started to feel better again!

Closing thoughts
I hope this post helped you guys prevent a cold fast if you are dealing with a cold.  The seasons are changing and the weather is starting to warm up and I know many of us have a higher chance of getting sick around spring time and fall time, so I thought this would be a perfect time to write this because many people are going to get sick around this time, so I thought I'd share my experience and a few ways to help you guys out.  I am very into healing with the foods we eat and believe the foods play the biggest role in determining if we get sick or not.  If this helped you or you have other foods or routines that help you fight colds please share them in the comment section below!

Cheers,

Brian

How to Surround Yourself With Constant Motivation.

Motivation is something that kind of comes and goes.  You don't need motivation to be successful in whatever area you are going into, but it does help.  Motivation makes the journey more fun and enjoyable, and also helps you see that you shouldn't give up.  We see people who have already done what we are willing to do and it gives us a sort of hope.  If someone can come from a lower place than you, why can't you become great as well?

Before I go more in depth you shouldn't rely on motivation to be able to achieve your goals, I certainly don't, and everyday I want to give up but I don't, because I would regret it if I did.  But what are the things that would make me regret giving up?

If I were to die today would I be happy with the results I put out there?  This is a question we should always be asking ourselves.  If we wouldn't be happy with what we did by the end of our lives, we know we would need to change that right now right?

So how do we go about changing this.  We need some sort of motivation but like I said we can't rely on motivation to achieve our goals because you won't always be motivated, sometimes you just have to push through even though right now you may not want to.  However I love using motivation as a tool to boost my productivity.

What motivates me?
I am a big believer in surrounding yourself with things or people that will help you achieve your goals. I however am working on the people thing right now as that is hard for me to do, but I see my social skills are getting better each and everyday.

Surrounding myself with things I want is working very well for me.  Take a moment and think about this,  you are living in a run down town, your house is filled with junk or is slowly being run down as well, so are your neighbors.  Everywhere you look you see regular cars, or even rusty ones.  Crimes are very common and your neighbors are often robbed. everything around you is falling apart in a sense. Would you have any motivation to get out of that or would you be used to it?  Believe it or not most people would get used to it!

Now lets look at another story.  Everyday you are seeing millionaires, fancy houses with pools and hot tubs, exotic cars, Bentley's, Ferrari's, Maserati's ect. Everywhere you look there is wealth.

For me this is the type of stuff that motivates me and I am fortunate enough to live near a town called Birmingham, MI where you are bound to see 5-10 brand new range rovers in a couple minutes.  Mercedes G Classes are everywhere and so are many exotics.  I also have exotic car dealerships close by where I can go look at Lamborghini's, Aston's, Rolls Royce's ect.

For me these cars and also the house's I see are pure motivation. I know I will own many of these cars one day, and that in turn motivates me to put in the work to achieve those goals, and makes the work more enjoyable at times when I feel like relaxing or resting or taking a day off.

How I am motivated daily is by either going to Birmingham or the dealerships, or by finding people online who are where I want to be, or even just by finding pictures of cars, or houses in area's that look cool to me.  And for fitness I love to picture myself with the ripped body I am working towards!  You don't have to live near Beverly Hills to surround yourself with your motivations.  You can do like I do sometimes and go online and find pictures or video's, if it helps create a vision board or at least a list of things you want to achieve.  This list should be long at least 20 items that way you have constant goals you are working towards, they can be material possessions, fitness, how you will help people, your mindset or whatever you want.

At least create this list and be specific, you won't always be motivated but having goals in mind will help you push through the boring shit and days you want to relax, because you will see that your vision is more important than resting everyday and never going after what you want in life.  The time is yours!  Go out and live it the way you were destined to!