Meal-prep? I definitely have time fo dat.

Meal prep. The art means to prepare ready to go meals for your day. Diet is the most important thing in fitness. What you eat can have a great toll on your abilities and reflects on your body. A diet may seem complicated but it's actually fairly simple when you know what's bad and explore the many options of what's good.

It all starts here.(Picture provided by Ripped Recipes)

Above looks like what a pre-meal-prep looks like.All the good stuff gathered ready to be thrown together. Search for online resources to give you ideas of what you could create or let your imaginations run wild. We all have favorite things, but the best part is we can discover new favorite things. (Have you ever had tuna and and avocado as a pair? Unreal.)

Below is an example of a 5-day meal plan looks like meal-prepped. Tupperwares provide the right servings of your diet to have throughout your day. A healthy diet is usually 4 meals a day. Not eating does not mean fat loss. In order to become healthy, one must eat healthy. When we were growing up we were told to eat our vegetables, well they were right.

A week worth of meals. (Picture provided by Instagram user @J_Stachowiak)

Make time at one point of your day to prepare a weeks worth of food. Fitness is all about dedication.

Finish with Abs

Sit ups suck. We all know that. Here is a routine you can do at the end of every workout.

1. Mountain Climber (video)

Get in push up form and alternate bringing your knees to your chest.

2. Squat (video)

Stand with feet shoulder width apart with toes pointed slightly outward. Bend at the knees, stick you but out and return to starting position. (This is old school movement is incredibly beneficial to ones body in many ways.)

3. Jumping Jack (video)

Start like you did with squats, feet shoulder width apart with arms at the side. Simultaneously ring your arms up pointed to the sky and jump to spread those legs. Don't stop there, reverse that movement. 

4. Push ups (video)

You know what these are. Get on all fours with legs straight and balance on your toes. The key to this is keeping your body straight as possible as you lower yourself almost chest touching the floor and push back up.

Do each workout for 30 seconds with no breaks in between each move. After completing the fourth one rest for two minutes. Repeat the workouts 3 times. This is called a circuit! NOW GO!

Tips For Beginners

As I've mentioned in my testimony fear is one of the biggest limiters and can make our potential seem small. Knowledge can rid any of those doubts. If you know what you can do, you will do it! So here is a list of tips for any first timers on their journey to being fit.

1. Do your research!

I really do stress this. If you go into a gym or begin a workout with no idea to what you're doing, you're going to achieve nothing. Ask your friends if they work out, ask other gym members what they do l, ask personal trainers, ask Google! There are so many resources you can use to learn from even social media. Follow health and fitness twitter accounts. Instagram is great for small bits of inspiration. Search for personal trainers or athletes because they usually post their workout routines and gym tips. Not only trainers but you can follow food recipe accounts. Some are tailored toward body building and fat loss so you can drool over food and sweat in the gym. Remember, you can learn all you can but the real work is applying what you know. 

2. Set your goals. 

I'm assuming you already know what they are being that you're on this blog. Having goals are a good motivational tool but you must act in order to achieve. 

You want abs? Get those abs. 

You want to gain flexibility? Start stretching. 

You want to lose weight? Figure out your diet now and change that.

They don't have to be big goals, you can have small ones and you can accomplish more. And if you're like me, accomplishing something is just motivational food for your mind.

Recognize your potential and use the strengths you have now and work towards your goal.

3. Make a playlist.

I personally enjoy working out when i have my music. Listening to a group of people grunt and loud breaths can become distractig and even annoying. Music helps you focus when workin out. So load up a playlist if your favorite songs that get you focused or pumped up. Heavy rock, hip-hop and electronic music personally gets me into workout mode and focused. Hell, listen to Bach if that gets you going! 

4. Check your ego at the door.

Ego can get you killed. You have to workout with a positive attitude. If you're at a gym with people you think are more fit than you, rethink that and acknowledge that they're just people at the gym with you. Never be embarrassed with what you're unable to do. You can never get to Point B without moving from Point A. The saddest thing in the world is not what someone can't do. It's that someone won't even try. 

5. Narcissism only hurt Narcissus. 

After going to the gym for awhile and if you feel good or think you look good, own that. Feeling positive is never a bad thing. Anyone that says otherwise is lying to you or selling something. Go ahead and feel a little vain, you earned it. Wear those clothes you always wanted to - and now can - wear. These are just appetizers to the sweet taste of becoming stronger and healthier than you were before.

6. Have fun.
Obviously this is the last one. This HAS to be the last one. Why do anything when it you get no pleasure from it? Yes you can argue that working out is grueling but I have never heard of anyone complain that they finished a workout. So go out there and have a blast. Remember that the gym is only one thing you can do to get fit. Go ride a bike through a forest, climb a tree, play sports with your friends, play sports with your pets! GO HIKING! JUST GO!
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Why are you still reading this?

A testimony

I was always the type to finish something when I can wrap my head around on what I want to achieve. Unfortunately, I am also the type to drop what I'm doing when I lose motivation or focus. But it was through a selfish motivation and a dedicated month of building a gym routine along with a fixed diet is where I saw results that made me realize my goals are possible. 

When I first joined my gym, I had no clue to what I was doing. The last time I learned anything about weight lifting was in high school and I did horribly in that class. I saw members there who lifted weights heavier than me and thought "I can't do that". I was timid in all aspects of weight lifting. The machines were the only thing I thought I was doing right. But I was wrong. After one session with a friend who has been going to the gym consistently for two years, I learned how to recognize and work on my weaknesses. I learned how to gain strength to achieve the results that I wanted. I did more research on exercises, proper form, amount of reps and sets and valuable rest time. I learned what I needed to do and applied it wholeheartedly. I checked my ego at the door, grabbed the weights I was able to do giving no care to how much better and stronger the other members were. Since then, I never complained about finishing a single workout. The feeling is euphoric, the sensation of knowing you achieved something today that some people haven't yet.

I can lift weights everyday, run every free moment but nothing will come of it if I still ate non-beneficial food. In my household I grew up with most dinners packed with carbs and very little nutritional value given the lack of greens that were seen on the dish. Dieting doesn't have to suck, I can still have dessert if I wanted to, the secret to that is moderation. Dieting is actually the most fun part of this journey. I've discovered so many different meals and food combinations (my favourite is tuna and avocado, yum). Once I grasped what I needed in terms of daily nutrition, dieting became that much easier. It was never about cutting out the yummy stuff, it's about how much you can have and what healthy alternatives is available.

I've learned that the process can be very grueling and intimidating but what I realized is that it's only all in your head. Habits take time to develop and timing is everything. I came to the realization that I had to change who I was to become who I wanted to be. The moment that happened everything became easier. I did my research, tried multiple options, tested my limits and found my weaknesses. I worked on this as much as any one with a career. The focus was there and with that so were the results.