How to Transform Yourself: Fitness Transformation Challenges

Chris Albert 00:00:00 (link to this point)

This is Chris Albert, and I'm here to remind you of one thing. Someday, you're going to die. Now that's not some morbid statement or scary idea. It's solid fact. Your time here on this earth is limited.

We need to be reminded of this as much as possible for one simple reason, to live your best life while you can. This is the Warrior Soul Podcast.

You know, transformation is a buzzword we hear quite a bit these days. There's all types of transformation competitions going on. People trying to transform their bodies in the shortest time possible, right, or in a time laid out for a specific competition. We see these online, a lot of supplement companies put them out there, lot of trainers put them out there, and they do that for, of course, marketing purposes. But the people doing these transformation competitions, I don't have a problem with them at all because the people doing them seem to get a lot out of it.

They seem to come out of them very confident. They seem to come out of them very happy, very pleased with the results regardless of what whether or not they won the competition. Of course, there's always some people who get a little bit butthurt. They they, you know I have a friend who runs these competitions and and he tells me that there's always one or two people out there who complain about the results because they were in it for the competition. They weren't in it for the transformation.

But those who come into it with a heart that's willing to transform, well, they get a lot out of these things. Now I want to tell you something, and and we're going to go into this in this Warrior Fitness Notes episode. But the big thing about transformation is that it needs to be holistic. It needs to be all of you. It can't just be your body that changes.

Something's got to change within your heart, and within your mind, in order to actually be transformed. And I want to get into that in this episode. Before we do, I just want to say a couple of things. Number one, my name is Chris Albert, and this is the Warrior Soul podcast. And I do this podcast for a big reason, and that is because over the past decade and a half, we've had a very, very high suicide rate here in the veteran community.

We've had a really high rate of veteran homelessness. We have a very high rate of chronic disease. One in four veterans admitted to the VA system has full blown diabetes. And there's a lot of people out there trying to raise awareness about this, and I think that's awesome, but I don't wanna raise awareness. What I wanna do is I wanna provide solutions.

And so when you listen to this podcast, what my goal is is that you take something away from each episode that you can apply to your life right now, right after you listen, so that you can live your best life. And if you're not a veteran, stick around. Everything that we go over here can help you too. It can help anybody who's willing to listen. I focus on the veteran community because I'm a US Marine Corps veteran, and my brothers and sisters out there are hurting.

But any one of you is welcome to listen. Any one of you is welcome to join us. All I ask in return is that you let other people know about the show. You write us a review up on iTunes. Doesn't take long.

Right? And I see a lot of people, they're they're hitting those five star buttons. That's awesome. But what really helps is those written reviews, letting letting us know exactly how we helped you. And then paying us that that highest compliment by by doing that and by sharing these episodes out.

It's all we're really looking for here. And, you know, I don't have much else to sell you or anything like that. We have t shirts. If you want one of those, you know where to find them. They're awesome.

But, you know, that's why I'm here is to help. The other thing I want to mention is that, you know, this podcast, it couldn't be possible without the good people over at F Bomb Nutrition. Really, really great people. They make delicious packets of fats. They make macadamia nut butters.

They put them in these portable packets, and they're awesome. They're awesome. They make some chocolate with sea salt, pecan butter, and with coconut butter. And these guys are a great company. And one of the reasons why I'm so proud to have them as a sponsor is because they are sending boxes of this stuff overseas to the troops on the front lines so that they can supplement their MREs with good nutrition.

I've been out there. I've lived off of MREs before. I can tell you that they are rough on the system, and it really helps to get a good nutritious snack that you can have that can give you lots of energy. You want to try out f bombs, you can go over to www.dropanfbomb.com and use the code Warrior Soul at checkout to get 20% off of your first order. Now, I want to get back to this subject at hand.

What is transformation? Right? We're seeing a lot of people doing these these transformation competitions. We're seeing a lot of people running these transformation competitions, and I'm all for it. I think it's awesome.

Right? Whether it's a marketing tactic or not, I think it's amazing. It's amazing that people are getting together, that they're working to improve their health, and that they are trying to take charge of their lives. One thing I want to mention here though is that I don't want people to fall into the same trap that I used to fall into when I was a bodybuilder. And that is that, you know, when I was a bodybuilder, I would focus on looking good for three days.

Right? For three days. Right? I wanted to look good for the day of the competition. I wanted to look good for the photoshoots afterwards, and that would be about three days.

And then what would happen is, you know, in order to get into the shape that I needed to get into for that bodybuilding competition, I would diet down for about ten weeks, and I would get myself down to a very low body fat percentage. I'm talking under 5%. Some people say it was 2%, but they're liars. They're liars because mean, 2% eats. You don't want to sustain that.

And then I would dehydrate myself to create an illusion to create an illusion of a very defined muscular body. And, you know, I think that that is what I think everybody should try to avoid. They should try to avoid creating the illusion of a defined healthy body. Right? And that's because, you know, when I think about it, those ten weeks, they were an anomaly to my life.

Right? I wasn't always eating like that. And it's not to say that I was eating healthy during those ten weeks, but I wasn't always that disciplined. And the onslaught that I created during those ten weeks, that was not sustainable for my normal life. So what would happen in the off season?

Well, in the off season, I would eat whatever I wanted. I wouldn't really be concerned with my health. I wouldn't even be concerned with cardio or anything like that or my own heart rate or or any of that stuff. All I would be concerned with is, you know, lifting a certain amount of weight in order to to build a little muscle in the off season. And then, you know, when when a competition came around and I decided I wanted to do one, I would diet down, and that's when I would be super disciplined.

And that's not sustainable. Now, why isn't it sustainable? Why is it not sustainable? Well, here's the whole point of this. For me, you know, I I am also a little bit of an anomaly here.

I am a professional trainer. Right? So what does that mean about me? That means that my schedule is pretty much what I choose it to be. That means that I have time to train.

That means that I have time to put into my body. Right? As an entrepreneur, that's one of the reasons why I chose to be an entrepreneur is because fitness is extremely important to me. And when I wasn't an entrepreneur, you know, I've been in the working world before I was I've been everything from a truck driver to a landscaper, United States Marine, all types of different professions. And I chose to be an entrepreneur because it allowed me to have the most control over my life.

Now, I'm not under any illusions as a trainer that that you are in that same situation. In fact, most of you probably are not. And so your lives really revolve around putting food on the table, going to work. And I think that's awesome. That's honorable.

That's what you have decided to do, and that's that's what you have to do. Right? But what does that mean for fitness? That means that anything you choose to do needs to be first and foremost sustainable. Not just something you do for ten weeks for for body transformation competition.

Not just something that you do for a little bit. It needs to be something that you can be able to do for the rest of your life. Now why? Well, that's because we all face tragedy. We all face hardship.

We all we all face difficulties in our lives. We've got all gotta figure out a way to put food on the table. And so the second, and this is what I've noticed from my years of working with clients from around the world, that is that the second real life starts to interrupt, the second that real life starts to come into play, that's when people say, you know what? Fitness isn't a priority for me. I gotta focus on this.

And if you've been listening to me for the past few weeks, I've been telling you why that's a lie. Fitness is always a priority. You always need to take care of yourself. You always need to take care of your body and your mind. Those are the only two assets that you have in your life.

Those are the only two real things that you have. Without them, you can't earn money, you can't put food on the table for your family, and if you allow yourself to get sick, your family's going to end up taking care of you. So that means that we need to figure out a way to keep fitness in our lives no matter what. And so for those of you out there seeking transformation, my advice is don't only seek transformation in your body. Seek transformation in your mindset.

Right? When fitness is something that you know you can do no matter what life throws at you, that's when you fully transformed. When you know you're gonna get a workout in, regardless of what happened that day, that's when you truly for transformed. But if it's just something that you're doing when it's convenient, or if you're treating it like it's a hobby, and you're not treating it like brushing your teeth, or like cooking dinner, or as part of the things that you have to do on a daily basis to be the person you need to be, then that's when it falls by the wayside. So that's the number one thing.

Figure out a way to make fitness part of your life no matter what is going on. So that means that you don't just have one workout plan. Right? One outlet for for or one platform for your workouts. For most people, their only platform for their workouts is is by going to the gym, by getting an hour long workout with the with the weights.

No. You don't just want to have that. You want to have backup plans. Right? So if you can't get to the gym that day, like I've been telling you for the past few weeks, keep a kettlebell in the house.

You can do any workout that you want with a kettlebell. Right? Know some calisthenics routines. Get those calisthenics routines together. Right?

You can get a workout done in ten minutes if you want to. Okay? So that's the number one thing. Number two, understand that your diet needs to be sustainable. It needs to be sustainable no matter what.

If you're doing during a transformation, if you're doing a diet that you would not otherwise ever do, like for instance, if during the transformation your grocery bill is doubling, That's not a good sign because that's not gonna be sustainable for you. Right? So what you need to do is you need to work out your budget, you need to figure out exactly what you can afford, got to figure out the things that you're wasting money on. I've seen a lot of people, friends and family, you know, they're they're going shopping, and I see them sticking these huge boxes of of of drink of bags into their into their into their carts. Right?

Huge boxes of liquid sugar and they're paying ridiculous amounts of money for those drink boxes. Right? Why? Because the kids love them. But you're feeding your kids nothing but pure sugar.

Right? Think about that. That's not helping them. Right? Oh, they're crying.

They're they're worried about, you know, not getting in their juice box today. While you're feeding your kids basically liquid crack, right, they can be better helped just by eating fruit. Just by eating fruit, buy them some fruit, that's going to be way less expensive. Right? It's gonna be way less expensive.

Get them trained to understand what natural flavors taste like. Right? So important. Right? Figure out what you're wasting your money on.

A lot of you are wasting your money on crap at the grocery store. Because you're wasting your money on crap, you aren't spending money on good food. Right? And and trust me, if you do that, you'll cut your budget down so much. If if you start buying vegetables, you start buying fruits, you start buying food that you need to prepare, then that's gonna cut your budget way down outside of those packaged foods.

Now, again, a lot of you are gonna be like, well, I don't have time to cook. I don't have time to prepare these things. I don't have time to clean these vegetables. Here's the thing. If you learn how to cook, if you learn how to prep food, it becomes a lot easier.

Right? It becomes a lot easier. How did I learn how to cook? Well, number one, I was blessed to be Italian. Alright?

In my family, cooking was always part of our culture. Right? But when I come across something that I don't know how to prepare, we live in this remarkable age. It's called the Internet age. Right? And we have this awesome tool called Google. Right?

You can Google recipes. Right? And and in addition to that, we've got all these other amazing tools. We got crock pots. We've got instant pots.

Right? A lot of these recipes are set it and forget it. Right? If you get an instant pot, those things are about $90, I think, on Amazon. Can get I them at Costco too.

I mean, literally, you can cook any healthy meal and just make it into, you know, something that's delicious, and you can set it and forget it. That's how I'm able to go to jiu-jitsu because my girlfriend doesn't cook. Right? She works. She's a nurse.

I work here. I'm an entrepreneur. I'm I'm working from the house, and I've got tons and tons of stuff I've got to do. And then, you know, it takes me about a half hour to prep meals every night. Right?

And what do I do? Well, I use the Instant Pot. I will set up the food, stick it in the Instant Pot, set the Instant Pot, then I'll head out the door to jiu-jitsu. And by the time I'm back, that thing is done. Food is ready.

Right? And again, it's all up to you guys and what you want to be able to do. But there's one overarching thing here. Right? And and this is the big thing I'm trying to slam home, because all the the the corporate aspect of these transformation challenges, all the corporate aspect of these transformation challenges, that's to try to get you more focused on on the tools, right is to try to get you more focused on, you know, those specific supplements that are in that that the challenge is trying to sell or those specific those specific diet protocols that the trainer is trying to sell you. Right? But the reality is that the tools are not important. They're not important. What is important is your will to get it done. And not only to get it done during that time period when you're trying to to win that competition, but to get it done for life, to create a line that you're gonna hold for the rest of your life, to say, you know what? Up to this point, I've been behind the line. Now I wanna be in front of it, And I'm gonna stay there in front of it. I'm gonna mark my territory.

I'm gonna hang my flag, and that is where I'm going to be come hell or high water. In order to do that, there needs to be a mindset change. There needs to be some will that comes in that says that regardless of what happens, if a minor inconvenience happens, if a a big tragedy happens, if whatever happens, this part of the line, that's where I'm gonna live, and that's where I'm gonna stay. Because this is part of who I am. And when it becomes part of who you are, when it becomes part of your code as a human being, that's when you've truly transformed, regardless of what the pictures say, regardless of whether or not you won the competition, regardless of anything.

I wanna thank you for listening to this episode of fitness notes. I'm interested to hear your thoughts. What do you think? Have any of you participated in these transformation challenges? If so, how have they gone?

And if you're interested in participating in our own transfer transformation challenge over here at Warrior Soul, all you got to do is you got to join the Warrior Soul Fitness Academy, and that's free, and you don't got to buy anything else. So you can find the show notes for this episode. Just click on a private Facebook group, and you can join right then and there. You don't got to buy nothing. Got to don't got to answer any questions.

You just got to join our family. Alright? And, you know, to all of you out there, I hope you're out there living your best lives. And if you want to learn about real transformation and and really mastering yourself, make sure you check out the episode we put out on Monday with sergeant major Max Garcia, Life Coach 8. Really great guy with a lot of awesome ideas.

We'll be back at you on Friday with a new episode of Warrior Notes, and I'll talk to you soon.