The Z-Factor: The Missing Link Between You and the Body of Your Dreams
Page 6
Pleasure from following Z-Fanatical Fitness:
*I feel accomplished after I exercise.
*I feel like I’m ready to take on the world after I exercise.
*I feel light and energetic when I eat well.
* When I control my nutrition I feel in control of myself and my life.
*I love knowing I work out harder than most people.
*I live for that second wind & runners high.
*I know if I stick to it, I will achieve my goals.
*I feel better when my clothes fit.
*It will feel great to finally achieve my goals.
*If I work out and eat well I will look great.
*I feel good when I overcome the temptation to overeat or slack off.
*I know if I follow the Z-Fanatical Fitness I will get results, and that will feel amazing.
Pain from not following Z-Fanatical Fitness:
*I feel like a lard when I don’t exercise.
*I feel worse when my clothes don’t fit.
*I feel bloated and tired when I overeat.
*It isn’t worth trading 20 seconds of tasting junk food for the 1 hour I will feel lousy after.
*After the taste of junk food is gone, the calories stay inside me.
*I feel guilty when I don’t exercise & eat junk food.
*I will look worse if I eat poorly.
*I will look worse if I don’t exercise.
*I lose some control of my life if I do not control my exercising & nutrition.
*I feel mentally weak when I give into temptation of poor eating and slacking off.
*I will look bad in a bathing suit if I eat junk.
*I will look bad in a bathing suit if I don’t exercise.
A physiological cue or gesture can be used to remind you of the strong feelings your thoughts produce. This is your motivation cue. After reading your pleasure list, come up with a personal cue word and accompanied behavior. It could be touching your Z-Fanatical wristband, slapping your hands together, striking your legs etc. The idea is to pair together useful motives (pleasure to following the plan, and pain to not following the plan) to your cue. Whenever you feel yourself falter in your commitment to your Z-Fanatical action plan, you perform your cue to remind you of the positive emotions that go along with taking productive action, and negative emotions with not following your action plan.
The more times you read your pain/pleasure list, get the appropriate feelings, and perform your motivation cue, the stronger this mental link will become, and the more likely you will be to engage in productive behavior. Repetition of your motivational cue will breed success. You must train your brain. Perform your cue when you begin to question if you should exercise today, or before you eat the jelly donut, feel like skipping cardio today, etc.
My Motivational Cue is:___________________________________________
Rationale & Research:
“At the most basic level, the critical task [of human functioning] is the preservation of life-survival…the existence imperative involves the avoidance of negative…and the pursuit of positive.”
Rasmussen, P. R. (2005). Personality-Guided Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy. American Psychological Association. Washington, DC.
Pleasure I receive from performing Z-Fanatical Fitness:
Pain I will receive from NOT performing Z-Fanatical Fitness:
Mindset Mastery Activity #5: Personal Motivation
Everybody has buttons. We all have certain things that make us happy, sad, angry, motivated, etc. From our unique personalities and life experiences, we have built in buttons. To use personal motivation to the max, you must (1) know your motivation buttons (2) know when you will need to press your motivation button (3) press your motivation button when you need it.
Think of a time you felt motivated. What was it specifically that sparked this emotion? Competition? Success? Failure? A movie? A song? A quote? A thought? A phrase? A person? A goal? A number on the scale? A bathing suit?
Were you ever consistent with exercise? What was it that fueled you mentally before the workout? During the workout? What kept you consistent? Even if you were only consistent for a short period of time. What specific thought got you to take action?
Decide how you will quickly press your motivation button. A movie may be too long to watch, but a song or quote from the movie may be a good substitute. Maybe you could watch the movie once a week. Does a person you know inspire you? Make time to meet with that person more regularly. Would a poster or picture on your mirror, refrigerator, desk, or computer press your button? Would an inspiring playlist, CD, ringtone, or alarm get you going? Be creative in this process. It is not about how this looks to other people. All that matters is that you are able to evoke a strong motivation emotion within yourself, period. Your goals are much more important than how you appear to other people. Post your favorite quote somewhere. Carry an index card with you at all times with your motivation quote, whatever works for you. Does competition fuel you? Set a goal. Create a challenge. Challenge someone else.
It may be necessary to reflect on this for a few minutes. You will find an answer to this if you search hard enough.
This week’s exercise includes writing a list including all of your motivation buttons.
Once you have your motivation buttons, you will want to write out exactly when you will need to use them and a quick way you can press your button. It is important you win the battle before it is fought. You do this through preparation.
Every day for this next week, take 10 minutes to think about pressing your motivation button when you need it most. Imagine yourself getting lazy. Picture other people trying to talk you out of your routine. Then think how you will press your motivation button and overcome the temptation to slack off. It is important you do this several times outside of a real life scenario so you will know exactly how to handle things when they really occur. Pair your Motivation Buttons with last week’s Motivation Cue for added mental strength.
Finally, do not hesitate to start pressing your motivational buttons as soon as you determine them, this is what they are for. Use your built in emotions to your advantages.
My Motivational Buttons Are: (List Below)
Mindset Mastery Activity #6: Unstoppable Confidence
It is crucial that you believe you can attain your goals. You must believe that you are worthy of the success that you want.
You already know how important confidence is to your success. You want to learn how to actually raise your confidence.
There are 4 general ways to increase confidence¹:
1. Your actual performance/past performances
2. Vicarious experience
3. Verbal persuasion (pep talks)
4. Physiological cues
This week’s mindset mastery activity will recommend you make several lists as you read.
1.Your actual performance
o Success list
Have you ever achieved success in the past? Even a little success? Have you ever exercised?
No matter how big or small your past successes, you must see yourself as a person who can and has succeeded. Make a list of all your success with exercise and nutrition. Use anything you can think of. Do not sell yourself short in the least. It is important to add to this list frequently. If you start having some success, even if this means just exercising one day or eating well one meal, then write it down as part of your success list. You want to stockpile successes.
o List of Personal Strengths
Make a list of your personal strengths. Organization? Energy? Discipline? Persistence? Faith? What qualities in your personality make you capable of succeeding in your fitness goals? All too often we focus only on our traits that make us more likely to fail. We want to reverse this.
o Take on small/attainable goals
Break your goals down into smaller, more attainable results. Instead of trying to lose 100lbs, just try to lose 5, then another 5, then another 5 etc. Make things manageable.
Note- for some people, this will hurt their motivation, so it is important to know if big or small goals make you more likely to try.
2. Vicarious experience
o Read or watch biographies or talk to people that have accomplished the same things that you are looking to. Look for people you can relate to. You may want to find someone similar to you. The idea is to see yourself in them and that you are capable of the same things they accomplished. Find as many people as you can. You want to prove to yourself that your goal is very attainable.
o Visualization. This involves isolating yourself physically or mentally from other people and imagining yourself, your actions, and your success. See it, hear it, smell it, taste it, and feel it. Involve all your sense for the best result. The more senses you involve, the more real the imagery will seem. The idea is to feel yourself executing and succeeding before it happens.
Spend 10 minutes each day this week visualizing execution and success (5 minutes on each).
(1) Visualize executing your action plan. Picture yourself fighting through temptations and laziness. See yourself winning those little battles you face every day ie. avoiding junk food around friends or during a holiday or when you are going out to eat with friends or exercising when you feel tired or on vacation.
(2) Visualize success. The more you activate your emotions the better. Allow yourself to feel what it is like to be the person who achieved what you want to achieve. How will you look and feel once you achieve your fitness goals?
3.Verbal persuasion/pep talks (Mindset Mastery lesson #5- personal motivation)
o Motivational speakers ie. Coaches
o Motivational songs/playlists
o Motivational movies
o Motivational quotes/books
4.Physiological cues
o What does confidence look like in (a) you (b) others?
Write down what you look like when you are confident. How do you move? How do you act? If you do not know what you look like, find other people who you view as confident. What do they look like? How do they move? How do they speak?
o Act as if²
Acting like you are confident will make you feel more confident. But, you can only act confident after you know what confidence looks like. So write out what confidence looks like, and begin acting confident every day for the next week.
Success List:
List of Personal Strengths:
Other people who have achieved the same goal as me:
What does Confidence Look Like:
Rationale and Research:
¹”Increasing confidence” is taken from the theories of the psychologist Alfred Bandura.
Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological Review, 84(2), 191-215.
²”Acting as if” is taken from the studies of Zajonc who found that our reaction to being happy is smiling and by forcing yourself to smile, you cause physical and chemical changes in your body that make you happy. So we smile because we are happy, and we are happy because we smile. We use confidence here in the same way.
Zajonc, R. B., Murphy, S. T., & Inglehart, M. (1998). “Feeling and facial efference: implications of the vascular theory of emotion. Psychological Review 96, 395-416.
9 Fanatical 4-Life
A major downfall of many fitness programs is a failure to explain “what happens next,” after your 60 or 90 days are through. Few people finish what they start, so I am not surprised that this section does not apply to most people. Nonetheless, a program is incomplete and unfair if it does not take into account the good apples in the barrel that got it done. Z-Fanatical will likely have many more people finish its program than others before it because the total time (6-weeks or 42 days) is markedly shorter than other programs. Keep in mind the stages of change discussed in the beginning of the book. Change is not considered to be attained until 6 months of action. This milestone will occur into your 5th Z-Fanatical cycle. A real change, both physical and mental, will be apparent at this point in time.
A. Continued Exercise Plan
After finishing the 6-week program (or 1 cycle) you will prepare to begin your 2nd cycle. You will look to have a higher total score in the next 6 weeks than the first. Remember, constant improvement is one of the three pillars of fanaticism. You will go through the Z-Calendar and assign numerical values to all your weekly totals as well as specific Workouts and Cardio Bouts. First, your weekly totals are based on compliance to the workouts, cardio, nutrition, and mindset plans.
Weekly total points are as follows:
Fanatical = 50 points
Gold = 40 points
Silver = 30 points
Bronze = 20 points
Amateur = 10 points
Daily workouts and cardio bout points are awarded as follows:
Fanatical = 5 points
Gold = 4 points
Silver = 3 points
Bronze = 2 points
Amateur = 1 point
Add up the total points for the 6-week cycle.
You will notice compliance is rewarded more than the level at which you are performing the workouts and cardio. Nonetheless, intensity and consistency are both pillars of Z-Fanatical Fitness. You will continue through a new 6-week cycle looking to improve upon the last cycle you completed, and then repeat this process. If your consistency remains the same, your intensity level will rise and produce you a higher score. Note- The highest score attainable is 1,680 points if you are Fanatical on all your weekly totals and perform every workout and cardio bout on Fanatical.
B. Continued Nutrition Plan
Only after the 6-week cycle is completed will we begin to consider quantity of food. Since quality has been practiced, quantity will now be factored in. Exceptions will be fewer and stringent rules will be followed. In the form of 10 commandments added to the already present 2 taboos:
1. 2 quarts of water a day. Straight water.
2. Do not eat any later than 2 hours before you go to sleep unless it is protein.
3. 1 gram of protein per kg body weight daily. (Your weight ÷ 2.2 = daily grams of protein)
4. Less than 30% of your calories should come from fat (80% of that should be unsaturated).
5. If sugar is not at least the 4th ingredient on a food label, it is off limits.
6. 6 ounces of water for every 10 minutes of strenuous activity.
7. Do not eat anything with 8 or more grams of sugar.
8. Less than 2,300 mg of sodium per day.
9. At least 20 grams of fiber per day.
10. Less than 50% of your daily calories should come from carbohydrates. Remember, whole wheat.
C. Continued Mindset Plan
Mindset Mastery Checklist to be performed in its entirety over the course of each cycle following your first (or whenever you find yourself slipping):
Goal Setting
What are my long-term and short-term goals? Have they changed? Why or why not?
Have I been consistently following my Z-Fanatical Fitness action plan? To what extent? Why or why not?
Have I made my goal public? Why or why not? How can I make my goals more public?
Z-Contract
Have I been taking my Z-Contract seriously? To what extent?
Do I need to renew my contract?
Have I been wearing my Z-Fanatical wristband?
What other reminders or cues could I use to remind me to comply with the Z-Fanatical action plan.
Z-Buddy
Who is my Z-Buddy/Buddies?
How often have I communicated with my Z-Buddy? How productive (on point) have our conversations been? Can I be more open and honest with them?
Do I need to think about getting a new Z-Buddy/Buddies? Who would be a good candidate and why?
How can I network with more Z-Fanatical participants (Team Z)?
Lifestyle
Have I made an additional calendar to plan the times of my workouts to fit with my schedule?
Do I modify my calend
ar when my schedule changes?
Pain/Pleasure
What are my present links to exercise, nutrition, and mindset plans?
How have these links benefitted or cost me?
Do I need to make a new, more productive pain/pleasure list?
Personal Motivation
Have I been using my personal motivation? Which ones?
Could I incorporate more or different personal motivation to be more productive?
Unstoppable Confidence
Do I truly believe I can succeed in my fitness goals? If not re-do Mindset Mastery Activity #6.
Use these questions as more than just a checklist, but as a conscience examination. Really do some soul searching here and be brutally honest with yourself, otherwise you are only cheating yourself and standing in your own way. Do not just scratch the surface. Dig a little bit deeper. Keep asking yourself why and how to grasp the specifics on your mindset. Be on the lookout for hidden motivates and secondary payoffs for actions. For example, you are receiving a secondary payoff for making excuses for yourself because other people feel sorry for you and try to cheer you up. Is this really a productive link? Many if not most of us think this from time to time? What would be a more effective link to pain and pleasure for your success?
D. Application of philosophy to life
We must revisit the meaning and philosophy of Z-Fanatical. The Z represents a holistic lifestyle approach to fitness- exercise, nutrition, and mindset. In other words, you are leaving no stone unturned and nothing left to chance in the pursuit of your goals. This approach to fitness should serve as a model to all other areas in your life. Z-Fanatical respects the Mindset part of the success equation to goals and overcoming obstacles. Most people rarely consider the importance of the mental game and thus do not tap into their potential.
Also, constant improvement should be applied to every aspect of your life. You don’t let a day go by without improving yourself mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually, socially, financially, intellectually, etc. etc. Life provides us with enough dimensions and enough levels for our evolution process to last more than a few lifetimes. Since the biggest room in the world is the room for improvement, get started applying fanaticism to every aspect of your life.
10. The 6 Week Z Calendar
Level is determined by how many days a week you are on each plan.
For Workouts and Mindset, you are either completing them or not. So you write Fanatical if you did them and Not if you did not.