There are individuals who get strong quickly, learn proper exercise form instantly and effortlessly, those who stay lean easily, those who seem to get lean with ease. Then there are those who must be extra diligent and more disciplined. Strength is harder to gain. Building muscle is a struggle. Losing fat is no easy feature. Keeping fat off is even more challenging.  Are you the type of person that gains weight easily and must work harder than your friends/family to lose weight. As much as that sucks for you, its your reality. Acknowledge it, embrace it, and keep charging forward. Don't allow the challenge to be an excuse not to become the best version of yourself. 

Some days or even spans of time, you will not want to workout. Or your schedule will be unpredictably chaotic when getting in regular workouts is a challenge. It'll be up to you to do it anyway, in whatever capacity possible. Motivation is not always abundant, and neither is time. But don't let this dishearten you. Simply accept it as a fact of life, and then have a plan to deal with such situations. When things are good, take advantage. When your plans get wrecked, find a way to work with what you have.

Just because it worked for your friend/family member doesn't mean it'll work for you, this applies to diet and fitness. Your friend/family member swears by there bodyweight workouts, but you may enjoy and respond better to squatting, deadlifting, and pressing progressively heavier weights and using bodyweight exercises to complement your barbell training. Your friend/family member swears that skipping breakfast helped them shed those last few stubborn pounds but skipping breakfast may mean struggling to get through the first part of the day for you.

Everyone is different. Pay attention to how your body responds, and don't be afraid to take a different path. It's your body - be your own.

Many will sorta kinda try a diet for a couple of weeks and when they don't look noticeably different, they blame the diet and exclaim, I knew that was too simple to work but in reality, they did not do it. Either they practiced the guidelines sporadically, or didn't do them long enough. Don't look for something complex or advanced until you master the basics. I mean doing the proven things - eat mostly real food, eat sufficient protein, make sleep a priority, strength train at least 2x a week - for many months. Be honest with yourself; are you doing the things you know are important, consistently? If not, how can you change that, starting today ? 

There is no best diet, only what's best for you, don't allow dogma to cloud your judgement.

Just last month we lost our beloved young 7 yr old standard schnauzer - Boger. 

A few of his traits were known to be notoriously barking a lot having knowing or not, the dog or person but very friendly once the barking is out of the way (most of the time) An excellent guard dog, strong willed, high spirited, intelligent and most of all loyal.

And what I've learned from his time with us was all those exact traits that I was looking for in having him in the first place, and one main reason was to be able to have him alive enough to know that we were ready to have a family because raising a pup and children have similar principles. 

For example: discipline, patience, feeding, bathing, playtime ... you get the idea.

Anyway, while the house will never be the same and our daily routines is changed the lasting impression he left will have us moving forward for the better as a family and individually different for the family members. I can't speak for my family but with me; during my lifetime I lost my way of having progressive change be apart of my regimen of life (if that makes sense) like I mean, I made a list on things of personal, as a couple (wife) and as a family I want worked on to better our relationship and personal growth but as mentioned I was basically stuck in mud for sometime and getting comfortable. I feel as though that Boger knew that and decided to sacrifice himself to give me a reminder of what needs to be done still.

Pretty harsh come to think of it but the way I operate actually - zero to a hundred. It's a fukked up analogy but it's what makes sense to me. 

Along the way of life, we forget things that we generally stand by to get us to where and what we want in life - sacrifice is one thing I've always stood behind. With that, moving forward will be a bit easier because I will not let Boger's life be of waste and in honor of what he's done for myself will ultimately help me achieve the completion of the list. 

Because I understood or at least accept the way he departed, I'm able to not let the grieving process cripple me into being useless to my family and the world.

By definition a personal trainer is an individual who has earned a certification that demonstrates they have achieved a level of competency for creating and delivering safe and effective exercise programs for apparently healthy individuals and groups or those with medical clearance to exercise.

Now I feel nowadays because social media is the source of what drives most people into buying into hype or getting into trends that claim to work for people looking to achieve quick and easy results - are not categized as personal trainers but fitness influencers. And with this shift in the fitness industry, personal trainers and influencers sells the idea of losing weight without the amount of sacrifice, discipline and commitment that's needed to achieve the goal. They will also use buzz words to get your attention as opposed to the real deal of what they are getting themselves into.

I am guilty to say that I use to fall into this category before realizing that sales is the most important driving factory to companies of the fitness industry, which makes absolute sense and not arguing about. I am in no means a sales person nor looking to learn how to because I rather educate customers to their goals as opposed to selling them into their goals. I can sleep well knowing I didn't guilt customers to buying a certain amount of sessions to possibly achieve their goals.

I don't really know when this shift will ever go back to normal of a point that because of what most people have been dealing with during the pandemic and such, will being a genuine person be a thing of the past or just prey on the weak and milk it till it's dry. 

No matter how hard you think you are as an individual, I think balance is critical not only as a person but for parenting - it just make things more bearable. Now, I'm speaking about this because I've been given the task to play the role of single parenting for 7 days and already into the 2nd day I understand the importance of having both parties as parents in the child's life. Like I mean for me, I'm the enforcer and well the mother is the nurture. And quickly I'm discovering that being just the enforcer is not playing out very well for my sanity nor my relationship with my child. So I'm resorting to a discomfort feeling of showing some nurture characteristics to quickly de-escalate the situation(s).

Now to say that I totally understand how single parenting is like, is nowhere near the struggles they face on a daily,weekly,monthly to yearly basis. I mean I'm fortunate to be self employed and stable with my career enough to be able to afford "x" amount of days to be able to hold down the fort, I could also pawn the child off to relatives for him to be watched while I put in some hours of work but I hold myself responsible to doing my duty. This experience will definitely strengthen our bond with the opportunity to fine tune my abilities as a father and an individual because I believe the fundamentals of life is overlooked as we get older, and if I want my child to have thrive thru adversity when faced upon - the basics of problem solving starts at home with consistent reps of discipline and patience.

I'm probably leaving out other important characteristics for the child to adhere too but from what I'm seeing with the young generation these days, lack of discipline and patience are undervalued - as a parent you want your child to have the skills and backbone to be able to withstand the bullshit that comes along with life. Which is why I come back to the point of being able to sustain a balance relationship with your child as a single parent, being able to quickly adapt to a characteristics your not fond of. But it needs to be done in order to give your child the best chances to succeeding in his/her life.

A helping hand shouldn't be ignored when offered but never abused.

So I commented on a post on LinkedIn about the stigma surrounding mental health and majority of the hits of the comments came out basically saying that I don't know didly and ignorant about the subject. Here's the context to the topic -

"I'm absolutely 100% for the support of mental health but to say you feel alone in the struggle and continue to live your life without help or any form of positive progression is .. an excuse for attention. The internet alone gives you limitless resources to learn to overcome such a challenge, I mean the internet is what probably got people in such a vulnerable mental state in the first place. If virtual aid doesn't do it for you then I'm sure around a community you have access to has a form of support group. If seeking help from strangers isn't your thing then utilize your friends/family as a support cast. Help is a 2 way street - quit playing the victim. Put In The Work.

Am I wrong to say this ?

So we all think, day dream, wish, etc. etc..... about going away on vacation. Absolutely nothing wrong with taking time off for yourself or with loved ones together to take a break from the daily routine chaos or just bored and got nothing better to do. Now, the thing is that some people take vacations but take along their work with them. I mean what's the point of that ? The entire purpose of the vacation was to get away from work and other stressful matters in your life, am I wrong ?

A good chunk of people complain that they are over worked, stressed out, have no time for this and that but yet when the opportunity is there to just relax - they don't, they are still programmed to work. WHY ? 

I think the reason why people work when their on vacation is because they are not fulfilled with what they do, selfish, greedy or just oblivious to the situation. Regardless on why they work during moments of relaxation, I believe the moment you set aside time to go on vacation and be in it, take the limited opportunity to do so. As you can tell from how the world has been lately, it's uncertain to know when you can get your next wind of vacay time.

When your on vacation, be in the moment.

We already live in such a fast paced world, take your vacay slow and actually enjoy where you are and especially whom your with.

The way I see it, until your on vacation - your putting in the work every single day. Which is why, come vacation time is down time - you want happiness, you got to balance your life out. But what they don't tell you is, vacations are a luxury not a necessity. You are only one that knows when you need a vacay and when you know, you will plan accordingly to when and how your going to go about it.

Put In The Work 💪

Happy New Year and I'm glad to bring this podcast back to life as I've been pretty MIA with life and such laziness. Well, we are in the 2nd year of this pandemic and even with a good chunk of the province of Ontario vaccinated including myself, we are again in a lockdown situation with the gyms without proven evidence.

I am though currently still able to work at the gym through my affiliation with a physio clinic that allows me to be a physiotherapist assistance - so I am still able to keep a good amount of my clients to continue forward. I will say however, a lot of people started their year sick and tested positive with covid and just recently recovered enough to get back to work at the gym.

Now from my understanding, we may or may not eventually catch some sort of virus and get sick BUT the most important part of it all is how fast we can recover and I feel this is where the government of Ontario has poorly guided the people into believing that the vaccine shot is the only line of defense through this pandemic. I believe through adequate nutrition, exercise and lifestyle, you can withhold yourself from being sick and or recovery a lot faster from illness. Why to this day the "professionals" of the health board doesn't speak of methods like this, instead they push for the needle and however many of them to get - baffles me into realizing that those "professionals" don't really care for the people and just in it for the money.

Everything and everyone around us has changed not for the better but for the worse of not being able to push through adversity and it has definitely exposed people and businesses of their lack of a better word - ability to deal with shit hitting the fan. 

We live in a world of uncertainty but still can't think or do things on our own and have fear overwhelm peoples ability to take action.

So my goal this year is to bring value to the health and fitness community by doing a better job in upkeeping this podcast to more content in bringing you closer to not only your fitness goals but a healthier and happier YOU.

Put In The Work.

Come Aug 1 2021, I have achieved to be sober of alcohol for 1 year. The reason why I chose to do so was to mentality prep myself for my skydiving adventure to my birthday this year, the 1 year journey wasn't bad at all - I've always been able to stay committed and discipline towards all goals I set. The one thing I can say about being sober for this long was that my mind has become a lot sharper - like able to think clearer, not second guess myself and becoming more humble.   

About a week and a half left til the jump, I'm getting more and more anxious - my mind is challenging me more and more closer to date. Consistently reminding myself of how much stronger I've gotten to date since the pandemic lockdown started, my fear of heights play to factor, my fear of loss if shit hits the fan and my fear of regret if I don't end up doing it. 

The punchline is the possibility of fear dictating what I want to do, but i feel fear heightens your senses and awareness; it keeps us alert and helps in better preparation.

Sometimes fear stems from real threats, but it can also originate from imagined dangers. As we grow older, I think our imagination becomes more of a threat because of how much we can possibly loss. 

Moving forward after my 1 year mark, I'm still in debate on whether or not to continue this sober life or get back to my wild days but one things for sure is that everyone has a fear inside of them to overcome at some point in their life because without doing so will inhibit you to living life to it's fullest.  

We have all heard about how recovery is the most crucial part of obtaining your goal(s), but do you really know ?

Many still feel guilty when they take a day off. One way to help relieve this guilt is to understand the many benefits that a rest day has to offer.

For instance, rest is physically necessary for the muscles to repair, rebuild, and strengthen. For recreational athletes, building in rest days and engaging in active recovery can help maintain a better balance between home, work, and fitness goals.

Exercise depletes the body's energy stores, or muscle glycogen. It also causes muscle tissue to break down. Giving adequate muscle recovery time allows the body to "fix" both of these issues, replenishing the body's energy stores and repairing damaged tissues.

If sufficient time is not allowed to support these processes, the body will break down from repeated intensive exercise. This can reduce your performance. It may also result in damage to your skeletal muscles, which means more soreness and pain.

The Principle of Adaptation states that when we undergo the stress of physical exercise, our body adapts and becomes more efficient. It’s just like learning any new skill. At first, it’s difficult but, over time, it becomes second nature. Once you adapt to a given stress, you require additional stress to continue to make progress.

But there are limits to how much stress the body can tolerate before it breaks down and suffers injury. Doing too much work too quickly will result in injury or muscle damage. Doing too little too slowly will not result in any improvement.

Too little rest and too few recovery days can lead to overtraining syndrome. The consequences of overtraining are many. Research has found that it can increase your body fat, raise your risk of dehydration, lower your libido, and worsen your mood.