Musclebound Motivation
The formula is simple: Work out 5 days a week. Count and restrict your calories. Eat 3x the protein you used to (1). Sleep well, stay motivated, stay relaxed (2). Do this for 3 years (3) and you too can get shredded. Bigger Leaner Stronger (BLS) is a summary of weightlifting gospel, with appendices throughout on improving motivation for the necessary lifestyle changes to maintain a low body-fat percentage in modern America.
I don’t doubt the system works. Yet much consistency is needed in order to achieve results. I’ve only ever managed to keep weight-lifting motivation for 8 weeks at a time, and 3 weeks into my current effort, am naively hoping this time will be different. Much of the book is devoted to generic ways to maintain habits over bodybuilding technique, such as:
- Start small
- Stack habits
- Celebrate
It sounds almost trivial, but the best change I’ve made to fitness was stacking a workout to the rest of my morning routine, leading to much improved consistency. Advice for resisting cravings is just as important: “Introduce a mandatory 10 minute wait time before you act on an urge”. BLS recommends using implementation intentions to increase the odds on followthrough for diet + exercise goals, and affirmations to help regulate emotional state. These are useful tips on motivation, even if I might not use them for the next workout.
The nutrition advice felt par for the course, but the books analysis of the science is obviously not the author’s strong suite: * That wasn’t statistically significant, but would be practically significant. *(4) Anytime this book disagreed with How not to Diet, I found myself believing the latter, even if I, like the author, would like to use motivated reasoning to believe that red meat and chicken tenders are perfectly healthy. For me, the biggest diet edit is protein – I was eating 66g a day, and will now attempt at least double. Thanks to Hunger of the Gods I feel like an epic Viking warrior every time I eat skyr in the morning.
The writing is about what you would expect for a fitness book: * I’m only asking you to pick stuff up and put it down until your muscles burn and your body aches. *. Once the author started making a sales pitch for their own supplements, I tuned out. But if you are willing to overlook these flaws, there is a lot of good research and advice on the underlying systems that make the motivation required to take steps beyond pure healthy eating that will lead to better body composition.
(1) * It doesn’t take a lifetime, for most guys it requires no more than 3 years of consistent training. * Note: So in the time I could get a law degree, I can get in shape… doesn’t give me much hope. (2) Ways to deliberately relax:
- Change your perception of stress, 2. Get more sleep, 3. Exercise regularily, 4. Consuming less media , 5. Avoiding Screens before bed , 6. Having more sex , 7. Enjoying aromatherapy, 8. Getting and giving a massage , 9. Listening to classical music , 10. Drinking green tea, 11. Going for a walk, ideally in nature , 12. Taking a hot bath
(3) You have to do this while staying within your calorie budget. You can eat anything you want, but if you want a hamburger you’re going to need to calorie borrow to do it. What is calorie borrowing? * Eat mostly protein leading up to and after your treat meal, known as calorie borrowing. *
(4) This demonstrates the author doesn’t understand or doesn’t want to believe in the concept of statistical significance