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Our Morning Ritual: How We Set Ourselves Up For Success Every Day

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It’s ironic that we’re posting this today. For some unknown reason, this morning we didn’t stick to our morning ritual. We started off strong by getting adequate sleep and prioritizing our main tasks, however sometime after that we let ourselves get off track. 

We were still reasonably productive, and we got some good things done, but our stress level was much higher than normal during the process. On top of that, we ran out of time for one of our main objectives for this morning – finishing and pre-scheduling this blog post. The blog post is still making it up, and a little stress won’t kill us, but mornings like this one are definitely not something we want to repeat. 

Below we outline 5 steps that we try to stick to in order to keep our morning organized, productive and stress free.

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02.04.15 | Lower Body!

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02.04.15 | Lower Body!

The Workout:

This workout was focused on Lower Body Strength sets:

- Sumo deadlifts 3x3 superset with power kettle bell swings

- Hip Thrusts 3x5 superset with power kettle bell swings
**I normally use a step for hip thrusts, but that was MIA ... so I resorted to hip bridging...I much prefer hip thrusts though.**

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Master Your Mindset: 4 Mental Shifts That are Critical to Long Term Fat Loss Success

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Mindset may just be the most critical aspect to successful fat loss. Heck, it may be the most critical aspect to success at anything. If you can’t control what goes on between your ears you’re bound to get discouraged by failures, put down by criticism and fall apart in the face of difficult circumstances.

For every factor that contributes to health and fitness, a good mindset is critical. Trying to stick to proper food choices? I hope you have a good mindset!. Want to make progress at the gym or stick to a healthy sleep schedule? Again, you’d better check your mindset.

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Prioritization: When Life Gets in the Way… Where to Give In and How to Minimize the Damage

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Sometimes, life just gets crazy. Between a dinner with friends on Saturday, helping family with some moving preparations on Sunday, and an Australia day party for Rach’s sister on Monday, we had a busy weekend for social events. On top of that we’re creating programs for our first two coaching clients this week, preparing documents for what could be a very good business opportunity and attempting to continue maintaining performance at our full time jobs.

Then, this weekend we’re helping my parents AND my brother move and Rach is working both days. There just seems to be no relief. That doesn’t even bring mention of fitting in our workouts and keeping our nutrition on track.

Needless to say, something has to give.

I’m sure everyone out there has had similar weeks. The question is, how do we prioritize around this?

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Pull Day

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Pull Day

HERE IS MY PULL-DAY OVERVIEW: 

Pull-ups (strict and modified with rings), bent-over barbell rows, face-pulls and inverted rows with the rings & dog curls :P (if you watched to the very end of the video).

I usually do 3-5 sets around the 10-12 rep range - I love doing voluminous back sessions!

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Are You Doing What it Takes to Stay Motivated?: 5 Mistakes That Are Killing Your Motivation for Fat Loss

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We’ve all had some goal that we’ve set repeatedly and just can’t seem to stick to. We start out as motivated as we’ve ever been, but before we know it we’ve fallen back into old habits and just can’t seem to work up the energy to keep going. 

What happened? Where did that seemingly endless motivation go? What can we do to avoid this loss of motivation?

In this post we will share 5 mistakes that we’ve come across in our own life that may be preventing you from reaching your fat loss goals.

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Leg Day with Ray!

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Leg Day with Ray!

Still getting used to this whole VLOG thing... Derek designed this workout specifically in a way to make my glutes sore. It. Was. Killer.

From Derek:

The split Rach is doing right now is designed specifically for glute and lower body growth and has Rach doing 3-4 workouts per week targeting the glutes and lower body and 2 workouts for upper body. The workout split is based mainly off of information I've gathered from Bret Contreras' blog (here) as well as a few podcasts he's been on. If you're looking for glute growth, Bret Contreras is the man to follow!  

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Why Your Hunger and Cravings are Getting the Best of You: 5 Tips for Minimizing False Hunger and Constant Cravings

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When it comes to obtaining fat loss the most difficult part is usually controlling hunger and cravings in order to create a caloric deficit. Sure, figuring out which of the 10,000 systems out there will actually bring results is tough, but once you have that figured out, sticking to a specific amount of food is often the most difficult task. (For help on figuring out which fat loss systems to trust, read this.)  

We all have a limited reserve of willpower and if we want to be successful we must do our best to reduce the amount of willpower required wherever we can so it’s available when we need it.

No matter which fat loss plan you choose, it will inevitably involve some element of resisting temptations at one time or another. In order to avoid those delicious looking cookies or that extra helping of dessert (when it’s not a planned indulgence) keep the tips mentioned below in mind. 

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4 Specific Strategies To Keep Caloric Intake In Check

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To follow up on our previous post (The 4 Keys to Achieving and Maintaining Fat Loss) this post will cover 4 specific strategies that can be used to keep caloric intake under control with all of the different challenges life throws at us.

Although fat loss is not JUST about calories (see our previous blog post here), creating a caloric deficit is the first area we target when trying to set up a plan specifically for fat loss. The two main ways this can be achieved are by increasing activity or by decreasing food intake. 

Below are 4 strategies that make it much easier to maintain a caloric deficit or caloric maintenance regardless of what life throws at you and without depending on meticulously counting calories or doing hours of cardio. (Neither of which are sustainable long term.)

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The 4 Keys to Achieving and Maintaining Fat Loss

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It’s a confusing world out there on the internet and the fitness and nutrition scene really is like the Wild West. There is just so much to sort through. For virtually any opinion out there, someone is saying the opposite. What's really required for fat loss? Is it all about calories? Or is it just about eating the right foods and managing your hormones? Who's right? Is either of them right? Are both of them right?

In this post we will address what we have come to believe are the 4 key factors that lead to fat loss and maintaining that fat loss.