How important is sleep?

 

 

• Trouble with focus
• Mood was terrible
• Willpower was incredibly low
• Skipped the gym
• Couldn’t remember the drive in

 

 

• Increased weight gain and obesity
• Excess caloric intake and poor diet quality
• Decreased cognitive function and memory
• Impaired glucose tolerance
• Decreased testosterone and growth hormone levels
• Increased cortisol (stress hormone) production

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Here’s 10 ways of improving your sleep to get you firing on all cylinders!

 

• Get to bed before 10pm (give yourself an hour more in bed than you need)
• 10-20 minutes of sunlight in the morning (any bright light will do though)
• No screen/blue light distractions an hour before bed (read or talk instead)
• Aim for your room to be as dark as possible (blackout blinds ideally)
• Keep your bedroom cool (cool enough to need a blanket is great)
• No eating within 3 hours of bedtime 
• Keep coffee to the AM (none after 12), and manage your caffeine intake (no more than 2 a day)
• Same awake and sleep time everyday (at least within an 30-60 minutes) 
• Minimise digestive distress by avoiding “trigger foods” or overeating
• Meditate/breathing drills (Headspace or Calm app are really good for these)

 

Is it worth the risk of a growth mindset? ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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Growth mindset being the ability to see that your skills and aptitude in a certain area aren’t fixed and that you can grow 

 

You exhibit a growth mindset when you take a foreign language class and learn how to speak Spanish ​​​​

 

Fixed mindset is the belief that ​you are the way you are because of things outside of your control, like genetics

 

A lot of people think they’re genetically incapable of being good at maths​

 

Everyone has a mixture of growth and fixed mindsets in different areas of life

​ 

Y​ou might know you can get better at your job​ as a sales consultant, and also think that you will never know how to use the sales system software because “you’re just no good with technology”

 

Deep down, you know that if you applied the same effort you did when learning sales you could also learn how to use new software, however you don’t really want to

 

This knowledge is power

 

Anything that a human has done, and that has been taught to other humans, you can also do, if you decide to put enough resources to learning

 

You just need to decide on the language

 

Every time you say you can’t do something, catch yourself, and replace can’t with won’t

 

​Of course, not everything is important enough to you to change to a growth mindset, and that’s okay

 

You can do anything in life, you just can’t do everything

 

Health and fitness, a lot like maths, is an area people commonly have fixed mindsets

 

“I’ve tried everything, I just can’t lose weight”

 

More likely you’ve tried the same thing 100x for the same results

 

You probably did one of these:

 

1. a) ​​You exercised heaps more without paying any attention to food​​ or;

 

1. b) You ​​exercised more and tried to stick to a strict meal plan 100% of time

 

A fixed mindset keeps you going back to the same, safe plan, that will give you a predictable result

 

EVEN if that result isn’t what you say you wanted

 

However, a growth mindset accepts the risk of failure and goes for it anyway

 

It’s scary, it’s new, it’s change

 

And don’t kid yourself, good change or bad change, it’s both scary and fraught with danger

 

But do it anyway ​

 

There’s a better way for those who want to bet on themselves

 

It’s worked for others, and it’s been taught to many

 

Quick results, that are also sustainable results

 

Just decide, is it worth the risk of a growth mindset? ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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​Is there someone you care about that you think would benefit from this? Pass it on, and consider it a good deed done for the day

 

And, you’ll be doing something good to help someone, and they’ll get a reminder that you care​​​​

 

For more posts on improving your life outside of the gym follow our instagram at https://www.instagram.com/blinco_built/

If you’re ready to take the first step in your fitness and health journey then contact us at:  http://blincobuilt.com.au/

There are no secrets to weight loss, however there is often an over supply of advice from conflicting sources

 

This makes it incredibly confusing! It doesn’t need to be

 

I’ve compiled the best 5 tips for losing and maintaining weight loss:

 

1) Calories are King!

 

If you eat more calories than you use, you put on weight, and vice versa

 

With this equation you either need to decrease calories in, or increase calories out, it’s best to do a combination of both

 

“You can’t out train a bad diet” rings true here, it’s obviously very easy to eat (or drink) 3,000 calories in a day​, however it’s really hard (if not impossible) to burn that many

 

That’s why training to “burn calories” is often a bad avenue, as it never actually works in the long term, if you don’t pay attention to your food it slowly creeps up until your back where you started

 

2) Quality over quantity

 

There is an often over looked but important part to this

 

I​t’s quite possible to eat 1,000 calories at a Chinese restaurant and still walk out hungry, whereas if you eat 1,000 calories of steak and roast vegetables… 

 

Let’s be honest, you probably can’t eat that much steak and vegetables, you’d be full half way through

 

​Choose higher volume, nutrient dense foods (in other words unprocessed foods), like vegetables, fruit, and meat or nuts

 

At least more often than you eat processed versions, like pasta, bread and processed meat substitutes

 

3) Build Slack into your Nutrition

 

Remember when I said sustainable?

 

It’s not sustainable to be 100% perfect all the time, include meals out with friends, events, takeaways into your plan

 

If you build these things into the plan with intent you’re much less likely to end up mindlessly overeating when they do come around

 

What an incredibly freeing idea to know you can still have a busy social life and eat well, it’s possible

 

​4) Plan in Advance

 

I’m not talking about meal prepping for 134 hours on a Sunday, if you want to do that, fine

 

But! It’s not necessary, instead just write out what you’ll have for breakfast, lunch and dinner each day for the week

 

This one step makes you 4 times more likely to stick to the plan

 

4 times!! That’s such a huge gain for a really simple step

 

It gives you a plan for meals, and shopping and takes away the danger of trying to decide what to eat after a 10 hour day when you’re exhausted and your will power is gone

 

Make sure your plan includes events and meals out, if you include them in the plan you’ll be more likely to not blow all your hard work

 

You aren’t cheating on your nutrition when you eat out because it’s a part of your nutrition!

 

4) Build Slack into your Nutrition

 

This links well into the last point

 

​​Remember when I said sustainable?

 

It’s not sustainable to be 100% perfect all the time, include meals out with friends, events, takeaways into your plan

 

If you build these things into the plan with intent you’re much less likely to end up mindlessly overeating when they do come around

 

What an incredibly freeing idea to know you can still have a busy social life and eat well, it’s possible

 

5) Eat Slowly

 

This is by far the thing most people find the hardest

 

It’s also incredibly important

 

There is a 10 minute gap between when your belly is full and the message is relayed to your brain

 

That means if you finish your meal in 5 minutes and go fill up your plate again and eat that in 5 minutes, the message has only just reached your brain that you’ve had enough

 

And you feel terrible, because you’ve eaten WAY too much

 

Ever had that feeling?

 

A fun little challenge is to set the timer on your phone to 15 minutes and see if you can make your dinner last that long

 

Do it with friends and family, you’re going to need someone to chat to in between bites!

 

Pro tip: put your knife and fork down in between bites and finish chewing your food before you pick them back up again

 

If you did nothing else but follow those 5 tips you​’ll be better off in 4 weeks time and I guarantee if you stick with them you’ll be even better off in 4 years time

 

Quick results, that will last ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

For more posts on improving your life outside of the gym follow our instagram at: https://www.instagram.com/blinco_built/

If you’re ready to take the first step in your fitness and health journey contact us at: http://blincobuilt.com.au/