No Respect
(From archived lianprice.com blog, circa August 2015.)
Let me take you back to 2012…
Time on stairclimber: 140 minutes.
No, not once in a while. I climbed 140 minutes on stairs that went nowhere, every, single, day.
What a waste of life.
Food: 5 food categories, zero deviation:
1) protein powder
2) lentils & beans
3) green vegetables
4) peanut and almond butter
5) oats & rice cakes
Total daily intake: 1130 kcal. Me: Hangry. Bored. Perma Fuzz-Brain.
What a waste of nutritional intelligence.
My essentials for each day:
1 Waist trainer.
2 Lipo Six "Black" pills.
3 outfits and 3 showers.
5.5 hours of sleep.
What a waste of a healthy body and spirit.
In the gym, I distinctly remember watching others chase down their 1 Rep Max's, grunting and high-fiving and having so much fun! As I sat there on the tarp floor, pathetically summoning the energy to lift a rice cake to my mouth.
And for what?!! For the "privilege" of walking onstage half-naked for a 7-second photo op?
No.
Noooo!! My inner voice was screaming at me. I knew intuitively I would pay later for this.
So, let me ask you:
Who climbs stairs for over 2 hours a day and doesn’t lose weight?
Me.
(Me now: If I hop on the stairs for 15 minutes I’ll wake up a pound and a half lighter the next day.)
Who eats under 12oo kcal per day and does not lose weight?
Me.
(Me now: If I dip below 2,000 kcal in one day of eating I will wake up a pound or so lighter the next day.)
Who weight trains 5 times per week for 9 months straight and doesn’t get any stronger?
Me.
(Me now: I PR all over the place, all the time, month after month now, and year after year. Best of all, I thoroughly enjoy my workouts! What a beautiful thing!)
Do either of these scenarios sound familiar to you? If so, what was going wrong in the first scenario? And how did you fix it?
I’ll tell you what I did.
Here’s a list of some of the obvious changes:
– Less caffeine &
chemically–enhanced days. Longer, more restful nights.
– Less (wayyyy less!) cardio. More sprints and other short bursts intense activity.
– Less dead food, more living food. Want to feel like a zombie? Eat dead food. Want to feel alive? Eat living food!
– Waist Trainer = slam-dunked into the trash. No more rearranging my internal organs to look hot. Ugh! I don’t know if this more scary or embarrassing to admit. I guess I momentarily forgot what century I was in.
– Less stress. It was time to grow up and manage my stress like an adult. To take charge of my thoughts and how they manifested in my life.
The last change leans toward my focus in writing you today. In order for there to be healthy, long-term physical results, there HAS to be a shift in mindset. Everyone always asks me for the how. But the how simply isn’t enough.
The real difference, the #1 catalyst for change between the “Me” back then and the “Me Now”, was in my level of respect.
I simply started respecting my body.
It was time to acknowledge and honor the only vehicle I have been given to navigate through this life.
To nourish and assist it in all of the incredible things it is capable of doing.
I stopped wrestling with my health and started supporting it instead. Finally, I started getting somewhere.
I started showing some freaking gratitude for my health. So many have so much less, and here I was wrecking apart this beautiful gift I had been given.
I stopped strategizing about how I was going to outsmart my body, outsmart nature, outsmart gravity. What a fool I was for thinking I could. Battle any of these forces, and at some point you will lose, and lose big.
My body wants to:
1) Repair itself
2) Perform like a champ
3) Sustain life
4) And protect me from my own devices.
How could I not support these objectives??
No, respect for the body is much more important than any ego-driven concept of what we think it should look like. Respect is paramount.
I now respect my body, and am healthy and much more metabolically responsive because of it.
Things I now refuse to do:
Deprive my body of adequate rest = No Respect.
Go through each day popping fat-burners and thermogenic–boosting supplements = No Respect.
Engage in the Binge – Punish – Starve – Binge Cycle = No Respect
Give your body No Respect, and you will have, for starters:
No libido
No zest for life
No self-confidence
No performance–based bragging rights
Now go have a great Saturday, friend.
Here are my 2 cents for your weekend: go eat some fruit, go do something fun
outside and then go relax.
Talk soon :)
In Good Health,
Lian Price
••Please note: I am NOT criticizing bodybuilding federations, the sport of bodybuilding, or other competitors whatsoever. I am critiquing only myself here! Many competitors and coaches today are revolutionizing competition prep, and now successfully train, eat and
compete in an incredibly healthy, holistic way. I applaud them and am so happy the sport is evolving and moving in this direction.