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Manifesting Body Diet and Fitness Plan – Day 103

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Today I wanted to do a quick update on my diet and fitness plan, and more specifically to share my updated stats from my Aim Skulpt device.

For those of you who are not familiar with the Skulpt Aim device, it’s basically a device that allows you to measure each one of your major muscle groups and test individual “MQ” scores for them.

Here’s a quick chart which explains what “MQ” is.

As you can see from the chart above, an MQ of 80 falls under the “Needs Work” category and looking at the silhouette of the person at 80 MQ we can tell they are obese, and on the other side of the spectrum we have an MQ of 160 which is someone who is completely skulpted, with an MQ of 100 being an average person.

The main benefit of using a device like this is that it allows you to see changes in your body composition which are more accurate and more specific than just weighing yourself on a scale.

I’ve taken two full body measurements so far with the Skulpt Aim.

The first measurement was taken on Day 1 of starting this plan, and the second measurement I took a few days ago on Day 100 of the plan.

Here is a side-by-side comparison of the two reports for the muscle groups on the front of my body.

Skulpt Aim

 

As you can see I’ve had improvements in my “MQ” all across the board.

The MQ of my shoulders was 97 (right) and 99 (left) on Day 1, and now it’s at 100 for both.

The MQ for my chest (pecs) was 98 (right) and 100 (left) on Day 1, and now it’s at 101 (right) and 102 (left).

As you can see in the chart, pretty much every one of the numbers went up.

This makes sense to me because the biggest part of my plan so far has been focused around strength training with my personal trainer Sam.

Now, let’s look at the stats from the back of my body:

From the muscle groups in the back of my body, the biggest improvement showed up in my glutes as well as my calves.

You can see the exact numbers in the graphic above.

Now, the final chart I’ll share is just the total body average snapshot between the two days.

 

As you can see form the chart above, my average MQ for all the muscle groups was MQ 90 on Day 1, and as of Day 100 I was at MQ 96.

Now, some people may think to themselves “Yeah, but so what?  This device showed you that you had an MQ of 90 and now you’re at 96… what does that tell you?”

Well, depending on what your goals are, to some people these numbers may seem insignificant.

For example, if someone was just looking to lose weight and wasn’t doing any strength training, then tracking their MQ wouldn’t probably be a useful measure.

You could simply just step on a scale and measure your weight and see how much weight you lost.

However, since I’m mainly focusing on strength training with my program right now, psychologically I need to track some sort of measure of progress BEYOND just my weight.

The reason for this is because building muscle kind of works against you in the beginning of a fitness program if all you’re looking at is your weight.

Meaning, by doing strength training I’m actually building muscle tissue which is actually pretty heavy as compared to fat for example.

Therefore, let’s say that I lose 3lbs of fat and gain 3lbs of muscle in a certain period of time, if all I looked at was the scale then my weight wouldn’t even change.  There would be no difference.

And when we don’t see any difference on the scale, we get demotivated!

However, if we could somehow measure that we’ve gained lean body mass, in addition to losing fat, then it becomes more motivating.

Now, technically we can measure total lean body mass by using body fat percentages, but with the Aim Skulpt device it just gives me that extra level of detail and tracking so that I can see how each individual muscle group is responding to my strength training program.

For a gadget geek like myself, this is uber cool stuff.

I love tracking stats and seeing graphs and sleek looking graphics, and if that’s what I need to do in order to get myself motivated to work out, then that’s what I’ll do.

Based on the stats above I have to say I’m very pleasantly surprised.

During my first 100 days of strength training I’ve only done 14 one hour work out sessions with my trainer or on my own so far, which comes out to – on average – about one workout per week.

In addition to that I’ve also done quite a bit of yard work and landscaping outside as well, so I’m sure that contributed to this as well, but in terms of actual strength training workouts, I’ve only done 14 so far!

I definitely still have a long way to go, but I have already lost about 10lbs of fat, my clothes fit better and I’m feeling WAY stronger than I was when I started this journey.

If I can increase my average number of workouts to 1.25 or 1.5 or 2 or 3 workouts per week I’m sure I’ll start seeing results coming in even faster.

But, even if I just keep doing what I’ve been doing so far, I’ll still see results, it’s just that they will take longer to achieve.

For the first time in my life though I’ve been CONSISTENTLY working out for more than 3 months in a row, which is super awesome, and I have to thank my trainer Sam from Ivanco Fitness for that. 🙂

How to Organize Your TODO List as a Blogger

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I’ve had a love / hate relationship with “TODO” lists and time management / priority management systems ever since I became an entrepreneur.

On one hand I love the idea of keeping things more organized so that I don’t forget to do things, and so I don’t have to constantly try to maintain a mental TODO list which can be very mentally taxing…

… and on the other hand whenever I try to organize my life and my business with any sort of planning system, I always end up giving up on it within just a few days or weeks as it never works for me.

Recently though I discovered a pretty simple but powerful task organizer software that I’ve been trying out for the last few weeks and I really like it.

As a Blogger it’s been especially helpful in planning out what I need to do and helping me to have a clearer mind.

The software is called Wunderlist, and it’s available for pretty much every platform from a PC to a Mac to an iPhone to an Android device and more.

At the very basic level Wunderlist is just a task tracking software.

It allows you to create task lists, categorize them easily into various categories and it has a really neat “STARRED” feature which allows you to flag priority tasks of any category and then see them more easily in each of the category listings as well as a special “Starred” folder which shows all of your starred tasks.

The other cool feature is that you can collaborate with anyone else who is using Wunderlist…

 

As a blogger and an entrepreneur this can come in very handy if you’re going to be working with a team or outsourcing any of your work.

Wunderlist is a free software, with a Pro version available for those people who need a much bigger system of organizing things.

You can check out all the features of Wunderlist by clicking here.

As a blogger, I’ve been finding this software very useful for uncluttering my mind of tasks and ideas that pop into my mind while I’m working on my computer doing something else where it would be inefficient for me to stop what I’m doing in order to do something about those things that popped into my mind.

So now I just go into my Wunderlist app which is always running on my computer and I just type in the task really quickly and then I go back to doing what I was doing without worrying that I might forget about the task if I don’t write it down.

Try it out, and see if you like it.

 

 

Joe Rogan’s Advice – Do What You Love

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I came across this awesome video from Joe Rogan today, where he really nails what’s wrong with our thinking as a society today.

We have been conditioned to believe that we have to have these jobs where we hate what we do for our entire lifetimes, just to pay the bills each month.

I’m not saying that jobs aren’t sometimes necessary in life, but I don’t believe in spending all of your life working doing something you hate.

Some people LOVE their jobs, and what they do, and that’s perfectly fine – I’m not referring to those people.

There are even people who LIKE their jobs, and that’s perfectly fine too – I’m not referring to those people either.

I’m referring to people who hate their jobs, and who spend all of their spare time bitching and complaining about their jobs, but they won’t do anything about it.

In this video Joe Rogan calls out people like that:

The reason I really liked this video is because I used to be one of those people.

When I started working in the corporate world back in 1999 I actually enjoyed it at first.

I was in the tech sector and I loved it.

But by the time it was 2008 I had lost all my passion for working in the corporate world, for publicly traded corporations.

One day I realized that this passion was gone, and so I made the decision to leave the corporate world and my cushy six-figure salary as well.

Dec 31st, 2008 was my last day of working in that type of job setting and it was a turning point in my life.

It was videos similar to this one which lit a fire under my butt and made me uncomfortable enough to start pursuing my passion for entrepreneurship and I’m grateful for being exposed to them.

If you’re feeling stuck in a dead-end passionless job in the corporate world, I recommend joining Empower Network and taking the first step towards your freedom.

Why The Hell Did I Manifest This!?

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I’ve been a student of the Law of Attraction for about 13 years now and one of my earliest questions that I always used to wonder about, and probably the most common question I hear from people is “Why the hell did I manifest this!?”

Meaning, usually something happens in a person’s life that they perceive as a “negative” thing and they’re confused as to why that thing happened.

The usual example I like to use is car accidents.

Someone gets into a car accident and then they say to me “I don’t understand!  I wasn’t thinking about getting into a car accident!  I was just driving and thinking about what I’m going to have for dinner the next day and then BOOM, someone hit me!  There’s no way I manifested this.  I was in a good mood, I wasn’t thinking about someone hitting me!”

Well, look… NOBODY drives around thinking that they’re going to get into a car accident when it happens.

Then it wouldn’t really be an accident – LOL.

Let me share my perspective on how these things work, where something manifests in your life that you weren’t thinking about.

If you manifest something unexpected and seemingly “negative”, like for example a car accident or an injury or something like that… it’s for one of two reasons…

#1 – It’s Working to Your Benefit

Sometimes we ask the Universe for something that we really, really want, but we get STUCK in not knowing how to manifest the thing that we want.

For example, a friend of mine wanted a new car.  She kept talking about how she wanted a new car.

However, she already had an older car she was driving and she didn’t really want to sell it.

So the position she found herself in was where she wanted a new car, but already had a used car that she didn’t want to sell.

So then, one day while driving, one of her tires blew out suddenly and she crashed her old car into a pole.

Nobody got hurt, but the car was pretty much totaled.

Problem solved. 🙂

She now drives a new car.

Now, I’m not saying she crashed the car on purpose, or that she even THOUGHT about her old car crashing.

What I’m saying is that she wanted a new car, but felt a bit trapped in still having her old car, so the Universe manifested a set of circumstances which took care of that situation.

In the same way I’ve seen people talk about wanting a new job, but feeling trapped in their old job, and then one day they come into work and get fired or laid off and they’re surprised like “I can’t believe I got laid off!!!!”

Well, you’re asking the Universe for a NEW JOB, so what do you expect to happen!? 🙂

A lot of times when we manifest seemingly “negative” things, they aren’t actually negative things at all.

They are things that lead us toward what we REALLY want, and often times much faster than we ever imagined… it’s just that we haven’t seen the whole plan the Universe has for us yet.

So if you’re clear on what you want, and you’re feeling good about it and you’re keeping your vibration aligned with what you want, but something seemingly “negative” still happens, it most likely means that this thing will help you get what you want.  You just have to wait a little bit to see how it plays out.

Or, the other reason is this…

#2 – You’re Projecting / Vibrating the Matching Feeling to the Event

Going back to our car accident example…

Let’s say you get into a car accident, and it’s nothing related to reason #1 I mentioned above.

The other possibility is that you have been projecting / vibrating and thus ATTRACTING the same feeling that the car accident caused you to feel.

For example, lets say you got into the car accident and afterwards you felt anger and frustration and a sense of “I can’t believe this is happening to me!”

If that is the feeling that you went to after your car accident, look at your life for the weeks leading up to the car accident and ask yourself where in your life have you been feeling ANGRY and FRUSTRATED and a feeling of “I can’t believe this is happening to me!”

For example, let’s say that you run a business and you just found out that one of your employees has been stealing from you.

And let’s say that this causes you to feel angry, frustrated and a disbelief of “I can’t believe this is happening to me!”

And now let’s say that you fire this employee, and you spend the next 3 weeks telling and re-telling the story of this horrible employee to everyone you know and reliving that anger, and frustration and disbelief.

When you do that, you’re essentially sending out and order to the Universe to attract the same feelings…

“Hello Universe, I would like you to send me situations and circumstances where I will feel ANGER, FRUSTRATION and DISBELIEF…”

That’s basically what you’re telling the Universe.  That’s the order you’re giving it.

“Send me more of those things.”

So then, the Universe responds to that request, perhaps by manifesting this car accident in your life.

Why?  Because then you will once again feel ANGER and FRUSTRATION and DISBELIEF.

It’s not that you were telling the Universe “Hey, send me a car accident.”

You’re just saying “Send me ANYTHING that will make me feel this way.”

And the Universe just manifests whatever situations and circumstances that will mirror those feelings.

That is how it works.

And of course if after that car accident you then spend the next 3 weeks telling and re-telling the story of how this idiot hit you with his car, or whatever the situation was, guess what?

You’ll once again feel those feelings of ANGER and FRUSTRATION and DISBELIEF while telling your story to people, and guess what the Universe is hearing you ordering?

“Oh, you want MORE ANGER and MORE FRUSTRATION and MORE DISBELIEF?  Well, sounds dumb to me, but sure I can give you more of those…”

And then a few days later you once again manifest yet ANOTHER thing to be angry / frustrated about. 🙂

What to Do About This

So what do we do about this?  How do we stop this kind of crap from happening?

Well, in the first case, if it’s the Universe manifesting WHAT you want, but just in a method that you’d prefer to avoid, then just be more clear.

Let’s say you want to manifest a new car, then tell the Universe you want a new car in an easy and simple way, for the greatest good of all.

Essentially be more specific as to what you want.

Also, learn to ask yourself the question I cover in this video.

If it’s the second case, where you’re manifesting things that are a vibrational / feeling match to how you’ve been feeling lately, the only solution is to STOP feeling those ways.

If you’re angry about something, find ways to RELEASE that anger.

Don’t re-tell your story 100 times!

It’s okay to feel angry at times, but take that feeling and channel it into something positive.

Don’t just get stuck in an endless loop of constantly feeling anger over and over again.

Get help from people who know how to release stuck energy and unexpressed feelings so that you no longer have to keep manifesting more things in your life that make you feel that way.

If you don’t, then you’ll continue to manifest more and more situations, people and events which bring up those negative feelings again and again.

 

 

 

5 Mind Hacks For Living a More Awesome Life

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Here are five very simple mind hacks that you can use to live a more awesome life.

All of these things are simple to DO, but unfortunately they are also simple NOT to do and that is why most people don’t do them.

If, however, you make a conscious effort to do these 5 simple things more often through your week, you’ll notice that you life becomes more and more awesome.

Here are the 5 things…

#1 – Laugh and Smile Often

Go out of your way to laugh and smile.

Tell jokes, listen to jokes, make fun of yourself or the situations in your life if you have to, but just find something to smile and laugh about every day.

This sounds simple, and obvious, but most people don’t do this on a regular basis.

Or they only time they laugh or smile is like once a month when they watch a movie or something funny happens to them.

That’s a great start, but if you actually make an effort to laugh and smile every day, at least once, you’ll notice that your life starts to become more and more awesome because the more you smile and laugh at things, the more the Universe gives you things to smile and laugh about. 🙂

#2 – Stop Making Excuses

Another habit that most people are in is the habit of making excuses and feeling the need to explain yourself and your actions to everyone around you.

For example, this morning I was working with my personal trainer and the first question he asked me was “Did you do your workout on Monday?” and my answer was “No I didn’t.”

End of story.

There was a valid reason as to why I didn’t do a workout this Monday, as I had done about 7 hours of landscaping work in my front yard the previous day (which is normally my rest day) so I made the decision to not work out on Monday.

But my trainer wasn’t asking me what my excuse was.  He was just asking IF I did the workout so that he knew which workout we were going to work on today.

When people ask you a question, answer it, but don’t feel the need to give excuses and explain yourself.

Most of our excuses and “reasons” are just stories we tell ourselves, and they’re neither true nor untrue… they’re just STORIES we’ve invented for ourselves.

However, if we get out of the habit of always making excuses and inventing stories, our life becomes more awesome.

You’re an adult.  You’re not a kid anymore.  No need to explain yourself to everyone.

You can make decisions.  If you decide to do something or not to do something, you don’t need to explain yourself all the time.

Even if you just reduce your habit of making excuses by 10%, you’ll notice a powerful shift start to happen in your life and it will become more awesome.

#3 – Escape From Reality Once in a While in a Healthy Way

Being too “realistic” all the time numbs the mind.

Make a conscious effort to escape this reality we live here on earth, at least on a weekly basis.

This doesn’t mean going out and getting drunk, wasted or high.

That’s not what I mean.

What I’m referring to is escaping from reality by doing something that engages your imagination and allows you to transport your mind to another reality and another “story line”.

Some people do this by reading books.

Some people do this by watching movies.

Some people do this by playing board games or getting involved in tabletop gaming.

Some people do this by going to a show, or a play or things of that nature.

Find ways to just take a break from day-to-day reality and find something that can engage and expand your imagination.

#4 – Get Out in Nature

Nature has a way of grounding and detoxifying our energy.

Go out in nature at least a few times a week, and ideally on a daily basis.

If you’re lucky enough to live on a property with a yard, get outside and touch nature.

If not, find a nearby park.

Touch a tree, sit on the grass, smell a flower, put your feet in water, etc.

Even just sitting and staring at a tree swaying back and forth in the wind for 10 minutes can have a profound effect on your energy.

Try it out.

#5 – Do Something Different

Get it he habit of doing something different.

This doesn’t have to be huge, but just make the conscious decision to change something you’re doing in some way.

For example, today when I was doing my workout with my trainer, we finished off with a step up/step down exercise where I was stepping up on my Powerplate machine and then stepping down while holding some dumbbells.

Now, for whatever reason I noticed that when I was stepping up onto the machine I was stepping up with my right leg first, then my left leg second and then stepping down with my right leg first, and then with my left leg.

I thought about it for a second and realized that I probably unconsciously do that every time I go up the stairs.

So what I decided to do is to switch things up throughout my set of these exercises and I kept changing which leg I would step up with.

I started with my right leg, then switched to my left, then back to my right and so on.

Now this might not seem like a huge thing, but if you make a habit of doing at least one small thing daily in a different way, you’ll expand your awareness.

Have you ever driven in the back seat of your car when driving with your spouse?  Meaning, if there’s just two of you in the car, have you ever driven in the back?  Why not try it?

If you normally order certain types of food at a restaurant, why not try one new thing?

If you normally buy clothes at a certain store, why not try buying one piece of clothing in a new store?

These things don’t have to be HUGE.  Just do SOMETHING different.

Try eating with your non-dominant hand.

Open the door with your non-dominant hand.

Try it out.

You might notice that life becomes a little bit less boring and a lot more awesome when you’re willing to try new things and do something different each day.