Part 4: You don't think you'r worth it

I once read an article which had several Mr. Olympia's interviewed and one of the questions asked to each one was "what motivates you?"  I remember reading the answers and one after the other seemed like a long nonsense reply until I came to Mr. Dorian Yates and his reply was a simple one word answer..."pride"  I thought, what a great answer!  Because to me, that's what it's all about.  If you have pride and self worth, you will try to improve yourself.  You simply won't settle for being like everyone else.  And making the same excuses as everyone else.  Have you ever repeated some of these excuses out loud?  Don't the sound lame when you hear them?
Too many people I talk to put everyone else first but don't take care of their own needs.  In fact, they don't just put other people first, the put objects (i.e. gardens, cars, clothing choices) first as well.  I'm amazed at the time, energy and money that go into a yard but these same people won't buy the proper supplements and so on.  Haven't you ever heard the analogy that if you are going to save someone on a plane you need to put on your own oxygen mask first?  Well, nutrition is the same thing.  When you are getting ready to go on a trip how many of you moms pack everything everyone else needs? You pack everything the baby needs and many things they don't need, but what about you?
You need to understand that this is NOT being selfish and anyone who tells you differently is flat out wrong.  You need to believe that you are worth taking care of and hey don't we all know that if you're happy, the rest of the family is happy too.

Part 3: You Fail to Plan

In parts 1 & 2 we discussed the all or nothing scenario and I gave you a sample diet to follow year round, now it's time to get into some specifics and the first one that comes to mind is failure to plan.  We've all heard the saying before " those who fail to plan are planning to fail". 

I'm always surprised to see how much time and effort people will put into so many other things, but absolutely nothing into taking care of their bodies.  Look at my diet again in part 2 and notice the simplicity.  This is a meal plan you could easily follow year round.  When you wake up in the morning, you should have a darn good if not exact idea of what you are going to eat that day.  In fact,  I always say that I can tell you what I ate 6 months ago on a Wednesday for lunch. I'm kind of joking, but I'm kind of serious.  I might not be able to tell you with 100% accuracy what the exact vegetable or protein was but it's a pretty good bet that it was a protein and a vegetable.  I know some of you will comment on how boring that is and other hogwash like that, but we'll get into that later.

The point is you are in a lifelong battle here and like any other good General, if you are going to win that battle, you need to have a good plan of attack.  Going through your day with no plan and trying to eat right will always lead to you "grabbing something to eat" and this will always lead to failure because more times than not you will grab poor choices or nothing at all.

In part 4, we will go over why it is so important to keep things simple.

Part 2: Bill's Diet

As I stated in Part 1, a very important part of staying lean is maintaining roughly the same diet year round.  Below you will see two diets.  The first one is my current eating plan and basically what I eat every day with my "normal living".  Below that you will see my contest prep diet.  Take a moment to compare the two.

NORMAL EVERY DAY DIET
Meal 1: 5:30 - 1/2 C. oatmeal, 1 scoop protein powder, flaxseeds, blueberries and/or grapefruit
Meal 2: 7:00 (pre-training) - 1/2 scoop DGC, 1 scoop VP2
Meal 3: 8:00 (post-training) - 1 scoop DGC, 1 scoop VP2
Meal 4: 9:00 - egg whites, potatoes, peppers (mix them all together, bake them, hot sauce on top)
Meal 5: 11:00 - Meal replacement powder, banana
Meal 6: 1:30 - salad, Tuna, extra virgin Olive oil dressing, apple, 1 scoop protein powder
Meal 7: 4:00 - Meal replacement powder
Meal 8: 6:30 - Lean beef or chicken, vegetables, sweet potato (occasionally)
Meal 9: 9:00 - 2 scoops protein powder, natural PB
*usually two cheats per week.  A cheat is usually a restaurant meal or ice cream
*cardio twice per week

CONTEST PREP DIET
* During contest prep, I may make small changes week to week, and cut my calories a bit as I get closer but for the bulk of the time, as I'm getting leaner my diet looks like this:
Meal 1: 5:30 - 1/2 C. oatmeal, 1 scoop protein powder, flaxseeds, blueberries and/or grapefruit
Meal 2: 7:00 (pre-training) - 1/2 scoop DGC, 1 scoop VP2
Meal 3: 8:00 (post-training) - 1 scoop DGC, 1 scoop VP2
Meal 4: 9:00 - egg whites, potatoes, peppers (mix them all together, bake them, hot sauce on top)
Meal 5: 11:00 - Meal replacement powder
Meal 6: 1:30 - 99% lean ground turkey, vegetables
Meal 7: 4:00 - 2 scoop protein powder
Meal 8: 6:30 - Lean beef or chicken, vegetables
Meal 9: 9:00 - 2 scoops protein powder.
* no cheat meals, but I will, if I feel necessary, have a higher calorie day where I add in more carbs from Oates and sweet potato
* cardio twice per week, but will add one or two more session if necessary

As you can see, the are basically identical plans.  if you want to be successful year round, I suggest you find a diet you can live with.  I'm sure you will notice there is quite a bit of protein ./ meal replacement powder on the diet.  That is because, for me mid morning, mid afternoon and nighttime protein makes the most sense.  It's easy, convenient, and good for you.

Why You Struggle Part 1: You will always lose the "All or Nothing" battle

There's been a lot of talk around the gym lately about people struggle to "get back on track".  I'm hearing this from newer people who've recently completed their first Dream Team, seasoned veterans who've been around since we started and everything in between.  This is not an uncommon thing to hear around this time of year, but the more I talk to all of you, I'm starting to understand some reasons why.  I'm going to post a few articles here on my blog over the next several days and hopefully I can help you get "back on track" and this time for good.

The obvious reason that any of you struggle is because you haven't made this a lifestyle yet.  However, that's the easy answer to the wrong question.  The real question is why haven't you made this a lifestyle.  I believe the first reason is you are too "all or nothing."  What I mean is you try to be so "perfect" to lose weight, you have some success, the goal ends and you slowly slip back into your old ways.  You basically stop doing the things that got you results and start doing the things that go you out of shape in the first place.

Just today I heard yet another person say "I need to get back on the Dream Team Diet."  Right there lies the problem.  There should be only 1 diet that you follow year round and you should simply "tighten" it up and add some cardio during Dream Team...but you don't do this.  Instead you lie to yourself (we'll discuss that later) tell yourself that you "aren't eating too bad" and before you know it you are basically back to nothing in the "all or nothing" scenario.  Sure you might eat a good breakfast but lets be honest, for many of you it pretty much ends there.

The other day when I was talking to a group, they seemed genuinely shocked when I told them the food I eat getting ready for a bodybuilding competition is almost identical to my current eating plan.  I will outline both meal plans for you and explain the differences in my next post.