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etherealblasphemy · 6 years

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the story that doesn’t know what genre it wants to be

my brain had an idea for a sci-fi/adventure/dystopia story, and here we are. we have the wonderful Sanders Sides in the starring roles, along with some ocs because I needed to put the name “calrex bennova” somewhere. enjoy my headcannons as offering #1 :)

The Universe:

-Made up of thousands of galaxies, what we mortals call “AUs”

-Common languages include Laolae, Kirou, Aresan, and Falafel (I was hungry writing this)

-Rumors say that there is a dangerous creature lurking in the cold depths of space, but only conspiracy theorists on message holograms would believe that...

-Strings of galaxies are often ruled under one leader, because most species are kind and have their act together unlike humans

-Speaking of humans, Earth is dead. :) there was a great meme war (haha no, it was something much more dark...)

-Logan, Roman, Patton, and Virgil are all outlaws aboard the ship Sanders Yersinia, all with prices on their heads.

Logan:

-A highly advanced prototype of AI-ingrained people. They look like people, function like people, but don’t have icky emotions get in the way of reasoning and judgement.

-Oops Logan’s creator made a mistake so Logan does have something resembling emotions.

-His original name is L.O.G.I.C., but whatever it stood for was lost to a fire, in which Logan’s creator also perished. Patton called him Logan by accident, and the name just stuck.

-He is wanted for trying to break into a laboratory to “fix” himself and reprogram himself.

-Logan is quiet and suffers from love... of learning. He unfortunately doesn’t have infinite memory, so he sometimes must delete some of his knowledge in order to acquire new information.

-He is actually connected to the Cloud, which remained after Earth screwed themselves, so he understands all human languages and also has a secret habit of going onto human websites like Tumblr and YouTube. (He enjoys book commentaries and audiobooks.)

-The most mature of the crew of Sanders Yersinia; plays adult way too often for his liking

Roman Prionsa:

-A usurped prince from the Galaxy DR-34-M (i’m not creative lololol), on the run from the new King’s soldiers, who want to finish the job of destroying the royal family.

-The biggest idiot of the crew

-After Virgil introduced him to Disney, with the (unwilling) help of Logan, Roman won’t stop singing the songs and quoting them from heart. Virgil regrets his decision.

-He suffers from constant nightmares, in which his family is burned alive at the stake at the hands of the one who exiled him and he can do nothing but watch.

-Roman is very generous and understanding and gentle to everyone but can be extra and obnoxious with the flip of a Bitch Switch, which has landed the crew in several less-than-optimal situations.

-One time Roman tried to out-flirt a mermaid on an aquaterrestrial planet and ending up burning down a couple trees and getting his head blown up double its size by said mermaid. (“It’s finally big enough to fit your ego!” -Virgil)

-Despite his overly-dramatic “charm”, he won’t hesitate do run into battle if it means saving his crew members or innocent bystanders. He will also be extremely serious when the time calls for it.

-He occasionally wears make-up because a pRINCE HAS GOT TO SLAY

-Oh Roman also has butterfly wings he can unveil at any time and an everlasting flower crown/halo of light around his head. He was born glamorous.

Patton Hart:

-His real name is Pattryon Heartasea, but “Patton Hart” is so much easier to say (and it doesn’t autocorrect, so there’s that, too).

-He lived in a magical world called Noira, and is called a Drisine, also known as Shapeshifters.

-Patton’s “true form” is a woodland creature similar to a centaur, but galloping is not allowed in the ship, so he has to settle for running around as a human. Patton’s true form is beautiful, full of flowers and cookies and everything fluffy ever to exist. You will actually die if you look upon his true form (unless you’re a Drisine yourself) because no-one can handle something so pure.

-He has telekinesis, enhanced reflexes, and a larger spectrum of emotions.

-This makes it harder from him to articulate his feelings, leaving him feeling misunderstood and sad.

-The crew is known as the Patton Protection Squad, and will hunt down and destroy anyone who even looks at Patton wrong. They are alternatively known as the Virgil Protection Squad.

-Patton loves baking and enjoys visiting markets on whichever planet they visit to gain new recipes and is already to cook for his fellow crew mates.

-He is the closest thing the crew has to a fighter/soldier. But Patton doesn’t believe in hurting others who’re just doing what they’re told, so he refuses to fight, much to the dismay of everyone else.

-His crime is refusing to fight. Noira is very close to Roman’s home planet, and thus is also under the rule of Roman’s family. As a teenager Drisine (his seventies in human years), he refused to fight for the royal family because it was against his morals and was thusly imprisoned.

-Roman, on a tour on the castle in preparation for the day he would succeed his parents, saw Patton in a cell and immediately had him freed.

-Roman and Patton are now inseparable friends and will die for each other without hesitation.

Virgil Sorge:

-The last survivor from Earth. He witnessed its destruction and is now anxious that every little thing will destroy the last things he loves in his life.

-He was 20 when he was picked up by a alien ship surrounded by blue and red lights.

-He‘s quiet and moody and has really low alcohol tolerance, as discovered by Roman.

-One of the only things from Earth that he took with him is his hoodie, which his mother hand-knit for him for his sixteenth birthday and is basically the last thing he has to remind him of her.

-He knows every MCR, P!ATD, TOP, FOB, Green Day, Black Veil Brides, NateWantsToBattle, and Ivalo song there ever was (note: ivalo is not a real band, please don’t be confused when search results yield nothing about them).

-He’s overprotective of his crew members and is always the first one to offer medical help in any situation.

-Virgil is Logan’s apprentice. Logan knows there will be a day that he will break, so he’s training Virgil to do all of his jobs when that day comes. Virgil, of course, just thinks Logan wants to show off his knowledge, but he’ll do anything that’ll prove his worth.

-Virgil technically never committed any crime, he was just so grateful to be saved from the dying Earth that he fought alongside the crew and eventually people just decided four troublemakers in jail is better than three.

Calrex Bennova:

-My OC who I love. go and fight me. You can’t win against someone with a name this cool.

-Calrex is from a planet lost to time and space. They hardly remember anything from their past, other than screaming and their parents’ silver eyes full of tears. (Foreboding, I know. You’re welcome my brain writes nothing but angst)

-If they were human, they were be a mix between Alaskan Native American, Latinx, East Asian, and Pacific Islander. They basically look like a fusion between Yuuri Katsuki, Moana, Miguel from Coco, and an Inuit (I can’t name any Alaskan Native Americans because there’s NO REPRESENTATION in the media).

-They’re originally found by the crew in a dark back alley behind a pub called “Sleeping Stars” and are taken into the crew because 1. they’re a badass bitch and the crew needs an actual fighter and 2. they have some pretty rough injuries.

-When they wake up, they freak because why are they in a spaceship? and why is someone watching them as if they care? and if they don’t want to claim the bounty on their head, and they don’t want their body, what the fUCK DO THEY WANT? FRIENDSHIP?

-Cal is known intergalatically as “The Pirate” because they have a history of petty offenses. Oh, and they also are rumored to have wiped out an entire galaxy without mercy. But even Cal doesn’t remember that, so...

-They always wear combat boots. Always. Even to bed.

-Their first night in the ship, they refuse to sleep with everyone else in the Dorms, so they sleep in the Control Center on the floor. But a mysterious member of the crew brings a sleeping Cal a blanket and a pillow :) kindness still exists, happily

Thomas:

-The Sanders Yersinia’s A.I.

-Loves making puns, overanalyzing every possible outcome of every possible situations, informing their passengers of useful information at the worst possible moment, and playing Disney songs to wake Roman up from his beauty sleep.

-Logan even designed an avatar for Thomas that appears on the screen, though only his waist above is ever shown.

-He can never be sad. Ever. You are doomed to always have an optimist’s perspective at the worst of moments.

woooo I think this is long enough for now. AnYwHo, I hope you enjoyed reading my first attempt at creating an AU; hopefully I didn’t bore you all to death. Apparently some of you all actually wanted this, so here’s my first attempt at a tag list (so many firsts aaaaaahhhhhh...)

@asofterfan

@alix-the-skeleton

@hufflepuffsscrewdriver

@v-blue-writer

thank you all for wanting this and actually motivating me to write something :)

#sanders sides #sanders sides au #au #sci-fi #galaxy #roman sanders #virgil sanders #patton sanders #logan sanders #Thomas sanders #Calrex the Pirate #what the hell am I supposed to call this

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trendingnewsb · 7 years

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How I Learned the Importance of Cardio the Hard Way

When I am training clients the first time, I often hear this one sentence: “I don’t want to go jogging today, I don’t want to lose my muscles!” This is a deadly misconception. It is completely irrational, unhealthy and unscientific.

As Will Smith said, cardiovascular endurance training is one of the keys to a great life,

The keys to life are running and reading. When you’re running, there’s a little person that talks to you and says, “Oh I’m tired. My lung’s about to pop. I’m so hurt. There’s no way I can possibly continue.” You want to quit. If you learn how to defeat that person when you’re running, you will know to not quit when things get hard in your life.

While jogging might not be the most fun activity to do. At least for most of us. It is nonetheless crucial to implement cardio training in your workout schedule. Not doing cardio is an excuse, to not deal with the pain of running long distance. The fear of losing your muscles is simply an excuse to not go for that hard, yet so important activity.

More often than not, cardio training can actually improve your prospects of gaining muscles. Partly by helping your body build muscles faster but also by increasing your life span. Increasing your life span is a big part in achieving muscle growth. Because one thing is for sure: If there’s a person that definitely can’t build muscle mass, it’s a dead one.

Learning The Importance Of Cardio – The Hard Way

I was never a big fan of doing cardio training, until I felt an unexpected and grave urgency to start doing so. Let’s go back two years.

At that time I was at a seminar for cardio training. We were asked to do a lactate test. This is a test where you run on a treadmill while getting your blood tested several times. After a certain period of time, about two minutes, the speed of the treadmill gets increased. The goal is to find out how much lactate your body is producing at a certain speed. The more lactate your body is producing, the more stress your body is currently dealing with. Also the more likely you are for having problems with heart disease or other underlying diseases.

We were starting out at about 7 kilometers per hour. This is an easy jogging tempo considered from today’s standpoint. But back then, this was exhausting. I was starting to sweat heavily after only three minutes of running with that speed. After the first blood test, we had to reduce the speed on the treadmill. I was expected to have a lactate level at about 0.8mmol/l. My lactate levels were about 2.5mmol/l. My stress levels were already going through the roof.

At that time I was also founding my business and my youtube channel. Sleep loss, tons of stress, plus my complete neglecting of cardiovascular training has taken its toll. Me, a fitness trainer, completely healthy looking and muscular, was at a risk of heart disease. I felt like a scam-artist.

While it’s true that most of the top long-distance runners are really thin, cardio training is nonetheless important for many other key aspects of your life. Such as dealing with stress and improving your heart health. It even improves your blood circulation of your brain, which has been linked with increased intelligence.[1]

Don’t be penny wise and pound foolish. Cardio training is important to live a long and healthy life and performing at your highest level, both professionally and in your private life.

The Benefits For Muscle Growth

The number one reason I was afraid to go jogging or ride a bike on a continuous basis, was that I was afraid to lose my muscles. This meant that a completely biased and unscientific belief was preventing me from living my life to the fullest.

Just recently I ran 26 kilometers straight for fun. I think at this moment, I’m at one of the best shapes of my life, both physically and mentally. I am able to work long hours as a facility manager, online coach and content creator, plus I’m still able to train hard.

While it’s true that a calorie surplus is needed to gain muscles and cardio training is burning calories, this is an easy shortcoming to make up for. Having to eat more is a privilege. Most people in this world struggle to eat less.

Doing cardiovascular training on a regular basis can even help you to improve your muscle growth. Cardio training can reduce the time needed for recovery. Endurance training improves your blood circulation.[2] Blood circulation is important for transporting nutrients to your cells and removing toxins. Put cardio training in combination with a vegan diet and you’re absolutely boosting your results in the gym.

The downside of cardiovascular training for muscle growth is therefore easy to manage. The downsides of not doing cardio, are harder to deal with.

Not Doing Cardio Is Slowly Killing You

A professor of mine once told me that while weightlifting helps you deal with stress, cardio training helps you to relax. Low intensity cardiovascular training is crucial when it comes to increasing your vagal tone.[3]

An increased vagal tone, the measure of the activity of the longest and oldest nerve in your body – the vagus nerve, is linked with better control over your emotion and less likelihood to acquire stress.

Cardiovascular disease is the number one risk factor for death and disability in the US. While multiple factors are playing a role in the creation of this disease, such as nutrition. Cardiovascular endurance training is a good way to prevent and even cure that sickness. Jogging or even walking on a regular basis can improve your blood cholesterol and triglycerides level, indicators that help you live a long and healthy life. Doing endurance training seems to be a good price to pay then.

If exercise could be purchased in a pill, it would be the single most widely prescribed and beneficial medicine in the nation. – Robert H. Butler

How To Implement Cardio In Your Schedule

To combat my high lactate levels, I was implementing sprints into my workout schedule. This is not good. I did not know that this form of high intensity training can even lead to more stress.

If you’re already an avid weight trainer, make sure you’re training cardio at separate days of your workout programs. Try to put as much time between your weight training and cardio training. This way your body has enough time for recovery and can focus on the build up of the two different training entities, increased muscle growth and blood circulation.

Implement cardiovascular training in your schedule, by following this exact order. Following this scheme is crucial for your long-lasting success:

Train as often as you can.

Train as long as you can.

Train as fast as you can.

Implement cardiovascular training in your daily life. Walk to the grocery store instead of taking your car. You don’t have to go for a jog if you can’t do it. Instead just go for a walk. There’s nothing to be ashamed of if you can’t – you’re still beating everyone that is sitting at home on the couch. The duration or the speed of your training don’t matter at the beginning. Try to do this for 3-4 times a week, you’re trying to create a healthy habit. I recommend doing cardio in the morning, when you’re still uninterrupted. The before or after breakfast discussion is trivial, you have to see what works for you. The most important thing is, to just get into the habit.

If you’re walking 3-4 times a week, you can increase the duration. Aim for 30-60 minutes each time. Day by day, try to walk a little bit longer each time. I like to use an audiobook or listen to good music. You can also find a good workout partner, this will even make it more likely for you to stick to the schedule.

If you manage to walk 3-4 times a week for 60 minutes, increase the speed of your exercise. Try to incorporate small jogging intervals in your walking. Don’t push yourself too hard. Make your training sustainable and enjoyable. At least for the beginning. With some time you will learn to appreciate the pain, in a non-masochistic way of course.

Featured photo credit: Pexel via pexels.com

Reference

[1]^NCBI: Be smart, exercise your heart: exercise effects on brain and cognition.[2]^NCBI: Effects of exercise training on coronary circulation: introduction.[3]^NCBI: Improvements in heart rate variability with exercise therapy

The post How I Learned the Importance of Cardio the Hard Way appeared first on Lifehack.

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729renegades · 5 years

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Being Healthy on the Inside and Out – Part 2

Following on from my article last month, I introduced you to the exciting new product that we are developing behind the scenes that’ll help us attract more business owners into the Renegades circle.

Everyone wants different things, but we all want to be successful and this month I continue to discuss what an important part your health and wellbeing plays in being healthy on the inside and out. I firmly believe that if you look after yourself in a small way, you’re better equipped to deal with the demands of running a business and juggling a family and private life.

Let’s be fair, if you feel like shit then you normally can’t muster up enough effort to have a great day. You may get away with the odd day for a cough or cold but if its sustained then everything suffers. This is why when I appraised myself and my situation, I knew things had to change for the better.

How many times have you used that old excuse of working long, tired, no time? Bollocks! It’s a matter of priorities.

Your biggest asset is you and your health and well-being. It doesn’t matter if you have the best ideas, or you are the greatest ever entrepreneur – when you’re dead, you’re dead! If you can’t muster up the energy to do everyday tasks then you’re going to struggle with the demands of running a business, being an entrepreneur, a wife, mother, husband, and a father.

I discovered that if I wanted to work on me, then I had to make time for me.

The good Lord isn’t making any more time.

Your biggest asset is you and your health and well-being. It doesn’t matter if you have the best ideas, or you are the greatest ever entrepreneur – when you’re dead, you’re dead

It doesn’t matter who you are or how much money you have, there’s still only 24 hours in a day. At some stage in that day you have to factor in sleeping and eating, the rest is up for grabs.

I heard a great saying the other day, “Busy is a choice”, I love that saying. How many times do you ask, “How are you?” or “How’s things?” and the reply is, “I’m so busy”. My inner voice screams “Really, really, everyone’s bloody busy”!! I obviously don’t say that, if someone has a genuine problem, I love to help but, on most occasions, they’re just moans and groans about life in general and life choices that people make.

My father used to say whenever he was asked that, “How are you?” question, he would always say “Good, Excellent or Great”.

I found out, as I grew up, he’s a wise man, he used to say, “It doesn’t matter if life is bad and things are getting you down, nobody wants to hear about how bad it is, so they simply don’t listen”.

He’s right, if you ask someone how they are, and they start back with, “Terrible because Auntie Ethel’s got a cold and Mum’s cat got run over….” Straight away you think shut up and switch off. We all have our own issues and problems.

What I’ve found is by saying, “Excellent” or “Super Well” people genuinely say, “really, how so” and are now interested and perked up themselves. I’d much rather people say, “Steve is such a positive person, always happy…” Than “Did you see Steve today, he’s a miserable old bastard…” your behaviour and demeanour can positively or negatively affect you and those around you.

I said I would share what works for me so here goes:

The alarm is set of 0545, I either go to the gym or I get to the office, whether that’s the home office or work office. I try and do between 3 and 5 workouts a week. Doing it by yourself at that time of the morning can be tough, so get a kindred spirit or do as I did and get a personal trainer. When I started that, could I afford it? No, my mindset was, could I afford not to? The answer again was. . . No. You don’t need to be loaded to get a trainer, again it’s about priorities. A decent trainer will cost you about £25 a session, that’s 3 bottles of wine a week or one take away – you pick!

I normally do 2 sessions with the trainer a week, Monday and Friday mornings are my preferred choice. Monday ensures the odd glass of wine on a Sunday lunch doesn’t spread to two bottles over the day! Friday finishes the week off when the energy levels can be sagging slightly and sets the weekend up perfectly. On the other occasions I’ll do a session the trainer has given me, hit the weights or even take a class in the gym.

One way I have found that spurs me on besides the thought of getting killed by my trainer is to set myself crazy challenges. I have done Duathlons, Obstacle Courses, Triathlons, 10K runs, I’ve already mentioned that Cardiff Half Marathon.

Most recently I set myself a target of raising £10,000 for a Cancer Hospital that saved my Mother’s life when she had breast cancer. She was 70, it was 15 years since she had the treatment. I agreed to cycle 400 miles in 5 days across the North Island of New Zealand with a bunch of other crazy folk I had never met before. That kept me going for a year!

On other days when I get in the office, I try not to get into work stuff until after 0830. That’s the same as if I’ve been training. On these days I do some self-development stuff. I write, I read, I listen or learn.

Recently I’ve started using an App called Headspace to meditate and that has really helped my sense of wellbeing.

The App allows you to meditate even if you’ve never had a go before or if you are a seasoned expert. It helps you and sets you on course.

For me I found it when I was struggling with a feeling of anxiety, but I use it now most days just to give my mind that time, perhaps 20 minutes, to switch off and declutter.

It certainly helps me as I find myself thinking fast from the moment my eyes open until they close at bed time.

Meditation gives me that peace and time to put things back in the places they should be. It’s like my brain files things where they should be while I am concentrating on my breathing!!!

These mornings are my saviour and it’s my working on “me time”.

A word here for all those people who say, “Oh I hate mornings” or “Sorry, I don’t do mornings. I was one of you, but I changed because I wanted to, and I saw the value in changing. I made a choice, you can too.

If you had asked my wife if she could see me getting up before 6am and doing what I do now, she literally would have died laughing. When we first met, I’d be in bed until after 8 most days. I was lazy and depressed. That allowed the negativity to keep eating away and I gave it the fuel it needed to survive by my routines and choices.

I find that once I’ve started the day off well, I make a sensible breakfast choice, I have energy, I feel good and that feeds through the rest of the day. When I feel like that and a challenge comes in then I’m ready to face it and find it easy to roll with the ups and downs of the day with a positive frame of mind. When I was in a bad place and bad routines then if a challenge came in, I’d blame every man and his dog and wished I’d never got up, the negativity would feed my day and it would go pair shaped from there.

There’s a saying, “Win the morning – Win the day”, and there have been loads of books and people to follow on this. Miracle Morning is a book that I read. It advocates getting up very early. I liked it but I made my own way. One guy that I follow on Social Media is Jocko Willick. He’s an American ex-Navy Seal Commander and he’s passionate about his morning rituals. He has started a 0430 club on twitter and takes a photo of his watch every morning showing something like 0431 Rise and Shine with his favourite #getafterit. Maybe he appeals to my ex forces mentality, but it does make me smile.

The morning is key for me. But what time is best for you? When will you be able to start a positive routine and stick to it?

I get the exercise done and, in the bag, early doors. It’s at a time that doesn’t give me an excuse that it could hamper with family – they are all still in bed and work can’t get in the way because that hasn’t started yet either. It gives me time to think and plan and I can sometimes kill two birds with one stone by listening to an audiobook or podcast while training. Self-development and exercise done by 7.30am!! If you honestly think you have no more time in the day – set your alarm earlier. I appreciate that those with young children may disagree but find your space at other times. If you have a young family, that normally means they are in bed for 8pm so instead of watching Netflix with a glass of wine, start your positive routine then. Get your running shoes on or just do something with your spouse or partner, read a book, work on yourself until 10pm. I know you’re tired, funny enough I am in the morning when I wake up for the gym! It’s a matter of choices. As I said at the beginning, be happy with your choices but don’t complain if they are not serving you.

One thing that does help me on those early mornings is a positive mantra I say to myself every morning when I wake up and swing my legs out of the bed onto the floor. As I sit there for a moment gathering myself together, I just say, “Great people do great things” and I’m away. Its sounds better than, “Move fatty!” I am sure you’ll agree. Find your mantra, something that works for you. There are no shortage of great quotes and motivational snippets to help inspire you. Just Google “Motivational Quotes”. Another of my clients was hit by the idea in one of our sessions to use the phrase, “You choose your attitude” and he uses that every day now. That has worked well for him.

Napoleon Hill talks about positive affirmations and mantras in his famous book Think and Grow Rich in the chapter Auto Suggestion. If you haven’t read that then that can be one of the first things you do in your new routine!!

Look at every aspect of your day and how you can install good positive routines that eventually become habits. Email can suck the life out of every day. We’re fixated in holding our smart phones and replying instantly to emails as they arrive. Try and segment the day and only answer emails at certain times of the day.

Again, I don’t have all the answers, many will have all the excuses, others will give it all a try and adapt to make it fit for them and gain little wins and that’s all you can hope for.

Fact of the matter is this. . . If you want things to change in your life you have to make changes yourself. If you keep doing what you’ve done, you keep getting what you’ve got. Think into your life and what you want from it, I doubt that lethargy, reactive and negative will be words at the top of anyone’s list. If that is the case make sure what you do every day ensures those words can’t get on your list as its filled with other more positive ones like confidence, proactive, energy, positivity etc.

Your behaviour and demeanour can positively or negatively affect you and those around you

There will be some tough choices and you need to give yourself a talking to in order to stop the lure of Netflix and the red wine bottle but, remember, these are YOUR choices – nobody makes them for you.

A great routine doesn’t have to start at 5am, what about 8am or 11am, what about using your lunch break or 3pm. Why not 9pm?

Do something every day that evolves around your values and energises you.

Walking, reading, meditating, breakfast with your family, a song sung at the top of your lungs with the kids on the school run. Whatever it is makes little difference, as long as it’s positive.

Give yourself permission to spend time working on you. One of my clients has triplet girls and the mornings are filled already with breakfasts, teeth cleaning, school uniforms, hair, pony tails and that’s before 7am!! How can you possibly throw some me time in there? We talked about giving himself permission to take an hour in the day, after all he works late, after the girls have gone to bed so why can’t he allow himself that hour in the day. By giving yourself permission, you avoid that feeling of guilt, “I should be at my desk…” that feeling is serving nobody. I’m sure that when you spend that Saturday morning at your desk you’re thinking, “I should be with my family” or when you work to 10pm every evening you say, “I should be with my wife”. That feeling is common amongst us business owners and is not helpful. If you’re like me, you’ll never get it spot on but with permission you will be better at it.

There are so many other things that people do and believe in, like journaling and time blocking but I don’t do those things.

Other people make to do lists, but I find that they make you feel pressured and worse, especially as we tend to make long ones and leave them unfinished.

This leads to frustration, feeling of inadequacy and helplessness.

Something that I do and advocate for everyone’s health and wellbeing is to write that list and make it as long as you want but when it’s done sit there and get a highlighter pen and mark the one, most important thing that you can do today that makes today a success.

Once you’ve done that, just do that one and you can leave the office with a win.

It doesn’t matter how big or small that task is but by highlighting it as the one thing and doing it – you’ve won the day and you can go home with a sense of accomplishment.

How many times do you write that list and don’t even do anything but spend all day running around like a crazy person? You fill the entire day and sometimes don’t even have time for lunch. When you get home your lovely spouse says, “How was your day?” and you feel like you’ve achieved nothing.

You can stop that ever happening again by picking that one thing and doing it.

Go home every day a winner.

That’s a great tip for being healthy on the inside and the outside.

All the things I’ve outlined over the last two months help me achieve good health on the inside and the outside.

Routines

Exercise

Self-Development

Meditation

Mindful of outside negativity

Never compare yourself to others

Doing what is right and works for you

Daily mantras

Positivity

Challenge yourself

Owning and taking responsibility for your choices

So, over to you –

How can you feel healthy on the inside and the out – every day?

What will you do tomorrow morning that could change your entire day?

How can that first hour really set you up to win the day.

What will you say to yourself when you put your feet on the floor as you sit on the edge of the bed? What will your mantra be?

What will you give yourself permission to do today?

Be intentional about looking after yourself on the inside and the outside and it’ll make a huge difference in your life.

Good luck!

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dorothyd89 · 7 years

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5 Hacks for Effortless Habit Building in 2018

At some point in the past few weeks (or five minutes ago after a google search), you’ve made a resolution to change your life:

I’m going to exercise every day!

I’m going to start flossing!

I’m going to start eating better!

I’m going to quit smoking!

I’m going to stop wearing jorts!

That’s awesome, and I’m very excited for you.

No, seriously! I want to see how this turns out – I love a good redemption story.

Maybe you told some friends, or posted it on your blog, or shared your experience on Instagram, or started a club at work with coworkers about your goals.

Although I’ve railed against Resolutions and big audacious declarations in the past, this year I’m changing my tune.

If you set resolutions or goals this year, be it in January and you’re in on “new year new me,” or you just had a big life event (birth of your first kid, scare at the doctor, etc.) and decided: “This is the year I get in shape!” – I’m here to help.

Everybody has goals – it gives us something to aim for.

They just need to be done right.

I want you looking back in 6 months and not recognizing the “old you,” instead of looking back and asking yourself “what the hell happened? Why am I back where I started?”

With over 40,000 students in our flagship online course, the Nerd Fitness Academy, 200+ 1-on-1 coaching clients, 1000 people in our monthly team adventure Rising Heroes, and 10 years with thousands of emails and success stories, we have a damn good track record at helping people build permanent habits.

This resource that dives deep into the key habit building techniques that will actually help you get in shape this year.

Why do we suck At Building Habits?

“I know what I’m supposed to do, I just can’t get myself to do it !” Welcome to the club – we all know what we need to do, but we just can’t get ourselves to make the important changes:

We know how to get in shape: move more and eat less!

We know how to exercise: get your heart rate up, do some push-ups, get stronger.

We know how to eat healthy: more vegetables and less sugar.

And yet, we can’t get ourselves to stick with ANY of these things for longer than a few weeks.

Why?

Simple: Building new habits is tough, our lizard brains crave instant gratification, we don’t fully understand how habits are built, life gets busy, and our default behavior is often as unhealthy as it is easy.

As a result we don’t put the right systems in place in order to make changes stick.

We also rely wayyyyy too much on willpower and motivation.

We tend to bite off more than we can chew, go too fast too soon, and then get overwhelmed too quickly.

Does this sound familiar?

I’m going to eat 100% paleo AND

I’m going to run 5 miles a day AND

I’m going to workout in a gym five times a week.

If you’re somebody that eats a typically poor diet, never runs, and hasn’t set foot in a gym since grade-school dodgeball with Mr. Wazowski, changing alllll of these at once is almost a surefire way to succeed at precisely NONE of them.

We’re conditioned these days to expect and receive instant gratification. If we want food we can get it from a drive-through, stick a frozen meal in a microwave, or sit down at a restaurant that’s open 24 hours. If we want a game we can download it to our computers/phones/PS4’s within a matter of seconds. If we want to watch a tv show, it’s a few clicks away.

Hell, Netflix even starts the next episode for you without any action required!

We expect getting in shape to go the same way.

And this is why we suck at building healthy habits that stick.

We tell ourselves “Hey, I’ve been dedicated for a whole two weeks, why don’t I look like Ryan Reynolds yet?”, not remembering that it took us decades of unhealthy living to get where we are, which means it’s going to take more than a few weeks to reverse the trend.

And then we miss a workout because life was busy or our kid got sick. And we get disheartened that exercise or giving up candy is not nearly as fun as netflix and video games and peanut M&Ms.

This is where everybody gives up:

They try to change too many habits too soon

They get impatient the results don’t come quicker

They slip up when life gets busy

And they go back to square one

It’s why we are doomed to stay overweight and suck at building habits. It’s the videogame equivalent of attacking too many bad guys at once: game over.

We’ll cover the specific habits and resolutions you SHOULD be picking later in this article, but I have a big damn question to ask you first: “But why though?”

Be Honest about Your “Big Why”

Before we do ANYTHING with actually building habits, you need a damn good reason as to why you want to build them in the first place or the changes will never stick.

Without a good reason, you’re dead in the water:

If you’re here because you decided you “should” get in shape, you’re going to fail the second life gets busy.

If you are dragging yourself to the gym because you think you “should” run on a treadmill five days a week even though you hate it, you’re screwed!

As you’re determining the habits or resolutions you’re trying to set, make the habit part of a bigger cause that’s worth the struggle.

You’re not just going to the gym, you’re building a new body that you’re not ashamed of so you can start dating again.

You’re not just learning to like vegetables, you’re losing weight so you can fit into your dream wedding dress.

You’re not just dragging yourself out of bed early, you’re getting up earlier so you can work on your side business before your kids get up so you can set money aside for their college education.

In our flagship online course, the Nerd Fitness Academy, we refer to this as your “Big Why.” Without it, you’re just forcing yourself to do do things you don’t like to do – that’ll never last.

Tie it to a greater cause and you’re infinitely more likely to push through the muck and mire to get it done.

So dig 3 levels deep and ask “why” until you get to the root cause of WHY you want to build a new habit or change a bad one. Write it down. And hang it up somewhere you can see it every day.

Got your reason? Great. Now let’s get into the science of habits.

Habit Building 101: the Three Parts

THERE ARE 3 PARTS TO A HABIT:

#1) Cue (what triggers the action): It can be a feeling: I’m tired, I’m hungry, I’m bored, I’m sad. Or it can be a time of day: it’s Monday at 9am, work is done, etc.

#2) Routine (the action itself): This can either be a negative action you want to cut back: I drink soda, I eat cake, I snack, I drink alcohol. I smoke cigarettes. I watch TV. or a positive one: I go the gym. I go for a run. I do push-ups. I read a book.

#3) Reward (the positive result because of the action): I’m now awake. I am temporarily happy. my hands/mind are occupied. I can forget the bad day I had. I feel energized. I feel good about myself.

Depending on your outine/action above that habits can either be empowering and amazing, or part of a negative downward spiral. Your body isn’t smart enough to KNOW what it needs to do: it just wants to fix the pain or chase the pleasure of the cue, and whichever way you choose to respond will become the habit when it’s done enough times.

Factor in genius marketing, behavioral psychology, bad genetics, and an environment set up for us to fail – and bad habits rule us.

It’s why we crave certain foods, why we can’t help but check our phone every time it vibrates, and why we can’t keep ourselves from watching one more episode or grinding one more level in World of Warcraft.

As Charles Duhigg points out:

“There is nothing programmed into our brains that makes us see a box of doughnuts and automatically want a sugary treat. But once our brain learns that a doughnut box contains yummy sugar and other carbohydrates, it will start anticipating the sugar high. Our brains will push us toward the box. Then, if we don’t eat the doughnut, we’ll feel disappointed.”

We have trained your brain to take a cue (you see a doughnut), anticipate a reward (a sugar high), and make the behavior automatic (nom nom that donut). Compare that to a cue (you see your running shoes), anticipate a reward (a runner’s high), and make the behavior automatic (go for a run!)

The Dark Knight himself said it best: “It’s not who I am underneath, but what I do that defines me.”

Let’s take a look at each part of the habit-building process and start to hack the sh** out of it!

Learn Your Cues: Recognize the triggers.

Whether you are trying to change an old habit, stop a bad habit, or begin a good habit, it starts with the first step in the process:

“The Cue.”

If you want to stop drinking soda, but feel like you need it every afternoon to get through work, your brain has been wired to think SODA after the cue:

Cue: I’m tired thirsty, and have no energy.

Routine: I drink a soda around 3pm.

Reward: Weeeeee caffeine! Sugar! Happy! My life has meaning!

When identifying bad habits to avoid, it starts by becoming aware of the cue that sets the habit in motion. Simply being aware of the cue is a great start to breaking the cycle:

When I get bored (cue), I eat snacks (routine), and it fills the void with a happy stomach (reward).

When I come home from work (cue), I plop down on couch and play videogames (routine), and it helps me forget about work (reward).

When I get nervous (cue), I start to bite my nails (routine), to take my mind off the awkwardness (reward).

So if you are looking to break a bad habit, it begins by identifying what the cues are that make you take the action that you’re trying to stop.

At the same time, you can mentally train yourself, just like Pavlov’s dog, to build a new habit by identifying the habit you want to build and the cue you want to use to proceed it:

When I wake up (cue), I will go for a walk (routine), and reward myself with an audiobook on the walk (reward)

When I get tired (cue), I will drink black coffee instead of soda (routine), and along with the caffeine boost (reward), I’ll get new running shoes after 30 soda-free days (reward), and satisfaction from the weight loss thanks to fewer calories (reward).

When I come home from work (cue), I will walk straight to my computer to work on my novel for 30 minutes (routine), and reward myself with netflix after i have written 500 words (reward).

So, whether you’re breaking a bad habit or starting a new one, it begins by recognizing the cue that triggers the habit. Once you recognize or pick the cue, you can start working on fixing the routine (action).

Make the Routine Easier: Use Systems

“Steve, I get it, but I still struggle with the ‘building the routine’ part…for some reason I just can’t bring myself to do it.”

Yup – welcome to the toughest part of a habit:

The Routine (the action itself!).

This is where we’re going to start thinking and acting like nerds and scientists. Whether we’re trying to stop a negative routine (stop drinking soda) or start doing a healthy routine (start running), both need to be addressed with a different battle plan.

For starters, we’re going to stop relying on two things:

Willpower – if you have to get yourself to exercise, you’ll give up when you get too busy or it’s too cold.

Motivation – if you need to be motivated, you’re going to give up and then beat yourself up for not being more motivated!

Both motivation and willpower are finite and fickle resources that will abandon you when you need them most. Suckers and chumps hope and pray that they have enough motivation and willpower to build a habit.

Not us though! We’re going to remove both from the equation and use systems and outside forces to make the routine even easier to build (or tougher to build if it’s a bad habit you’re trying to swap!)

This can be done in a few ways:

Environmental hacks: making the routine easier by removing steps needed to complete it, or adding steps between you and bad habit.

Programming hacks: add your habit to your daily calendar, track your progress daily with a journal, and make it part of your day.

We are products of our environment. We can use this information to our advantage, and make the process of building a new habit or changing a bad habit easier by modifying our environment. I dig into this more fully in our article: “Build your Batcave for Habit Change,” but I’ll cover the basics here.

Look at the places you spend your time. Reduce the steps between you and a good habit, and increase the steps between you and a bad habit. and you’ll be less reliant on willpower and motivation and more likely to do the new habit or skip the bad habit.

Here are five examples of environmental hacks you can use:

RUN EVERY MORNING: Go to sleep with your running shoes at the foot of your bed, with your running uniform laid out already. Hell, you can sleep in your running/workout clothes. Put your alarm clock on the other side of the room so you HAVE to get out of bed to turn it off.

GO TO THE GYM AFTER WORK: Pack your gym bag BEFORE going to sleep the night before. That way, every morning you already have a bag to throw in your car or bring with you. As soon as 5pm hits, you are in your car or on your way to the gym.

EAT HEALTHIER: Don’t give yourself an option of not eating healthy – throw out the junk food in your house and start preparing meals the night before. Put a lock on your web browser from ordering pizza online (yes you can do that now), and don’t drive down the street full of fast food places.

WATCH LESS TV/PLAY FEWER GAMES: Use your laziness in your favor. Unplug the tv/system. Increase the steps between you and watching the TV. Put parental controls on your own system and have your friend set the time limit and the password. Don’t rely on willpower – make it more difficult!

CHECK YOUR PHONE LESS: Turn off your notifications and uninstall the apps that waste your time. Put your phone in Do Not Disturb mode when you are at work, and put it in your desk drawer. Don’t rely on willpower to get yourself to not check your phone when it buzzes – get rid of the buzz.

You can also use programming hacks to help build NEW habits:

EXERCISE: If you want to exercise more, set calendar alerts at the beginning of your week so that every day at 8AM you receive a cue (ding! on your phone) and a reminder to do the activity. You’re much more likely to stay on target when the activity has been scheduled ahead of time.

HEALTHY EATING: Consider batch cooking! If cooking healthy meals every night sounds like way too much work (I hear you on that), consider doing it all on ONE day – its a significant time savings, and it also will reduce the steps between you and healthy eating because the meal is already cooked and in the fridge! I knew somebody who put his TV in his closet and cut his TV viewing by close to 100%.

WRITING: if you want to write a book, tell yourself you have to write 500 crappy words every day. Buy a calendar, and draw a big red X on every day you complete your task. Make your singular focus every day continuing the streak[1]This is called the Seinfeld Technique, from Jerry Seinfeld who talked about writing new jokes every single day [[1]].

Make the Reward Momentum Building

And we are finally at the third part of the habit:

“The Reward.”

When looking to replace bad habits, do some reward analysis on your bad habits:

Soda gives you a caffeine kick and a burst of energy in the afternoon when you’re tired. Can you replicate that energy boost for your body in a healthier way? Switch to black coffee and go for a walk.

You find you spend too much time watching TV because you love escaping into worlds, and its affecting your health. Can you listen to your favorite audiobook but only while walking?

This will require some analysis and digging into the reward you’re trying to recreate without the negative action. This can lead your brain to some tough places, but its healthy to dig into it.

If you find that you want to start drinking way less (or give up drinking completely), you might discover that the reward you’re chasing is actually “escape from a job I hate” and “avoiding social anxiety in bar situations.”

Dig into your reward and what your brain is craving, and then see if you can reverse engineer a healthier routine with the same reward.

And then use outright bribery to get yourself to actually do the new healthier and choose the better action/routine.

What works for science and physics also holds true to building habits: inertia and momentum will work against you when it comes to building habits…until it starts to work for you as the habit becomes automatic.

We can fix the third part of the habit-building loop, the reward, with momentum-building prizes or results to bribe ourselves to continue. With each healthy and positive reward, with each completed routine, we make the habit sliiiiightly more likely to become more automatic the next time.

In other words, create rewards that reward you back!

DON’T reward your routine (running!) with an unhealthy reward (cake!). That’s “one step forward, two steps back.” And nutrition is 90% of the equation when it comes to weight loss anyways!

DO reward your routine (running for 5 minutes every day for 30 days straight) with a reward that makes you want to keep running (a snazzy new pair of running shoes).

Hacks for Effortless Habit building

Your life will get busy.

There will be days when you don’t want to do your new habit. Or you want to backslide and go back to old habits. Actually, that will pretty much be every day, especially early on.

So don’t leave it up to yourself!!

Stop relying on yourself and start relying on outside forces. Here are the best tips you can use to get yourself to actually follow through with a habit:

1) RECRUIT ALLIES: friend or group of friends to build the habits with you: a recent study [2] showed that:

Among the weight loss patients were recruited alone and given behavioral therapy, 24% maintained their weight loss in full from Months 4 to 10.

Among those recruited with friends and given therapy plus social support, 95% completed treatment and 66% maintained their weight loss in full.

You do not have to do go on this habit-building journey alone. Building a guild or recruiting a group of people to support you and help you and make you better could be the difference maker in building habits!

When your friend is already at the gym waiting for you, you HAVE to go. If it was up to you, skipping out and watching Netflix has no negative consequences. Recruit friends and allies!

Don’t have that support group at home? Consider joining ours 🙂

Remember, those first few weeks are the toughest, which means they’ll require the most effort to get started.

2) CULTIVATE DISCIPLINE WITH CONSEQUENCES: When you can’t get yourself to follow through on a new healthy habit you’re desperately trying to build, make the pain of skipping the habit more severe than the satisfaction you get from skipping it.

Allow me to introduce some BRUTAL consequences:

Every time I skip ______________ this month, I will pay $50 to my wife/husband/friend who will donate my money to a cause I HATE.

Every time I decide not to _______________ this month, I have to run around my house naked.

Every time I do ____________ when I shouldn’t, I will let my three-year old do my makeup before work.

Do any of these results sound like fun? If you can’t afford to pay your friend $50, if running naked around your house might get you arrested, and if you’ll get fired looking like a drunk clown prostitute thanks to your kid’s makeup skills…maybe you just do what you know you need to do. The more painful it is to skip something, the more likely you’ll be to actually suck it up and do it.

3) NEVER MISS TWO IN A ROW. What happens if you miss a day? Who cares! One day won’t ruin you – but two days will – because 2 becomes 30 in the blink of an eye. As pointed out in a research summary: “Missing the occasional opportunity to perform the behavior did not seriously impair the habit formation process: automaticity gains soon resumed after one missed performance.[3][[3]]You can learn more about that study here[[2]].

4) DON’T PICK HABITS YOU HATE: “Steve I know I should run so I’m trying to build a running habit.” Stop. Can you get the same results with a different habit like rock climbing or hiking or swing dancing?” Pick a habit that isn’t miserable and you’re more likely to follow through on it.

At the same time, we have tons of success stories of people who went from hating exercise to loving how it feels. it’s because they made the habit part of a bigger picture: “I am exercising at the gym because I am building a kickass body so I can start dating again!” It’s because they had a BIG enough why to overcome their initial dislike of exercise until they learned to love how exercise made them feel.

5) TRY TEMPTATION BUNDLING: Consider combining a habit you dislike with something you LOVE, and you’ll be more likely to build the habit. If you hate cleaning your apartment, only allow yourself to listen to your favorite podcast when you are cleaning or doing the dishes.

Want to go to the gym more? Allow yourself an hour of watching Netflix, but ONLY while you’re on the Elliptical. This is called temptation bundling, and it can be a powerful change.

Ready to Build a Habit? Great! Do Less.

Now that you’re educated like a boss on the different parts of a habit, it’s time to build one!

I’ll leave you with a final bit of advice: if you decide that you want to run a marathon or save the world or lose hundreds of pounds, you’re going to screw up unless you internalize the following information:

DO WAY LESS.

Or in the immortal words of Kunu from Forgetting Sarah Marshall: “The less you do, the more you do”:

Pick ONE habit, make it small, and make it binary. Something that at the end of every day you can say “yes I did it” or “no I didn’t.”

Habits that are nebulous like “I am going to exercise more” or “I’m going to start eating better” are more useless than a Soulcycle membership for Jabba the Hutt.

Here are big examples. Be specific. Be Small. And track it:

Want to start exercising more? Awesome. For that first week, ONLY go for a walk for just 5 minutes every morning. Literally 5 minutes.

Want to start cooking your own healthy meals? Just aim for one meal per day or one meal per week. Whatever works for you and your schedule.

Want to stop drinking a 2 liter of Mountain Dew every day? Scale it back to 1.9 liters a day for a week. Then 1.8 for a wek. Then 1.7…

Want to get out of debt and build the habit of frugality? Start by saving an extra five bucks a day, or finding a way to earn an 5 bucks a day.

Want to learn a new language? Speak your new language out loud for 10 minutes per day. That’s it!

Keep your goals SMALL and simple. The smaller and simpler they are, the more likely you are to keep them. And the habit itself pales in comparison to the momentum you build from actually creating a new habit. I don’t care how many calories you burn in a 5 minute walk, just that you can prove to the new YOU that you can build the habit of walking, and only then can you up the difficulty.

We’re thinking in terms of years and decades here! So think small.

My real life example: I wanted to build the habit of learning the violin at age 31, but couldn’t get myself because I told myself I was too busy – which is a lie (“I only have 25 minutes, I need 30 minutes to practice…might as well not practice at all”), and thus I never played! Once I lowered the threshold to “I have to only play for 5 minutes per day”, it gave me permission to pick it up here and there – and I ended up practicing WAY more frequently, and got better much faster.

I still suck, mind you, but I’m lightyears ahead of where I was before!

And please: ONLY BUILD ONE HABIT AT A TIME.

If you’re new to building habits, or you have never stuck with anything long enough to make it automatic, it’s because you did too much. Habits are compound interest. As you build a new habit, it bleeds over to other parts of your life and makes future habits easier to build too – momentum!

You’ve tried the whole “build all the habits at once” and it doesn’t work. So try building ONE habit for 30 days. And then pick a habit that stacks on top of that one and helps you build more and more progress and more and more momentum.

Start today: Pick Your Habit and Go

I’ll leave you with a final quote from The Power of Habit:

“If you believe you can change – if you make it a habit – the change becomes real. This is the real power of habit: the insight that your habits are what you chose them to be. Once that choice occurs – and becomes automatic – it’s not only real, it starts to seem inevitable, the thing…that bears us irresistibly toward our destiny, whatever the latter may be.”

You’ll need more brain power right away, until your default behavior becomes the automatic habit building you’re chasing. With each day of you building your new habit, you’re overcoming any self-limiting belief, building momentum, and becoming a habit building badass! And then those habits become automatic.

So today, I want you to look at just ONE habit you want to change:

Identify the cue that spurs it on – Is it the time of day? Boredom? Hunger? After work? Stress?

Identify the potential rewards – Happiness? Energy? Satisfaction?

Identify a new routine you’d like to establish that results in the same ‘reward’ from the negative behavior…but in a more productive and healthy way.

I want you to leave a comment below: pick ONE habit that you’re going to build this month. and identify the three portions of the habit you’re looking to build.

Good luck – now go build some momentum. And ONE habit.

-Steve

PS: if your habit is getting healthier/stronger/weight loss focused, we have some premium resources here at Nerd Fitness that dig into the habit building psychology of this article:

Rising Heroes – Our monthly team-based, habit building story based adventure

NF Academy – Our self-paced online course with workouts, boss battles, and nutrition levels.

NF Coaching – 1-on-1 customized instruction from our coaches

### photo source: mouse on wheel, homer fail whale, storm trooper ladder, level up club, lego R2D2, storm trooper mirror, start, jigsaw, victory, rubik’s cube, , fred_v Evolution – Alternative

Footnotes ( returns to text)

Weight loss associated with social support: a study

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fitnetpro · 7 years