There Is A Method to the Madness
This is a podcast where I will be discussing all aspects of physical fitness. I am an exercise physiologist and personal trainer and owner of Maxwell's Fitness Programs for the last 25 years. My passion is health and fitness and I am excited to share my views, some stories, interviews and much more with you.
There Is A Method to the Madness
Positive Time Travel: How Discipline Creates Your Future Self
Welcome to there is a Method to the Madness. My name is Rob Maxwell and I'm an exercise physiologist and personal trainer. I am the owner of Maxwell's Fitness Programs and I've been in business since 1994. The purpose of this podcast is to get to the real deal of what really works and, most importantly, why things work. Hence the name there is a Method to the Madness.
Speaker 1:Before I get started today, let me thank Jonathan and Lynn Gilden of the Gilden Group Realty Pros. They are committed to providing the highest level of customer service in home sales. Why don't you give them a shout and figure out what your home is worth? 386-451-2412. Hey there, everybody. Good morning, good afternoon. Whatever time of day you're listening to, we're here to talk about and engage in some fitness.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm going to redo the podcast I did yesterday, which was being disciplined being the gift in the future that we give ourselves, because I don't know what my server did, but it screwed with my voice. In the very first intro portion it made it sound kind of like Mickey Mouse, and then in the body of the text it made it sound like some deep voiced monster, don't know why. Looked into it, not really any clear answers. Didn't really want that out there, so redoing it. Such is life in the world of technology that we live in today. So let's talk about some discipline today. So let's talk about some discipline. Discipline is the gift we give ourselves into the future. If we think of it that way, I really think we can begin to make better choices. You know, we don't often think about the things that we're going to do in the moment. I think it is sort of a human nature thing. Well, I don't think I absolutely know it's a human nature thing.
Speaker 1:You know, we tend to gravitate towards the path of least resistance, tend to gravitate towards the path of least resistance. There is biological reasons for doing this, back when we were in the world of kill or be killed, which you know, I guess some would argue we're still in, but not really and quite frankly, not even close. But you know, we had to conserve our energy. We were either on the move or we were resting. So there's a reason we have a bias towards the path of least resistance. It makes absolute biological sense back when we needed to. But now we don't live in that kind of world anymore. We live in a world where we actually have to go out of our way to get in our physical activity so we can be healthy. We have to even go out of our way to find more healthy food choices not that they're not out there, so we have to go out of our way to do these things. So we are going to gravitate towards what feels better right now, whether it be physically, mentally or emotionally, what feels better. And, of course, going towards what feels better now doesn't often lead to what is better for us in the future, and we could look at almost every single instance and see that that is true. But for some reason, I would say adults have a blind spot to that.
Speaker 1:You know, we could argue that kids do too, and kids being teenagers or younger, and that's true, but they kind of know it and we know that. You know, like, when we say to the kids out there, you know you probably shouldn't skip school because if you do there's going to be consequences. You do, there's going to be consequences and we can see the consequences. We know that they could get caught and get suspended or however they handle those things these days. I'm using that example because when I was in high school, that was a big thing and I took part in those skip days back then and I knew exactly what I was doing and I knew I could get caught, and I guess I just didn't think that much of it. So I use that example. You can throw in any example that you want to. But we often accuse the younger generations of that kind of thinking Like didn't you realize when you made that choice a path of least resistance all your friends were skipping. It looked like the fun thing to do. Everybody was going to go to the beach instead of go to school. Yes, that sounds way better than going to school, but there are consequences at the end of that, you know, and the kids go. Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, right, and we all know it. We talk about it. People talk about it on social media, about the younger generation and blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 1:But what I see all the time is I see, you know, adults, responsible adults, living their lives doing the same thing, especially with health and fitness. I mean, I think Everybody knows. If you were to sit there, take a test or whatever that says, if you eat, say, a hamburger and French fries every day for the next 10 years, you know typically goes along with that, and a high saturated fat diet leads to coronary artery disease, like. We know that that is true, as does smoking and other say bad behaviors. We know that. But then adults will often say, well, you know, I don't know, I don't know if that's true and really what's going on is they're taking the path of least resistance. I see it all the time. I see the choices being made all the time and then so often people saying, well, I don't know what happened. Often people saying, well, I don't know what happened.
Speaker 1:What you gave into the impulse of what felt better at the time, having a hamburger from a fast food restaurant along with french fries and a milkshake or whatever on your way home from work seemed like an easier, better solution to make you feel better. The comfort food at the time Now is that bad. Once in a while, no, but if you do it all the time, of course there's going to be consequences. Discipline is saying to yourself at that moment that you know what I might feel better right now if I do this. Then I go home and I prepare some rice and I make some fish and make some broccoli. That will take a little bit longer. It might not be as pleasing to my taste buds at the moment, but it's the right thing to do and in six months my six-month future self will thank me for this because I'll be lower in my weight and I'll have better results from my physical right. You know that.
Speaker 1:But we choose to not exercise those discipline muscles and we say, eh, maybe that's true, I'll start that tomorrow. So you show very little discipline, if any at all, and you go with what seems easier at the time. But if you think of discipline as positive time travel, if you can say you know what six months down the road, this is going to impact me, of course it is. I mean, we know that, right. We know it when we talk about kids making their choices, but we so often forget it when it comes to ourselves. Discipline is just saying I want to feel better later at the expense of right now. I mean, it's really that simple. The same is, of course, for exercise. I mean it's so funny and I've said this many, many times.
Speaker 1:You know people think that personal trainers that are into fitness or fitness junkies or fitness nerds or health nuts whatever you want to call them like roll out of bed and just are licking their chops to go out on their run or go to the gym to lift weights, or go on their power walk or get on their bike. I mean, why? Why would people think that we are any different than you if you happen to be one of those people that say that? Again, going back to biology, we are all pretty much wired the same. We can rewire ourselves with good habits and habits will do that. But we are all pretty much wired the same. We want comfort. We would rather sleep in than get up. We would rather have a sugary drink than water than water. We would rather eat salt, sugar, fat that's very pleasing to the palate than eat fiber, grains, lean proteins, fruits and vegetables that aren't as pleasing to the palate. But because of experience, of doing the right thing, that is good for us.
Speaker 1:Down the road we have learned and set habits up to where we want to feel better in the future, because any pleasure we might get from taking the easy road of sleeping in and eating junk food I mean pleasure is very short-lived. Then, down the road, we feel the guilt which emotionally, is like oh, that doesn't feel good. We feel the arthritic joints from letting our weight get higher and that doesn't feel good. Now, everything we do for the amount of time that we're up per day, say 16 hours or whatever during the day, hurts because we have arthritic joints, because we didn't take care of ourselves. I mean, that isn't really giving into pleasure, right, like that's not pleasurable. We give in to pleasure at the brief moment, but that doesn't last and that causes more problems down the road.
Speaker 1:So us health nuts, us fitness junkies, we just simply have a longer track record than other people as far as making the right choices. We can take that positive time travel trip and say you know what, in six months I would prefer to be 12 pounds down. I would prefer to have my doctor say, wow, your labs are looking better than the last six months. We would prefer to have the doctor say, wow, that blood pressure is really really good. And we'd rather be able to say, yeah, you know, ever since I lost that 12 pounds, it feels so much better on my joints, I can move so much more freely.
Speaker 1:And what do we give up? We gave up simply giving in to temptation of short lasting junk food, sleeping in a little bit longer, delaying going out onto our exercise. I mean, it's really that simple, but it's also that major. These are major things we want to do. We want to be disciplined and get in the amount of exercise that we need to get in. That takes discipline. It takes discipline to train. But discipline is absolutely a muscle that you can develop. It can develop into a habit and social scientists have proven that.
Speaker 1:Habits are literally reprogramming the brain. It gets easier as you go. It absolutely gets easier as you go, but we have to get going to get into the habit of it. We have to have a nice, nice, nice resume of saying you know what, the last time I wanted that Frappuccino because it looked so darn good when that person walked by me and they had it in their hand you know it looked good I thought to myself you know what that's? Just empty wasted calories and empty wasted money. I mean seven bucks for that, for sugar, for a fatty drink, you know, loaded with cream and sugar. I mean tastes good. I mean, what does it take to drink like five minutes or something like that? You just spent $7 five minutes later and it did you no good. So when you saw that, that time you said you know what, I'm not going to give into that. And then you got into the car and you said you know what? I didn't even miss it. You know, of course you're not going to miss it, right? I mean, it's just temptation. I mean you know, marketers know this, which is why they put all this crap out in front of you all of the time, because they know you're going to see it. You're going to want it right out of sight, out of mind. So as soon as you don't see it anymore, you go. I don't really miss that.
Speaker 1:One of the things I talk about in my book is the concept of delaying gratification, my book being you can't outrun a poor diet. Delay gratification. Don't say not ever. Don't say I'll never do that again. Say not right now. I want that frappuccino. All right, maybe you do. If I still want it, I'm going to go back to the store and get it later, but right now I want that frappuccino. All right, maybe you do. If I still want it, I'm going to go back to the store and get it later, but right now I'm going to pass and see how I feel in a little while. It always passes. Delay gratification. Your future self will thank you. Now.
Speaker 1:One last thing on discipline. Discipline isn't always doing what we should do. Discipline is also not doing what we shouldn't do. That takes discipline too.
Speaker 1:I believe there's essentially two types of people out there when it comes to this. There's type A's that drive, drive, drive and push, push, push, push this. There's type A's that drive, drive, drive and push, push, push, push. And there are people that are not like that. They're much more passive. Well, type A's and I know this from coaching a lot of type A's will always have to be reeled in. You're always going to have to be like, like, don't do that, because that's going to impede your recovery. So discipline is also saying that we need to rest today. We don't need to go on that hard run. You need to be disciplined and take one day off during the week where you don't have any structured training. The type A personality is not going to want to do that. For some reason, they're driven, driven, driven to a fault Again. They need to be reeled in. So discipline is saying I'm taking that rest day Now.
Speaker 1:Too often in society, people get pats on the back for going past that. You know. There's a couple different social media icons out there whom I don't overly respect and everybody's always talking about how tough they are and they talk about how they push through that and they push through this and you know, sometimes that's good but oftentimes it's not and oftentimes it's not real and oftentimes they're actually being really weak because the disciplined athlete is going to do the hard things for them and oftentimes for a disciplined athlete, the hard thing is taking the day off. Athlete, the hard thing is taking the day off. They want to go train to either release energy or to obsessively do something they think they should do and in reality the best thing for them is to take that day off.
Speaker 1:I heard a quote from a famous mountain bike professional and she said the question I ask myself is do I want to be fast now or do I want to be fast later? And if you're a professional racer or if you're training for a marathon or a bike race or a triathlon, you want to be fast later, you want to be fast on race day. I mean, there's all these weekend warriors out there that race people during training. Those aren't very disciplined people. It's the disciplined athletes that say I'm not going to get caught up in all this. I'm supposed to do an easy training run today or an easy training ride or a power walk or an active rest day. It takes discipline to exercise those muscles too.
Speaker 1:So I want to make it very, very clear that discipline is doing the hard thing. Whatever that is for you that's going to make you better in the future. Okay, let me repeat that Discipline is doing the hard thing that is going to make it better for you in the future. Oftentimes that's going out and getting your exercise in. Sometimes that's taking the day off. What is hard for you to do and what is best for you to do, that is what discipline is and, as I said, it is falling into positive time travel.
Speaker 1:So hopefully my server Buzzsprout doesn't mess with my voice today, because I think that this is a very important message for everybody. Delay the gratification for what seems pleasurable now but you know in your heart and mind, isn't going to be good for you in the future. You know, those few beers out on a Friday night, you know, might feel better now to relax, but it may not be better for you when you got to get up early to exercise the next day. Or you have to be present and you have to be focused. I mean, I don't know. I don't know what behaviors it is for you. I know what it is for me and I have to say you know what. This isn't going to help me in the future. It's not going to be great right now, so I think I would rather be able to look back and say you know what? I'm really glad I did those behaviors for the last six months.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to today's show. I ask you to please follow this show on wherever you get your podcasts and also please hit automatic downloads. It really helps me and it helps the show. Now I want to thank overhead door of daytona beach, the premier garage door company in volusia county, with the best product with the best service. I can vouch for jeff and zach haw, the owners. They are great people. If you need any help with your garage doors, give them a shout. 386-222-3165.
