Why You'll Fail at Your Fitness Goals . . .

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

What's up guys? Welcome to Chris Albert's Warrior Soul podcast. And, I have to apologize to you all first and foremost because I had a little bit of a disaster here. My computer, which has everything that I need to run my businesses, it completely died on me. And that's not an excuse.

And the reason why that's not an excuse is because I should have thought about the fact that it was gonna crash someday. I should have thought about the fact that I was depending too much on that technology and the fact that I needed to have myself on a better schedule as far as getting my podcasts out. So to all of you, I apologize. It was my fault that I haven't talked to you in so long. The last podcast I put out was September 2, and today is September 26.

But I've got a new computer right here in front of me, and I also ordered a couple of backups. So I have literally three laptops in my house just in case one fails. And I'm letting my girlfriend use one, and I'm keeping one on reserve that I will take with me when I have to work outside of the house. And that is the extent to which I want to make sure that I'm going to keep up with the content that we put out here at Warrior Soul Apparel, and that I'm gonna keep up with delivering our message to all of you. Today's going be an in between episode.

I'm going to have an episode coming up very soon with a gentleman who is a financial planner who specializes in helping US military veterans to improve their financial lives. And it's not gonna be some sales kind of thing where he's trying to sell you services. We're gonna get you guys sound advice to get your financial houses in order. And Lord knows I need that advice myself. But money, though I don't think it's the most important thing in the world, it is important.

It allows us to have varying degrees of freedom. It allows us to, take control of our lives, and we should all be smart with managing our money. And in managing our money to a point where we're gonna be able to not have to think about it all the time and enjoy ourselves, enjoy our lives, enjoy everything that this life has to offer. Now today's episode is gonna be about a subject that is near and dear to my heart as a personal trainer. And I talk to a lot of veterans, and one of the primary things that comes up when I ask veterans how I can help them is fitness.

And the fitness industry these days leaves a lot to be desired. I know you all have Instagram accounts. I know a lot of you are on Facebook. And when you go through social media trying to get advice on fitness, what do we see? We see guys flashing their ripped abs.

We got we see guys showing us how much they can lift. People showing off. And I know that a lot of this kind of stuff makes you sick. And I can't talk too much crap because as a trainer, I was one of those guys. I did that for so long.

And I've done it recently. And I have no excuses for myself in that department. You know, I was trying to market myself as a trainer. I was trying to market myself as a fitness professional. And I knew that in the world of social media, the thing to do was to show off your body, to show off your feats of strength.

But one of the reasons why I've made such a transition away from the fitness industry is because I wanted to help people out in a much more meaningful way. I still want fitness to be a big part of what we do here. I still want training to be a big part of what we do here. And training is such an important part of my life. It's such an important part of my mental health, and it's such an important part of who I am that I don't want the, you know, level of, disgust I have with the fitness industry in the way it is to to disillusion me or disillusion any one of you away from improving your health, improving your thought processes, improving your lives through fitness.

And so today's short episode is gonna be about one of the best pieces of advice I can give you to get started on your path. Or if you've been on your path but fell off the wagon, the best way to get back on. And it has to do with your overall vision. And when I talk about your vision, I'm talking about who you want to be, the person you want to be, the values you stand for, the things that make you get up in the morning. What brings meaning to your life?

Now, for a lot of you that might not be anything to do with fitness. It might just be having an awesome job, being happy, being with the man or woman that you love, being in a really good marriage, raising your children, and having a great life. But that doesn't mean that fitness should not be important to you. And I think that one of the main mistakes that people make when they start their fitness regimens is in the goals that they make for themselves. They tell themselves, oh, I'm gonna get big muscular arms.

I'm gonna get washboard abs. A lot of the girls, they'll go out and they'll buy themselves an expensive pair of skinny jeans and they say to themselves, I'm not gonna wear those jeans until I lose all the weight that I need to. And I think that these are bad goals because they're attached to vanity. And when we make our goals and when we design them so that they're attached to vanity, the attainment of that goal becomes a luxury item. It's something we want, but it's not necessarily something that we need.

It's not necessarily something that we have to have to live our lives. And the fact of the matter is that we can be perfectly happy being out of shape as long as we have food, as long as we have shelter, as long as we have people who love us in our lives. And some of us are perfectly content being alone and being out of shape as long as we have food and shelter. But this leaves something very important out of the equation. Right?

And when we attach our goals to those vanity items, those luxury ideals that that we'll take if if the situation is right, What happens is the second something comes up. Right? We could be on our path to getting those washboard abs, to getting in those skinny jeans, or to getting the big muscular arms that we want. And when something comes up, all of a sudden, we throw them out the window. You know, it could be you had a baby.

It could be you got a new job. It could be you had to move. It could be you had a death in the family. It could be you got a promotion, or it could be that you got fired. But what happens when these things come up is that we tend to let go of what we consider our less important goals.

Things that were not a priority in our lives. And we tell ourselves and rationalize it by saying, you know what? This is more important. Life is more important than training. Life is more important than working out.

And you know what? You're right. You are 100% right. Life is more important than washboard abs. Life is more important than arms.

Family is more important than skinny jeans. And to many of us, God is more important than all of these things. And so as soon as we have something like this come up in our lives. It doesn't matter where we were in our goals, we put them to the side and we tell ourselves, we'll do it when we have time to do it. We'll do it when we're in a better situation.

We'll do it when we have the money. And we look at it just like, you know, a nice pair of shoes or a nice car. We say to ourselves, you know what? We'll we'll buy those shoes when, you know, the time is right, when I have the credit, when I have the money. I'll I'll get that car, you know, once I get a new job, once I get the money to do it.

But unlike real luxury items, unlike the car, unlike the shoes. When it comes to fitness, we're talking about our bodies. We're talking about the vessel that houses our mind, and we're talking about the mechanism that allows us to enjoy our lives. You know, over the past few weeks and past few episodes, I've had gentlemen on here like Andrew Marr with the Warrior Angels Foundation who talked about how traumatic brain injury leads to hormonal disruption, in veterans that leads to depression, that leads to symptoms that look a lot like PTS. And you know what also leads to hormonal deficiencies?

A very bad diet and high blood sugar and lack of physical activity. And it is my sincere belief. I don't know that we can eliminate the symptoms of PTS. I don't know that we can eliminate the symptoms of TBI. But it's my sincere belief that through better living, through training, we can help to attenuate them.

We can allow ourselves to bear that burden more effectively if we make our body stronger and if we continue to train our minds by giving our bodies more physic physical activity to do. Fitness is so important to all of us because we need to be living our best lives or at least trying to live our best lives. And if our bodies are screwed up, if our blood sugar's high, if our hormones are out of whack, if we're having trouble walking up the stairs because we're out of breath, if we are not able to do the things we love because we don't have the energy to do them, then this just leads to increased amounts of unhappiness and depression. Not only that, training, getting out there, getting out in nature, moving around. I'm not just saying going to the gym, but moving around, going for a hike, being out there in the woods, you know, being outside in the sun does so much more for our moods.

It does so much more for our happiness. It it allows us to live in the moment, to enjoy where we are, to to really focus on what we're doing. And that is really what living is all about. You know, So many of us still, you know, we think about the past so much. And, yes, we're gonna continue to do that.

But at the same time, we need those times when we're able to to enjoy the sun. We need those times when we're focusing on our breathing, when we're focusing on something other than the dark corners of our minds. Fitness is probably the most primal, inexpensive, and easy way to do that. Any one of us can move. It doesn't matter if you're a fully able-bodied person or if you're an amputee.

Any one of us can do exercise. Any one of us can move. Any one of us can find something to do that will help us to improve our health, to make our bodies better, and to enjoy this life more. So for those of you guys, a lot of you are younger than I am, who are just beginning these this path in trying to to build your bodies, make yourself a better person, to make yourself the best person that you can be, really think about how you want to live your life. Really think about where you wanna live.

Really think about what you stand for, what you're gonna tolerate in your life. You know, so many of us, we talk about gun control. We talk about the second amendment, the right to bear arms, and I am a true believer in the second amendment. But I am also a believer that guns are just tools. We are the weapon.

We are the last defenders of our lives and the last defenders of what we believe in. We are the last defenders of our families. And if we're not prepared for the physical rigors of this life, then there really is no use for firearms. Right? Your body is just as important.

So for all you guys out there, for everybody who is trying to make your life better, who have for everybody out there who has that deep burning desire So to be the best man, woman you can be, get out there and move. Get out there and do something to push yourselves. And I wanna thank you all for listening to this. I wanna thank you all for all the support I get for this podcast. And again, I am so sorry that I failed all of you in the last few weeks and did not put out the content that I wanted to put out.

And I'm gonna do everything I can to make it up to you over the next few episodes and moving forward. So thank you all for listening, and I will talk to you all again in a couple of days. This is Chris Albert, Warrior Soul podcast. Take care.