12 Weeks of Mental Discipline

This article is all about mental discipline, gaining motivation and focus. Being that time of year again when the sun starts shining, and with thoughts of venturing outside into the sun enter my head, I have started working on my diet this month. For those of you that don’t know, I am a bit of a fitness obsessive and this year I am determined to use some of the positive thought and goal setting techniques I have been talking about to really nail my diet this year and slash my body fat into the low single figures. After a long winter of battling away in the gym trying to build up muscle it is that dreaded time when thoughts of cutting down and toning up come to mind. This means dieting down for about twelve weeks and if I’m honest dieting is something I absolutely hate. While this is an article focused more toward bodybuilding, the principals of nutrition, exercise and mental focus can be applied by anyone.

Nothing exemplifies having a strong mental discipline like dieting to lose fat but retain muscle. It is one of the hardest physical challenges you can attempt and very few people have the strength or will to make it out the other side with their sanity intact.

Dieting is something I always struggle with because it requires extreme mental discipline to stick to a program and psychologically it makes me feel small which is something I find hard to deal with. When dieting down things that we normally take for granted like going out for meals, never being hungry, always feeling strong and eating certain foods go out of the window. My biggest problem is that the amount of fat I need to lose is not that great which means it is very easy to give up half way through a diet and say “okay that’s enough now”. This is something I have had to deal with the last few years and I always end up getting frustrated because I can never cut my body fat levels down far enough. I typically get about half way into a diet and upon reaching a satisfactory point I tend to give up thinking that I have done well enough.

I am a firm believe that we should all aim to get better year on year and so I have set myself the challenge of dropping my body fat to it’s lowest level ever but to still maintain my current muscle mass. This year I have decided to use a simple tool to help motivate me through this 12 weeks and that is to take a photo diary of my progress. One photo taken each week should suffice since changes in body composition will be very gradual. This will force me to face up to the reality of where I am at and how far I really need to go with my diet. 12 Weeks might seem a long time for a diet but perhaps the most important factors when dieting are to preserve as much muscle mass as possible and to cut down very slowly. I am guessing that my body fat level is around 11-12% right now and I want to cut it down to about 6-8%. Obviously this is quite a bit jump so I am going to need to work really hard to get there.

Here is the diet and training program I am going to be using to help me reach this figure. This is pretty much what I would eat normally but I have to make sure I skip on any kind of junk food completely this month.The only supplements I really use are a good whey protein powder which I buy in bulk and sometimes creatine. Eating like this is pretty hard if you have never done it before but like I said in one of my earlier articles, once you start a habit like this and practice it for so long, it becomes pretty easy to do. Eating a diet like the one I am using will make you look better, feel better and, if you manage to stick to it, you will almost never get sick.

Nutrition Plan

When looking at this nutrition plan you’re probably thinking…

“Surely you can’t eat such boring food EVERY day!?”

Well actually yes. This is an article about mental discipline after all and getting your diet right is the hardest part of getting in shape. Nutrition accounts for about 70% of your results so eating a healthy high protein diet is essential for getting in top shape. If you can eat a diet like this every day then you will be mentally stronger and in better health than 99% of the world’s population. This is a pretty typical natural bodybuilder diet.

Weightlifting day

Meal 1

Oatmeal, egg whites, blueberries

Meal 2

Cottage Cheese

Meal 3

Protein bar, almonds, broccoli

Meal 4 (Pre workout)

Whey Protein

Meal 5 (Post workout)

Whey Protein + Glucose

Meal 6

Chicken, Salmon or steak, Broccoli, Spinach, Rice

Meal 7

Cottage cheese

Cardio day

Meal 1

Whey Protein, oatmeal, blueberries

Meal 2

Cottage Cheese

Meal 3

Protein Bar, almonds, spinach

Meal 4

Whey Protein

Meal 5

Chicken, Salmon or steak, broccoli, spinach, brown rice

Meal 6

Cottage cheese

My exercise regime is not particularly complex and basically consists of heavy, compound weightlifting exercises and moderate intensity cardio sessions. In the final few weeks I might step it up to two cardio sessions per day if I need to. I ideally want to get all of my cardio out of the way by doing it first thing in the morning. This should give me the rest of the day to work on other projects that need my full attention. One thing I am going to have to be careful of is over training which has already hit me pretty hard in the last few months.

Exercise Plan

This is a basic outline of the exercise program I am going to be sticking to over the next 12 weeks.

Monday: Rest

Tuesday: Chest, triceps, core

Wednesday: Cardio

Thursday: Back, biceps, core

Friday: Cardio

Saturday: Legs, shoulders, core

Sunday: Cardio

This is going to be a hard month for me mentally as I have to juggle work, maintaining and building 20 + websites, dieting, exercising 5 to 6 days a week, learning a new programming language (ruby), writing two e-books, working on music, making various trips etc and so I am going to need all the mental discipline I can get to help me make it though and achieve all that I want to achieve this month.

I hope that this article will motivate you to work on your own health and fitness goals in the next few months and I can inspire you to take action with your own nutrition and exercise regime. I hope I don’t alienate anybody by talking about bodybuilding. I realize that many people reading this might never go near a gym at all or may not have a clue how to get started when it comes to fitness and weightlifting. I have been obsessively bodybuilding for about five years now but anyone can learn from the ideas in this article and the principles of good nutrition can be applied by anyone to improve their health. Whether you are a bodybuilder, fitness fanatic or part time gym goer, there is always room for improvement and it’s never to late to get started building the body you always dreamed of. If I am happy with the results at the end of this process I will share my photos with you and offer some advice on maintaining mental strength during your own diet or fitness program.