LEAN for Life

We’re really getting into the year now. It’s heading out of summer and into my favourite season. The days may be getting shorter again, but I find people are really motivated with a few cooler days and less late night parties, to get their health routines into stride.
 
The statement “LEAN for life” may conjure up all sorts of thoughts and emotions with how you see yourself now. Be honest as to what the first thoughts were when you read that statement.

Was it positive?

Do you really think you are in control of that funky looking bio-meat suit that seems to never do as it is told?
 
Let’s look at the great acronym behind the word LEAN.

Lifestyle

Exercise

Attitude

Nutrition

I want to twist your entire understanding of how health really works when it comes to changing your bio-meat suit.
 
The real understanding comes with the adaptation principle.

My simple formula goes like this:

What stimulus you give your body and mind during the day, by night your body will adapt according to a very old Paleolithic need to survive and protect your vital organs.
 
With each of the 4 categories of LEAN I will explain briefly the adaptation principle.
 

Lifestyle:

Over the entire day your body adds up all the stress that you encounter:

Physical, mental, electromagnetic, chemical, nutritional and thermal.

If your body perceives an overload above what is ideal to function at best, your body will adapt to protect itself. This will look like tiredness, extra fat accumulation, decreased mental function to allow your vital organs to stay in survival mode and low sex drive to allow for stress hormone production.

Find a great lifestyle coach and re-balance.
 

Exercise:

This is a biggie!!

If you do no exercise your body will adapt by night by keeping you unfit, losing muscle, accumulating fat and stiffening up.

If you do lots of cardio your body thinks that the wonderful fat burning zone you were in requires more fat tomorrow to tackle the same perceived endurance survival trek running from the lion. So by night you become a fat storing machine.

If you balance your week with cross training, i.e. weights, sprints, yoga and fun recreational sport for short periods at high and low intensities, your body thinks it has to adapt to a functional array of survival movements. By night you start creating a more toned, flexible, light, LEAN, strong bio-meat suit.
 

Attitude:

This is very simple. If you keep a firm grasp on the purpose of your day and week your body will follow. Your body follows perfectly what the mind perceives.

Think less of the need to and more of the desire to.
If it’s not fun you are wasting your time and shortening your life.

Make a huge mind map of your desires regarding your body and the attach fun to every category. Use photos, drawings, words, symbols.

By night your body thinks you are in full control and works in sync to produce a perfect match to your thoughts.
 

Nutrition:

We now know that you are what you eat!!

Eat right for your nutritional type. Find the part of the world you came from way back and eat close to the best they had to offer.

The no-no list:

Never restrict calories, do not eat nutritionally empty foods, and never skip meals.

If your body does any of these it will adapt by night by storing more fat for the famine you have created.

Let your body think it is well fed with all vital nutrients and watch it re-model.
 
So let’s summarize all of this:
 
Create your days with the new knowledge that your body will adapt each night to the stimulus it gets from your L-E-A-N day.

Give way to more productive and educated thoughts, words, and actions and you might just start waking up LEAN and enthusiastic for life.

Tony Small
CHEK 2, HLC 3, Dip Ex Phys
PPS Success Mastery Practitioner