Image by nimbu (license).
“Success is neither magical nor mysterious. Success is the natural consequence of consistently applying the basic fundamentals.”
Jim Rohn
Now, I’m not a personal trainer, doctor or fat loss expert. But I have ramped up my workouts this year, paid a lot more attention to what I eat and learned more about training and diet from various sources.
And so, over the last few months I have learned that I made some mistakes in the past when I tried to get into better shape. Basic mistakes that I think are pretty common and keep people from reaching better health and the body they’d like.
So I’d like to share those three mistakes today.
1. You don’t monitor what you do.
This is probably the biggest mistake I have made so far.
As I understand it, if you want to lose fat you have to consume less calories that you use. So how do you know what to eat and how much?
You got to monitor it in some way. I use the free and very simple Fitday.com to monitor what I eat during the day. I may eat some raw carrots for instance. Then I just choose that from their lists of food and how many you ate today. The site will calculate how many calories that is and how much of various nutrients I have put into my body. Fitday also tells me roughly how many calories I use with my current lifestyle and the exercise I get.
This is essential stuff. Because the three normal and most of the time actually pretty healthy meals I ate in the past consisted of the same amount of calories I used during the day. So little progress was made.
It’s also important to monitor yourself so you don’t eat too little food either. That isn’t healthy at all.
I find it useful to document my workouts too. I use the Journal software for that. It keeps me in check - I can review how many workouts I have done this month instead of doing some guesswork or deceiving myself – and I can also note how much weight I might be currently lifting in some exercise. Seeing the progress you make over weeks and months can be a good way to add a motivational boost when you need it.
To keep things within effective and healthy limits I think it’s important to monitor what you do. But not to get obsessed about these things though. The main point is to keep an eye on what you are actually doing instead of guesstimating a whole lot.
2. You think the workout is the very most important part.
I used to think that you could eat a lot of stuff but that people worked that stuff off by just doing, for example, more cardio. From what I have learned from knowledgeable guys like Rusty Moore and Mark Sisson that doesn’t seem to be the case.
Your workouts can have a big impact to help you lose fat. But “working it off” isn’t some magic thing that can fix anything or any amount that you eat if you want to lose fat. Here is for example an interesting article and reality check about this mistake that I read a few weeks ago.
Plus, if you don’t consider what and how much you eat and what impact that has you may be discouraged. You may be making progress but then you self-sabotage and keep yourself at the current weight or close to it by eating too many treats or too much in general. I’m sure this is an important factor that keeps people from reaching their goal. It seems like little progress is made and so one becomes discouraged and quits.
3. You are not consistent.
This is connected to mistake # 1 and also many other areas of success in life. People don’t reach their goals in large part because they are not consistent in their actions over a longer time period. You can’t just do stuff just when you feel like it.
Now, I am not saying that you should force yourself to the running track every time. If that is the case, try some new and more fun way of exercising instead.
But I am saying that life and any success you desire isn’t like taken from some Hollywood movie where you just do stuff on some spur of inspiration. Self-discipline isn’t a bad word, this is more like a marathon than a 100 meter sprint and emotions are – as I mentioned a few days ago – very fleeting. You may not feel like working out before you head to the gym. But when you are actually there it often start to feel pretty good. Funny how things work.
So it’s important to monitor what you eat to stay away from giving yourself too many unhealthy treats. Another way to decrease that problem is to replace the unhealthy stuff in your cupboards or fridge right now with healthier stuff. Then when you have a small craving you will reach for what you have at home and have a healthy snack.
So how can you increase your consistency? Besides monitoring yourself and realizing that emotions are fleeting here is something I found very useful. It’s a quote from Sanskrit Hindu scripture Bhagavad Gita:
“To action alone hast thou a right and never at all to its fruits; let not the fruits of action be thy motive; neither let there be in thee any attachment to inaction”
This quote tells me to understand that I cannot control the results of my action. I can’t control how someone reacts to what I say or what I do. And that I should do what I do just because it is something I want to do rather than because of some outcome I’d like. But at the same time I should not let these two ideas lead me to become passive and get stuck in sitting on my hands and not taking action at all.
I for instance use this when I workout. I don’t take responsibility for the results in my mind. I take responsibility for showing up and doing my workout. The results come anyway from that consistent action that is based on a sound plan (in my case, Turbulence Training). And this makes it easier for me to take this action when I know that is all I need to focus on. Instead of using half of the energy and focus I have available on hoping that I “reach my goal real, real soon”.
Focus on the process and you will be a lot more relaxed and prone to continue than if you stare yourself blind on the potential results that never come as quickly as you want to and puts you on an emotional rollercoaster from day to day.
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© 2009 by Henrik Edberg
译文:
你犯过这三个常见的减肥错误吗？
图像由乃谱（许可）提供
“成功既不神奇，也不神秘。成功是持之以恒地运用基本原理的自然结果。”
吉姆•罗恩
瞧，我不是一个私人教练，医生或减肥专家。但是今年，我加大了我的运动量，我更关注我的饮食，并且通过各种渠道，我加深了对运动和饮食的了解。
因此，在过去的几个月里，我了解到我在过去犯了一些错误，那时，我在为塑造更好的体形而努力。我认为那些基本的错误是很常见的，他们会阻止人们变得更健康和达到他们所想要的身体。
因此，今天我想和你们一起分享这三个错误。
1、你没有监督你所做的。
这可能是目前为此我所犯过的最大的错误。
据我了解，如果你想减肥，你吃的卡路里必须要比你消耗的要少。那么，你怎么知道要吃什么，吃多少呢？
你要以某种方式监督它。我用免费和非常简单的健康日.com网站来监督我整天所吃的东西。例如，我也许会吃一些生的葫萝卜。然后，我仅从他们的食物单中选出要吃的食物和我要吃的食物量？网站将计算出我选的食物的卡路里是多少和我身体已经吃进了多少种不同的营养物质。健康日也大概地告诉我，我当前的生活方式和进行的运动会消耗多少卡路里。
这是必不可少的要素。因为在过去我所吃的三餐都是很正常的，大多数时候他们都是健康餐。但他们中所含的卡路里量等同于我一天所消耗的卡路里量。因此，我的减肥毫无进展。
监督你自己使得你也不会吃过少的食物，这也是很重要的。那一点也不健康。
我发现记录我的运动也是有用的。我用日记软件来记录。它让我能够检查我的运动—我能够回顾，而非猜测或欺骗自己，我这个月做了多少训练—我也能观察到在某项运动中，目前我可能轻了多少。当你需要时，看着你几周和几个月来所取得的进步会是一个增添动机推动力的很好的方式。
为了使得事物保持在有效和健康的范围内，我认为监督你所做事的是很重要的。但是不要太过于痴迷这些事情。关键是留意你实际上所正在做的事情，而不是瞎猜一大堆有的没的。
2、你认为运动是最重要的部分
我过去常以为你可以吃很多的东西，只要人们通过运动把那些材料消耗掉，例如做心肺运动。据我从知识人士像鲁斯迪摩尔和马克西森所那里了解到，事实好像并不是这样的。
你的运动在帮助你减肥中发挥着重大的作用，但是如果你想减肥的话， “运动消耗”并不是能消耗掉你所吃的任何东西或你所吃东西的任意的量。例如，这是一篇我几周前读的文章，它很有趣并真实地核查了这种错误。
此外，如果你不考虑一下吃什么，吃多少和你吃的东西会对你有什么影响，你可能会感到很沮丧。你可能在再取得进步，但是然后因你吃太多的大餐或总的来说吃的太多而自己破坏掉你所取得的进步，从而使你自己处于目前或接近的体重状态。我确信这是阻止人们达到他们目标的一个重要因素。它看起来好像是毫无进展，因此人们变的灰心丧气，进而放弃。
3、你没有持之以恒。
这与错误#1有联系，也同样与生活中很多其它领域的成功有关系。人们没有完成他们的目标，很大程度上是因为在较长的一个时期内，他们没有持之以恒地坚持他们的行为。你不能只在你喜欢做的时候才去运动。
当然，我并不是说每次你都应该强迫自己去跑道上跑步。如果你真的是这样，试着找一些新的，有趣的运动方式来代替吧。
但是，我要说的是你想要的生活或成功并不像从某些好莱坞电影中取来的那么容易，在那些电影里，只有在灵感的刺激下，你才会做运动。自制并不是一个不好的词，与100米短跑和我几天前提过的短暂的情感相比，它更像一场马拉松长跑。在你去健身房之前，你可能并不想运动。但是，当你真正处于那里时，通常，你开始感得很好。事情进展的多么有趣啊。
因此，为了让你远离太多的不健康食物，监督你所吃的东西是很重要的。另一个减轻这个问题的方法就是，马上用健康的材料来替代你厨子里和冰箱里不健康的材料。然后，当你有一点想吃东西的欲望时，你将会伸手去拿你家里所有的东西，然后享用一份健康的小吃。
因此你怎样增加你的坚持度呢？除了监督你自己和意识到情感是短暂的之外，这是我发现的一些很有用的东西。它引自梵印度教经文薄伽梵歌：
“单独行动会让你有自主的权利，然而它永远也结不出果实；不要让行动的果实成为你的动机；也不要让任何的无作为出现在你身上。”
这引文让我明白我无法控制我行为的结果。我不能控制某人对我所说的话或我所做的事的反映是怎么样的。它也让我明白我应该做一些因为我想做而去做的事，而不是为了一些我想要的结果而去做它。但是，同时，我也不会让这两种意见主导我，使我处于被动地位，动弹不得，然后根本就无所作为。
例如，当我做运动时，我就使用这个方法。我不对我脑中的结果负责。我只对我的出现和做运动负责。无论如何，结果是来自于基于健全计划的持之以恒的行动（在我的案例中，湍流培训）。当我知道那就是我应该关注的所有的事情的时候，这让我更容易采取这种行动。不是把焦点放在能消耗掉一半的能量和我有希望“很快，很快地实现我的目标”上。
比起当你盲目地盯着可能的结果的时候，但它从未如你所愿般地尽快降临，而是一天又一天的将你置于一辆情感的过山车上而言，把重点放在过程中吧，你会感到运动变得轻松很多并且易于坚持。