Are You A Secret Snacker?

This question can be answered with a simple:

“No. I hadn’t thought of it but now that you mention it….”

Or 

“Yes, I know this happens to me a lot.”

Ironically if you’re aware then you’re a not so secret snacker.

You’re just a regular snacker.

Hello There,

Reaching your hand towards a quick bite to eat is very common for those with high stress lives.

What’s a high stress life?

This can come in many forms but to describe how it feels will reveal it for all to see. 

Take a moment and think. 

Have you ever gotten to the point where you are at your wits end and simply need a break from it all because one more minute experiencing all the stress you’re under will result in your going postal?

Then moments later and much to your pleasant surprise, you’re now much calmer and somehow have a snack (or perhaps beverage) in your hand.

But if someone asked you where you got it from, you’d not be able to tell them. 

No attention was paid to how it got there, just the outcome it gave you – peace/reprieve.

The excess stress that had accumulated up until that point seems to be gone and you feel ready to brave it all again. 

Or in some cases for those more aware this is what happens:

Step 1 – Stress builds, be that from work, kids, travel or domestic dealings.

Step 2 – You reach the “F**K it. I need a XYZ (insert your snack/calorific beverage)
Step 3 – Because of step 2 you now feel calmer and less stressed 

Either way the outcome is the same, you’ve become chilled and ready to go again. 

Firstly, don’t ever feel guilty or ashamed about reducing your stress.

This isn’t something that is deserving of those feelings because all you’re doing is coping in a way YOU KNOW to be effective are reducing stress. 

But it has to be said that these coping mechanisms might not be effective as keeping your waistline from expanding (an outcome that itself leads to stress, ironic, right). 

Here’s my take on how to avoid this common yet not always beneficial coping mechanism.

I used to do this a lot by the way, secret snacking.

It lead to issues managing bodyweight and body composition. 

So here’s what I did to gain control over my stress related coping mechanisms of secret snacking. 

I wrote down what I was feeling in that moment where the stress had gotten to the boiling point and what would make me happy/destress in that moment. 

Then I’d reread what I’d written and ask myself if there was anything else I could do that would also help rid me of this stress and feel better that didn’t involve food/drink (for some this could be cigarettes or vaping, both equally bad for health).

Other answers that I came up with –

• Going for a walk 
• Stretching (some may do a yoga flow)
• Closing my eyes to focus on my breathe for 5-10min
• Writing itself about the situation and reflecting on it 
• Playing a musical instrument, hand focused drums, guitar etc

Taking a moment to address the stress head on and find alternatives to snacking has a lot of benefits.

Don’t worry if you don’t have an endless list of alternative methods to reduce stress at present. 

You’ll find with more time and awareness these will come, but in the short term you’ll get a handle on how you currently deal with stress in the form of snacking.

Remember you’re not alone.

A lot of people tackle stress with food and if you know this is an issue in your life then please do reach out and we can have a more private chat.

Just comment (or reach out directly) and tell me how I can help you. 

I’ll listen as long as you need so that together we can find a better way for you to destress. 

Have a great day, 
Ross

How long do we need to stretch to get the benefits 🤔

Older writings on this say at least 30 seconds for potential developmental benefits going beyond your current length-tension limits.

If you go to the point of your length-tension limits it’s said 6-15 seconds for maintenance of what you’ve currently got.

A good general set of guidelines for most 👍

In addition to these you’ve got methods such as PNF – where you go to your end point and contract the muscle being stretched for 6-10seconds before releasing that contraction and taking yourself deeper. Often repeated 3-4 times.

Another good option is to get to the point of stretch, hang out for 20 seconds then contract the antagonist to deepen the stretch.

👆This is a more active form of stretching that can also build some nice compression strength.

There’s also methods where you combine both, getting to the point of stretch, holding for 10-20 seconds then contracting the agonist (muscle being stretched) for 6-10 before taking the stretch deeper for another 10-20. Followed by contracting the antagonist to go even deeper for 6-10 seconds to the finally release that and stay in an even deeper position for another 10-20 seconds.

That full sequence is usually done once of twice 👀

So if doing it on hamstrings it’d go left leg, right leg, left leg, right leg then you’re done.

One last option is to simply get into a stretch and wait it out ⏳

Effective as this is, most won’t do it because they get bored.

Waiting doesn’t mean just a few minutes because in some cases it can literally be hours and most don’t have time for that.

It’s why those that stretch while chilling out (watching Netflix etc) tend to be better at this method because they’re spotlight attention is focused elsewhere which allows them to relax into the stretch and achieve success.

But there’s one thing to deeply consider – what is muscle stiffness🦿

It’s tension.

What creates tension?

Your nervous system due to over stimulation, and while that can translate to a good resting muscle tone it can lead to a lot of discomfort.

This is where stretching isn’t actually about stretching the muscle to increase its length per-se.

It’s about getting your nervous system to chill out and allow you to actually express and experience the full length of your muscles without excessive tension restricting you🤓

You’ll find this is where breathing comes in very handy when you stretch because the correct breathing style can stimulate your vagus nerve allowing your parasympathetic nervous system to kick in.

And that means you chill out and can actually achieve decent recovery for once ☯

So when it comes to stretching it’s worth seeing it as a task in learning to relax, not simply wrench, pull and force a muscle into a position.

But to answer the initial question – how long do we need to stretch to get the benefits?

In my experience I’d say about 10-20min per day using the classic ‘find where you stop, wait, go deeper, repeat 2-3 times’ across the major problem areas for folk (hamstrings, hips, lats, lower back, chest, calves, forearms) will provide ample benefit.

Use these stretches:

• Sit and reach
• Couch Stretch
• Butchers Block
• Rotational lower back stretch
• Doorstep single heel drop
• Wrist floor flexion/extension
• Doorway Lean (good for pecs, but when done with straight arms it can be good for lats too. Hold a hollow body position)

Give these a go daily and you’ll notice a lot of you aches and pains go away.

Just remember to breathe and allow yourself to relax into the stretch, there’s not need to force it 🖤

A few life lessons from then

When I look back at the time I have spent training there are a few things I have done right, but even more that I’ve done wrong and I’ve learnt that failure teaches us far more than success ever will.

I’m going to share with you 8 Lessons that I’ve learnt that will hopefully serve of some use to you, if you have yet to learn these lessons that is.

1 – Only Care About What Those Closest To You Think.

We all want to impress and astound people with our achievements and be given some gratification or recognition but it’s not from who we might think. They say you should never meet your heroes and it’s very true.

Often times we look up and aspire to several different people and imagine how great it would be to have their approval, but is that really what matters? Or is it the idea of their approval that makes it all the more enticing? Either way, your heroes are rarely if ever who you thoughts they would be. Instead why not look closer to home and find encouragement and praise from those who actually mean something to you, rather than just another idol sat on a pedestal.

It might sound strange but you will find this far more empowering because it’s personal and not anecdotal.

2 – Be Willing To make A Sacrifice.

Comfort is something everyone enjoys. I am no exception to this as I’m sure you’re not and even though you will hear people say they enjoy a new challenge and hate the mundane monotony of daily life, how many of those same people have been saying that for countless years without action or even the slightest hint of intent.

Moving on to ‘bigger & better’ things is never what we think, well… at the start that is but once the dust has settled you can see clearly that it was worth it in the end, but that being the case, what holds people back?

Success often follows hardship and what precedes hardship is sacrifice and no one wants to give up what they’ve already got because they might not get it back. Quite the conundrum isn’t it. To move forwards we must let go of the rope we’re currently holding on to and everything that’s attached to it and this is very hard to do. Once you learn that not all sacrifice is bad you will no longer be held back by fear, thus allowing you to take that much needed step forwards, if you don’t you will look back and utter those oh so famous words “What if…” don’t be that person.

A little sacrifice goes a long way and in the end it’s almost always worth it.

3 – Tough It Out (Consistency).

Probably one that many of you will agree is very important in life, business and basically everything that actually means something, but how many of you are willing to dig deep and keep pressing on when times get hard? Not many would be my guess.

Consistency breeds results, there’s no doubt about it, but it’s when things get hard that 9/10 people will falter and give up. Be that on a diet, training program, business venture or even something as simple as maintaining a pot plant. We get caught up in wanting things too soon, or more accurately put giving up when things get hard, but if you have the consistency and drive to keep going through the struggles you will find the rewards most pleasing.

Sometimes it will get hard, suck it up and keep moving forwards, you’ll thank me in the end.

4 – Keeping A Diary.

Wait… Aren’t diaries for 13 year old school girls with a crush on the PE teacher?

No is the answer to that. A diary doesn’t have to be personal, it can be practical and that will mean it helps you spot winning trends, what works and a whole plethora of other things.

Keep a diary, you will find it much easier to create your own success if you keep a record of what worked and what didn’t, after all, we learn more from out failures than we do our successes.

5 – Learn From Failure.

How do you learn to ride a bike? By falling off, getting back on and trying again but this time you’re better prepared and one step closer to success,

I don’t know a single person alive who doesn’t hate failure. It’s not a nice feeling when you’ve put in hours of time and effort for there to be no reward, but that again is a part of life. If we succeeded all the time there would be no challenge, no reason to try new things, no purpose for anything.

Learning to fail is not what we are taught growing up and personally I think that’s a mistake. Especially in the modern world where in schools there is no longer 1st,2nd or 3rd and everyone gets a ‘medal of participation’… Seriously, what is all that about? This is setting people up for a rude awakening when they get in to the real world and discover that it’s a cruel and harsh place where people would willingly dance over their own grandmothers grave to get a promotion (yep, there are such people in the world).

If you learn to accept that failure is inevitable then you won’t be afraid of it. Failing isn’t as bad as you think, just like with most things it’s the thought of failure that is actually worse than failing. unless you fail at skydiving, that’s probably one thing you don’t ever want to fail at… EVER.

Use lesson number 4 and learn what your failures are, why they happened and how you can stop it happening again (in that particular situation that is), from your failure will be your success because you will be one step closer to your goal.

6 – Accept You’re Not Always Right & You Don’t Know It All.

A lesson in being humble.

You will get things wrong, pretty often in fact but don’t take it personally. instead see it as a chance to grow and become more than you were but smile in the knowledge that you will have lots more lessons t learn and become more than you are.

7 – Don’t Forget To Smile.

This might get you a free coffee, it worked for me the other day :).

Those are a few of the lessons that I’ve learn from my failures. In truth I could write a book but then that would let people know how many times I’ve failed and I do have an ego to protect after all.

Wait…

I said I had 8 lessons for you right?

The last one is the most important

8 – Keep Learning Everyday.

Enjoy each day and always try to learn something new everyday, it doesn’t matter what it is, where or who it’s from just learn something new.

I’ll even get you started.

Did you know that Charlie Chaplin once entered a contest for “Charlie Chaplin look-alikes” and he came in third.

Enjoy,
Ross

Crawling, it’s not just for babies

Being bipedal beings the moment we can stand on our own two feet we’re encouraged to remain this way for the remainder of our lives.

Generally this is good advice.

Standing, walking, jogging, running and generally carrying yourself about on your legs is a good way to live, however there’s a great benefit to taking a lesson of two from the youth that still haven’t mastered the skill of putting one foot in front of the other.

Crawling can improve your upper body strength, overall mobility, base fitness (cardio) and strengthen your body in ways you’d not thought possible.

Think of all the things kids used to do.

They’d crawl like and animal on all fours, shuffle left & right, bend into odd shapes and walk like crabs with some even adding in the correct noise to go with their animalistic actions.

One day we get to an age where this is seen as silly, childish, pointless and we need to grow up.

But that doesn’t come without a sense of irony.

Because what keeps the young youthful (moving around in many ways, especially crawling etc) once removed has us indeed accelerate our ageing but not in a beneficial way because we end up immobile, stiff, weak and struggle to get up without making old people noises.

Those of you at a certain age know exactly what I mean by ‘old people noises’.

I’d say this isn’t how we’re meant to grow as a being, but that’s just what I think.

I’d like you to consider thinking about it for a moment or two and then ask yourself this question…

Do I move well?

If most are honest the answer is a straight up no.

In some cases the answer might be along the lines of – “I could move better.” but generally speaking more people have a body that is 10+ years older physically than it is chronologically, despite the amount they spend on products, clothing, accessories and quick fixes to appear 10+ years younger than they are.

When in reality all they have to do it move more, to move better.

I’d suggest starting off with crawling in all fours (not on knees, keep those off the floor) in all possible directions -forwards, backwards, left, right, diagonal and random patterns.

Adding this in to a daily routine for 15minutes will change how your body feels.

Obviously at the start it’ll feel hard and horrible but as the days go by you’ll soon begin to feel much better, provided you can remain consistent and not give up like most unfortunately will.

Just because we live in a modern world that doesn’t mean we need to suffer modern problems (morbid obesity, daily pain, excessive stiffness and generally being decrepit).

It’s not too late to start moving towards a better you, trust me.

Start today and the future you will be grateful for it.

Enjoy,
Ross

Do you carry as much muscle as you think?

Building muscle is a worthy pursuit in life

Many attempt and while they do indeed achieve some additional lean mass in the form of pure muscle it’s rarely as much as they think.

Realistically the average individual (male) can add about 25kg of muscle tops, based on digging into the info

My own main research on it spanned across older writings of people like Dr Hatfield and other scientific folk such as Dr Casey Butt, right through to more anecdotal notes from lifters (some famous, some not) that said they’d added above 2-3 stones of muscle over their training time.

Dr Butt has a good book called – ‘Your Maximum Muscular Potential’ – it’s a legit read and will really give you an idea of your genetic limits when you’re lean.

While it’s easy to hit your size goals with fat, that’s not nearly as respectable or even desirable as doing it with muscle and being lean.

I can’t remember who noted this specifically (someone for the US) but these tend to be a guideline for how much muscle most gents can add over their lifetime.

Year 1 – up to 20lbs, but more like 10 for most and after this it roughly halves each year genearlly speaking.

So…

Year 2 – 10lbs – 5lbs

Year 3 – 5lbs – 2.5lbs

Year 4 – 2.5bs – 1.25lbs

Year 5 – 1.25lbs or less

If you are on the top end that means in 5 years you’ve potentially added around 40lbs of muscle is we round it up, which is 18kg or so, and that is in addition to what you had going in (if you are untrained).

Although most only add about half of that due to not doing what is necessary – training hard enough, appropriate nutrition, good recovery and a lot of consistency.

But this isn’t a gospel, just something noted by several folks.

This had extra weight added to it’s validity when the ‘fat free mass index’ bits cropped up this added more perspective

But the biggest chunk for me came from the bioelectrical impedance analytics (BIA), Bod-pods, Body Stat machines, Dexa or DXA scans etc.

These are kinda seen as the gold standard for body composition.

Plus they also help highlight to folk that fat free mass isn’t just muscle, it’s bones, organs and everything else.

DXA has around a 2.5-3.5% general inaccuracy rate, which is the lowest around

I think BIA is around 4-6% on general inaccuracy so something legit like a Body Stat, not one of those hand pieces of rubbish of body fat scales you buy from Argos.

At least to the best of my knowledge.

This is what makes me often look at people from that objective standpoint when it comes to their body composition as most aren’t carrying as much muscle as they think they are.

It’s why getting truly lean scares many

Most will get lean and say they lose all their muscle and size, and they’re half right in what they say.

The did lose their size, but that size wasn’t because of muscle it was because of having far more body fat than they thought, and possibly a decent chunk of water retention as well

It’s then we look to body builders that step on stage.

Look at the natural shows, you’ll be able to see the consistent sizes of folk (height, structures, and anatomical notes to be made) because anyone that claims natural and isn’t will be much bigger than the rest and while they could be that 1 in a million…

Chances are they’re on gear, especially if natural they have comparable size to body builders that are open about their PED usage

But as I said, they could be the exception although it’s unlikely.

The last time I personally did my own stats through the methods above my own muscle carried was around 20kg, but I’d imagine that’s less now due to not being capable of training legs properly due to injury (I’ve lost size on them so clearly lost muscle).

At the ‘peak’ of my own lifting journey when all I did was lift I topped out at 21kg of muscle based on the tests/data

I’d be curious to know where Im at now, but to hazard a guess I’d say 19kg or around that (or that could be my Anima’s delusion hoping to be a couple of rungs higher that it really is)

So dear readers, what was the point of this post?

There wasn’t one beyond wanting to share a thought and some surface level knowledge on the topic with the hope of sparking a discussion in the comments.

After asking yesterday about why ‘size was the prize’ it just opened up this thought chain

If I really think about it, this is probably why my bias is and always will be steeped in being on the leaner side of life because then I know exactly what I am physically.

Yes being ‘big’ might be cool for some, but for me if I got bigger but it was just an excessive amount of fat that does little more than provide some extra leverage and insulation for the winter then it’s not worth my time.

But in saying that, this mindset has held me back from gaining more muscle at faster rates (note eating enough)

We’ve all got our crosses to carry in this lifting journey.

Anyway, how much muscle do you think you have in lbs or kg?

Perhaps you know it specifically

Either way, do share your thoughts below.

I’d be grateful if you’d answer this question for me 💛

Seriously, you’d really be doing me a huge favour in giving an honest answer.

In return all I can offer is my knowldge/experince for any specific questions you have for me that would benefit your life.

So here’s my question for you🧠

What is your true fear that’s holding you back from making the progress in life you want for yourself?

If you’re happy to share in a comment, great.

However if you’re willing to share privately then please email me – Rossfitpt10@gmail.com

I won’t share your answer, but I will endeavour to learn from it to help you.

It’d also be good to connect with you on socials 😁

My most active is @thericekrispieninja on IG, and if you wonder why that handle then share your best guess as to why you think it’s that😂

Thanks for reading this BTW, speak soon.

Ross

What stops you succeeding is probably fear

Fear of what?

That will vary person to person, however it could be the idea of succeeding and then losing it all.

Perhaps it’s the element that being at the top is a lonely place and you’ll constantly have people nipping at your heels and others trying to secretly (or not so secretly) sabotage you.

Regardless of the exact nuance that is relevant to you, the base catalyst remains the same for all.

Fear.

In the end though you’d do well to ask yourself this one question – is it worth it?

Is what worth it you may ask…

Allowing the fear to win out so that you can stay in a place you see as safe, comfortable and familiar, is that really worth it to you, because if it is then don’t attempt anything you’re not in 100% control of and become content in living as you are.

And while there’s nothing wrong with this way of life, you’re meant for more.

You know it to be true, you’re just a little scared of what actually making all those changes you’re capable of will mean for you.

How do I know this?

Because I’m human just like you and subject to the same fears, and while their nuance may differ (as mentioned above), it’s just fear for the sake of fear.

Fear of feeling unsafe, exposed, about to have the shit hit the fan in the most spectacular fashion.

But even if that happens, provided it’s nothing criminal like planning to steal central reserve and failing at that by getting caught, there’s a chance that the worst thing that will happen is you feel like a bit of a fool for a moment.

Maybe a few of your haters will revel in it and hold it over you too, and yea that doesn’t feel nice but it does mean you’d no longer have to be scared of that again because after experiencing it you’ll realise it’s not as bad as you thought it would be.

Then next time you’ll be able to go a few steps further.

You’ll probably fail again, but then with that fear out of the way you’ll be able to once again take a few more steps in the direction that is most authentic to who you are.

And that’s got to be better than staying in a place where you’re pretending to be someone you’re not just because of a little thing called fear.

Right?