It’s been one week since I challenged you to take three steps in the direction of getting back your Summer Swag. Hopefully, you stepped up and are on your way to revealing the amazing body you possess.
This week I want to focus on Step 3 and drive home the idea that improving your nutrition will payoff tremendously in terms of your performance.
To start, the only way you’re going to know you’re on the right path is if you measure the areas that nutrition impact.
From an athletic lifestyle standpoint, nutrition can serve to:
- Promote longevity to be an Athlete For Life
- Build Muscle to add a layer of protection against injury
- Improve and Stabilize Mood to keep up a winning attitude
- Aid Recovery for regeneration and healing damaged cells
- Maintain optimal body composition for your sport and position
- Support Mental Focus for better concentration and decision making
- Fuel performance energy requirements to build strength, power, and stamina
This brings us to your next challenge with these 3 steps:
- Identify what’s important to you and your sport.
I want you take each of the benefits listed above and write down the criteria that matter most to you. You can break it down by your sport/activity, and your lifestyle demands so you have a complete picture. For example, mine are to have high energy to push through my strength workouts and to get better recovery sleep.
You may find that some criteria overlap/crossover to multiple benefits. And that’s understandable because they’re all related in some way.
- Measure your baseline with each criteria.
Here are some examples:
- Fuel Performance – rate your exercise:
- Perceived exertion from 1 to 10 (very easy to maximal)
- Performance level from 1 to 5 (weak to peak strength)
- Mental Focus – rate your performance related:
- Perceived Concentration 1 to 5 (distracted to “in the zone”)
- Decision making 1 to 5 (poor to precise)
- Spirit – rate your general:
- Mood from 1 to 10 (depressed to joyful)
- Consistency from 1 to 5 (unstable to stable)
- Recovery – measure your:
- Heart Rate Variability (HRV) to determine your nervous system response to stress. This is best evaluated after consistent measurement over one month to start.
- Muscle soreness (none, soreness, injured)
- Sleep Quality
- Time to fall asleep
- Energy when you wake up (rested / tired / exhausted / energetic)
- Build Muscle – determine this baseline measurement from your body composition test
- Body Composition – determine this baseline measurement from your body composition test
- Longevity:
- List any injuries that are limiting you from pushing your outer limits
- Functional Blood and Urine testing – to discover any level of deficiency, toxicity, or imbalances in nutrients, hormones, and heavy metals
Establishing comprehensive baselines takes time. One day or one performance serves as a snapshot, but falls short of telling the full story. This is because there are other influential factors involved, such as your sleep, stress, training, and hydration.
So evaluating trends will allow you to see a tendency over weeks and months. This will better reveal an accurate assessment of your nutrition and lifestyle habits.
You’ll see if you’re consistent or not. Inconsistency can be the one deciding factor holding you back from the results you want. Or maybe you’ve been consistent on the wrong program all together.
- Determine Actionable Goals.
Use your baseline data to write down measurable goals and objectives to improve. This should include:
- Process goals that are the reinforcing tactics (daily and weekly) to move you closer to your main goal
- A timeline
- A list of who’s involved
As the saying goes, you can’t get to where you’re going unless you know where you are right now. This challenge will help you to establish a reference point so that you can get to where you want to go. You’ll get there faster, healthier, and in a way that you can sustain your results.
Sound good? Questions? Let me know. I want to help you get this.
Great…now get to it!
To your greatness,
Adam