Barbell Shrugged - Number 1 Reason Why Morning Workouts Are The Key To Fat Loss - Diesel Dad Episode 17

Episode Date: June 1, 2021

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Welcome to episode 17 of The Diesel Dad. My name is Anders Varner and today I'm going to give you five good reasons why you should be waking your ass up and getting out of bed and starting to train early in the morning. And I'm going to give you one great reason that is actually going to make all the difference in the world and you achieving your fat loss goals. Now the reason I give you five good reasons is because there's a ton of variables that go into achieving the outcomes that you're looking for. And good variables such as epoch or mental health or behavioral health in your mood or getting better sleep or the idea that if you start your day early and build momentum with good healthy habits, a lot of this stuff is going to work itself out. And a lot of that is true and it's tested in labs and you can test individual variables and see what those outcomes are and see that there is a measurable improvement by implementing some of these pieces into your morning routine. And they're going to lead you to a place that gets

you where you're going a little bit faster. The reason that there's a difference between good and great though is because great is a systemic change to your life and the people around you and the community that supports you. You see the first five good reasons I want to start with number one. And we like to call this in the fitness industry EPOC. It's excess post exercise oxygen consumption. Now for most of you who cares about any of these letters put into a word? It sounds like epoch and makes you sound smart when you say it, but nobody actually really cares what the hell that is. What it really means is that if you work out early in the day,

the amount of calories you're going to burn throughout the day because you started your day with high intensity exercise or with weight training, you are going to burn more calories throughout the day because your body is revved up. It has longer to burn those calories. You're starting at a higher level throughout the day. You're going to burn more calories. Now, the total amount of calories you're gonna burn, somewhere around like 150 extra calories

if you wake up at 5 a.m. and train and have the entire day to burn calories or if you waited till 5 p.m. and train and have the entire day to burn calories or if you waited till 5 p.m. and then went to bed three hours later. Trust me, 150 calories is not worth getting out of bed at 5 a.m. and killing yourself in the gym. It's just not worth, which is why I really want you to understand that yes, these variables make a difference in the long-term outcomes. However, many times they're so small, they're not the thing that you need to be focusing on. The next thing that I want you to focus on is mental health. Mental health is super, super important.

If you've listened and been a listener of Barbell Shrug for a very long time, you know that we interviewed Dr. John Rady, who is one of the leading psychiatrists, neuropsychiatrists out of Harvard Medical School. And he studies the relationship between exercise and brain health and how there's a protein called BDNF that connects your prefrontal cortex to your reptilian brain. And that is how those two brains actually communicate with each other. Now, in that interview, we discussed how morning movement sets you up for activating the brain. There's a theory out there, and he is one of the leading proponents of it, that our brain is designed for movement. And unless we are moving, exercising,

pushing ourselves physically, our brain does not have the capacity to fully kick in. So if we can do that early in the morning, it's going to make us smarter. We're going to have better thoughts. We're going to feel better. Therefore, overall improvement of mental health. The next piece is about momentum. Number three is about momentum.

If you start your day healthy, you have a much better chance of carrying that momentum through the day, making better food choices early, better nutrition, better physical activity, and that is going to carry on throughout the day, making better food choices early, better nutrition, better physical activity, and that is going to carry on throughout the day. Basically, start your day healthy. It's easier to end your day healthy

because momentum matters. And number four is you're going to get better sleep. We all know that feeling when all the endorphins are kicking and all the good energy and juju is flowing in our body. If you're carrying that into bed, you're still all jazzed up from your workout. If you work out at 7, 8 p.m., you don't wanna be carrying all that good energy and juju is flowing in our body. If you're carrying that into bed, you're still all jazzed up from your workout. If you work out at 7, 8 p.m.,

you don't want to be carrying all that good stuff into bed with you. You're going to be way too jazzed up. It's going to be sitting there. You're going to be sitting there laying in bed and you're just going to have way too many thoughts running through your mind. Too much energy.

You can't fall asleep. Now, if we wake up a little bit earlier, implement a morning workout routine. Now, all of a sudden, it becomes much easier to get tired throughout the day, go to bed early, get a better night's sleep, have a deeper sleep, and wake up early the next day fully refreshed and ready to train again. And the last piece because of all those endorphins, number five is your mood. You are going to have a better mood because you've done something so positive for yourself early in the day. The endorphins are kicking.

Your muscles are firing. Everything feels good. You've got oxygen in your blood and life is going to be good. Your mood matters. It matters for mental health. It matters for physical health. It matters for you to be able to get to sleep, to have an effective day, and to make good decisions carrying that momentum throughout the day.

So the five good reasons that you need to be focused on morning workouts is EPOC, excess post-exercise oxygen consumption. Your ability to burn calories throughout the day will increase by having some sort of morning routine that involves fitness. Get up, get moving, burn slightly more calories throughout the day. In addition, mental health, get your brain firing, force it to solve high level movement

problems, which is one of the core functions of why we develop this beautiful, beautiful brain for movement in addition gain momentum start healthy end healthy if you start your day in a very positive way you have a much better chance of ending your day in a positive way as well better sleep the further away your workout is from your sleep the better you are going to sleep because you are not carrying all that excess energy into your bedroom you don don't need all that. You want to be calm and relaxed going to bed. And then your mood. Number five is your mood because when you wake up and you do something positive for yourself, you're going to feel better and that's going to carry on throughout your day. Now that's five good reasons, but I want to talk to you mainly about the best reason.

This is a great reason. If losing 20 to 40 pounds of body fat is your goal in fitness, there's a very good chance that everything you do in your life right now is slightly unhealthy. And what I mean by that is all the decisions and everything that you are doing in your life currently has led you to a place in which you are carrying around 20 to 40 pounds of extra body fat. It leads you to being unhappy, it leads you to being more unhealthy, it leads you to looking for a better way

to go about your life and making change. Unfortunately, the environment that you live in most likely is not willing to change. You are the only person inside the entire community, which is your family, your friends, your kids, your job, all of those systems and structures that are super important to survival. You are the only thing in there that is going to change

in a positive direction. So what happens is if you come to your family and say, "'Every night from 5 to 6.30 p.m., I'm going to go to the gym. Well, the opportunity cost of that specific decision is now that your wife is responsible for all of the duties and responsibilities that you used to carry out from 5 to 6.30 p.m. And most likely, it's going to be longer than that

because you're going to come home tired, you're going to need to shower, you've got to commute to the gym, commute back from the gym, you've got to get into the headspace of family before you know it, it's going to be eight o'clock and you've missed out on the entire night of family time and all of those normal responsibilities have now transferred onto someone else because you're not home to do it. Now you have to understand something. One thing that's amazing about having positive communities and environments in our life is that they all want everyone in the community to succeed. We can all agree that good communities are built on everyone getting what they want and all of us supporting each other in that direction.

It comes with a caveat, though, that nobody is going to support the entire community unless their needs are met as well. We all want everyone to succeed but nobody wants everyone else to succeed at the expense of our goals. Now for most people, specifically your wife, inside that community, if you are pushing all of your family responsibilities onto her from five to 7 p.m. at night, that's going to cause friction. You're not being the husband you're supposed to be. You're not being the father you're supposed to be.

You're not contributing to the household systems that have been in place for a very long time, and you're letting everyone else down. You're pushing all of the family responsibilities onto other people and it's going to lead to a ton of friction. Does your wife want you to lose 20, 40 pounds? Of course she does.

Does she want you to do it at the expense of her own life so now that she has double the responsibilities? No, she doesn't. The thing that you need to understand the most is that you are the one that cares about your fitness and nutrition goals more than anyone else. And even the people that are the most committed to seeing you succeed do not want you to screw everything up for them. They don't want all of your responsibilities pushed onto them.

And you know what that means? You're going to be a pain if you start going to the gym and focusing on your own fitness from 5 to 7 p.m. but there is a better way and that way is morning workouts the best way for you to ensure that you get your workout in is to get your ass out of bed early because nobody cares what happens from five to seven a.m. in the morning. If you need to get to the gym, it's your responsibility first,

and it doesn't alleviate all of the other responsibilities of life. It's on you to earn the respect because how many times have you come to your wife and said, "'I'm gonna get in better shape,' and you don't? How many times have you come to your wife and said I'm gonna get in better shape and you don't how many times have you come to your wife and said I'm gonna go on a diet and you do for one week and then it gets hard you quit so they already believe that you are not capable of achieving this specific goal and the right for the most part because you've tried in the past and it's failed.

So what makes this different is that it's hard. It's important that you earn the ability to train whenever you want. And until you transform your own life, you have not earned the ability to go to the gym at any other point in time and expect the community that you have around you to bend over backwards so you can continue to achieve your goals. That is the number one reason that morning workouts are important is because it's the only time in the day that it is so hard for other people to impede on your success that you own that time. You are the only one that is going to be able to set the alarm for 5 a.m., train from 5.30 to 6.30, get a good sweat, work on EPOC, work on your mood,

work on your mental health, work on the momentum that you need to carry throughout the day, to work on getting better sleep at night. All of that is your responsibility that does not alleviate you from the daily responsibilities of your life. Everything must go on in the exact same manner. However, you are the one that is going to make the change. You have to become the leader. You have to earn the respect of your community, of your family, so that they know you mean business.

They need to know that you are not just in this for a week, two weeks, where you're going to be a huge pain in the ass and push all your responsibilities to everyone else so you can go get your pump on for two weeks and then quit and still be pushing down this same path to unhealthiness. If you do that over and over and over again, nobody trusts your commitment. You are the one that is responsible for the commitment. You are the one that is responsible for sacrificing in the early stages. If you want to work out from five to seven, you better earn

it. And the only way to earn it is from 5am.m. to 7 a.m. before the world wakes up. This is why morning workouts are so important because it's the only time that you own. It's the only time that I can guarantee you nobody is going to complain that you're down in the garage doing push-ups. I can promise you that nobody cares what you do at 5 a.m. because they are sleeping. When you hit the gym at 5 30, you're going to be tired. It's going to be hard. It's going to be painful, but guess what? You do it anyways because you're a motivated human that chooses to succeed at the things that they do, and people that choose success are willing to deal with the short-term sacrifices for long-term goals.

You have to adopt this mindset that you're willing to do the hard things in order to achieve long-term success. And the very first thing to do is wake your ass up, put one foot on the floor and sprint. This is episode 17. I want you waking up in the morning. I want you working hard.

I want you to be the one that sacrifices. I don't want you pushing all your responsibilities onto other people. It is your responsibility first to draw the line in the sand and say that you are going to change. You are the one that's responsible for the sacrifice and you are responsible for the transformation and earning the respect of your community before you start alleviating responsibilities of the family and pushing them on to other people so that they have to conform to your life. Lead from the front. Be a winner. Set your alarm. Get your ass out of bed and start sprinting right away.

My name is Anders Varner. Get into the show notes. The mentorship is live right now, and you can fill out an application to come work with me for busy dads that want to lose 20 to 40 pounds without crazy diets, crazy supplements, and sitting in the gym for 60 to 90 minutes and wasting your time. We'll see you guys next week.