Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - The Best of Muscle for Life: Effective Time Management, Body Recomposition, and Meditations

Episode Date: August 20, 2020

I’ve recorded hundreds of episodes of Muscle for Life on a huge variety of things related to health, fitness, and lifestyle, ranging from the basics of diet and exercise like energy and macronutrien...t balance and progressive overload and training frequency and volume to fads like the ketogenic and carnivore diet and collagen protein to more unfamiliar territories like body weight set point and fasted cardio. Some episodes resonate with my crowd more than others, but all of them contain at least a few key takeaways that just about anyone can benefit from (that’s what I tell myself at least). And as cool as that is, it poses a problem for you, my dear listener: Ain’t nobody got time for that. Well okay, some people do make the time to listen to most or even all of my podcasts, but my wizbang analytics tell me that while many listeners tune in on a regular basis, they don’t catch every installment of Muscle for Life and thus miss out on insights that could help them get a little better inside and outside the gym. People have also been saying they’d like me to do more shorter, multi-topic episodes, like my Q&As. And so I got an idea: how about a “best of” series of podcasts that contains a few of the most practical and compelling ideas, tips, and moments from my most popular episodes? This way, people who are new to the show can quickly determine if it’s for them or not, and those who enjoy what I’m doing but don’t have the time or inclination to listen to all of my stuff can still benefit from the discussions and find new episodes to listen to. So, in this episode of The Best of Muscle for Life, you’ll be hearing hand-picked morsels from three episodes: 1. Donata White on How to Get the Most Out of Every Day (Originally published May 24, 2017) 2. How to Build Muscle and Lose Fat at the Same Time (Originally published Feb 19, 2015) 3. Book Club Podcast: My Top 5 Takeaways from Meditations by Marcus Aurelius (Originally published Feb 11, 2019) And we’ll be starting with number one, Donata White on How to Get the Most Out of Every Day. 6:46 - Donata White on How to Get the Most Out of Every Day 15:11 - How to Build Muscle and Lose Fat at the Same Time 25:49 - Book Club Podcast: My Top 5 Takeaways from Meditations by Marcus Aurelius Mentioned on The Show: https://legionathletics.com/donata-white-podcast/ (Published 5/24/17) https://legionathletics.com/build-muscle-lose-fat-podcast/ (Published 2/19/15) https://legionathletics.com/meditations-podcast/ (Published 2/11/19) Shop Legion Supplements Here: https://legionathletics.com/shop/ --- Want to get my best advice on how to gain muscle and strength and lose fat faster? Sign up for my free newsletter! Click here: https://www.legionathletics.com/signup/

Transcript
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Starting point is 00:00:00 Hello, and welcome to the latest and greatest episode of Muscle for Life. I'm Mike Matthews, and thank you for joining me today. Now, I have recorded hundreds of episodes of Muscle for Life, and I've talked about a huge variety of things related to health, fitness, lifestyle, mindset, ranging from the basics of diet and exercise like energy and macronutrient balance and progressive overload and training frequency and volume to fads like the ketogenic and carnivore diet and collagen protein to more unfamiliar territories like body weight set point and fasted cardio. And some episodes resonate with my crowd more than
Starting point is 00:00:48 others, but all of them contain at least a few key takeaways that just about anyone can benefit from. At least that's what I tell myself. That's what helps me sit down in the chair every day and do this. And as cool as that is, it poses a problem for you, my dear listener, especially if you are new here. And that is, ain't nobody got time for that. We're talking about probably a thousand plus hours of content at this point. And while some people actually do make the time to listen to most or even all of my podcasts, my whizbang analytics tell me that while many listeners tune in on a regular basis, they don't catch every installment of Muscle for Life and thus they miss out on insights that could help them get even just a little bit better inside and
Starting point is 00:01:38 outside the gym. Because if you just get a little bit better consistently enough, that can add up to big results in the long run. And people have also been telling me that they would like me to do more shorter, multi-topic episodes like my Q&As and Says You episodes. And so I got an idea. How about a best of series of podcasts that contains a few of the most practical and compelling ideas, tips, and moments from my most popular episodes, going all the way back to the beginning. This way, people who are new in particular can quickly determine if this is the droid they're looking for, if this podcast is for them or not. And then those who are regulars and enjoy what I'm doing, but just don't have the time or inclination to listen to all of my stuff. And I do understand that. I don't take it personally. You can also then benefit from
Starting point is 00:02:31 the discussions and the episodes that you are not listening to in full. And you can also find new episodes to listen to without having to give an hour of your time to determine whether it was worth it or not. So here we are with the best of Muscle for Life. And in this episode, you will be hearing hand-picked morsels from three episodes. Donata White on how to get the most out of every day. And to be a bit more specific, this one is about time management in particular. Most of it is about time management. And this was originally published on May 24th, 2017. So if you like the snippets you hear and you want to listen to the full interview, you can go find it.
Starting point is 00:03:14 The second I have for you, the second highlight reel is how to build muscle and lose fat at the same time. Yes, body recomposition, the evergreen topic that I always get asked about. This episode was originally published on February 19th, 2015, back in the day. So again, if you like the snippets, then you can go find the rest of it back in February, 2015. You have to go back in the feed and I'm going to record an updated episode on this topic. Actually, I'm gonna make a note right now because although the fundamentals that you're going to hear in this episode still apply just as much now as they did then, I have
Starting point is 00:03:55 done a bit more, well, there has been a bit more research on the topic and I actually did a summary of the research, a review of the current weight of the evidence for a textbook that is going to be used in a university. And then I updated the article on body recomposition over at legionathletics.com, an article I wrote some time ago. So I think it's time I actually recorded a new podcast on the topic, Mental Note. And then the third round of takeaways comes from a book club podcast, which is cool to see because those are fun for me. And some of them perform well, some of them perform not so well. I keep doing them though. This one was my five takeaways, my top five takeaways from Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. And this was originally published on February 19th, 2019. So if you want to listen
Starting point is 00:04:43 to the whole thing, you can just go back to the beginning of 2019 and you will find it. All right, let's start with number one, Donata White on how to get the most out of every day. Also, if you like what I am doing here on the podcast and elsewhere, definitely check out my sports nutrition company, Legion, which thanks to the support of many people like you is the leading brand of all natural sports supplements in the world. And we're on top because every ingredient and dose in every product is backed by peer-reviewed scientific research. Every formulation is 100% transparent. There are no proprietary blends, for example, and everything is naturally sweetened and flavored. So that means no artificial sweeteners, no artificial food dyes, which may not be as
Starting point is 00:05:32 dangerous as some people would have you believe, but there is good evidence to suggest that having many servings of artificial sweeteners in particular every day for long periods of time may not be the best for your health. So while you don't need pills, powders, and potions to get into great shape, and frankly, most of them are virtually useless, there are natural ingredients that can help you lose fat, build muscle, and get healthy faster, and you will find the best of them in Legion's products. To check out everything we have to offer, including protein powders and protein bars, pre-workout, post-workout supplements,
Starting point is 00:06:10 fat burners, multivitamins, joint support, and more, head over to www.buylegion.com, B-U-Y Legion.com. And just to show how much I appreciate my podcast peeps, use the coupon code MFL at checkout, and you will save 20% on your entire first order. So again, if you appreciate my work, and if you want to see more of it, and if you also want all natural evidence-based supplements that work, please do consider supporting Legion so I can keep doing what I love, like producing more podcasts like this. I like to start my clients with a little bit of an exercise. And this is kind of a light bulb moment for a lot of people.
Starting point is 00:07:08 So I've got a little demonstrative here. For those of you listening and not watching, I'll describe it for you. I've got a piece of paper with the number 168 at the top. I don't know if that's a little washed out, but I've written 168 at the top. And that is the number of hours in a week. So I'm basically just going to do a big subtraction problem here. What you want to do is write down, next is 56, and that is eight times seven for all of you people out there who don't sleep eight hours a night, and that is for
Starting point is 00:07:38 sleep. Then you want to write down, you know, how many hours a week do I spend working? For most people, that's 40. You write down work, you know, how many hours a week do I spend working? For most, include that in there. All of the necessities you want to account for and account for how many hours a week you spend doing each of these things. And then you just subtract all of those numbers from 168. And there's kind of two camps of people at the end of this. One of them, a very rare type, is the people who actually have a negative number at the end, and they've way overcommitted. If you're one of those people, you're only human. There is absolutely no way you can get everything done that you have written down. So you need to figure out how to take some of this stuff off of your plate.
Starting point is 00:08:38 But most people fall into this other category, which is, wow, that's a large number. Where's it all going? other category, which is, wow, that's a large number. Where's it all going? The first time I did this, I was in law school and the number was, I think somewhere between 25 and 35 hours I was left with. And that's after accounting for studying, sleep, gym, cooking, you know, all this stuff that you basically are saying, I will not, I can't drop this out of my life. Right. Exactly. I can't, this is a necessity. These are my non-negotiables. I have to do these things. And, you know, I was, and, you know, let's just say 30 hours to make it easy. I had 30 hours left that I was able to, you know, go out with friends or read a book for
Starting point is 00:09:22 something other than school. You know, just, you could do whatever you want with these 30 hours. And I had to figure out number one, where it was going. And number two, what I wanted to do with it, because that's a lot of time, and you could really make a huge impact with that. So that's what we'll talk about going forward in this in this conversation. But that's, that's kind of of where people should start is figuring out exactly how much time do you really have? If you were to lump it all together, what would be the number of hours per week that you have to do whatever you want with? We can talk a little bit about the time blocking and the transitions if that's what you want to hit next.
Starting point is 00:09:57 Yeah. I mean, so yeah, why don't you just explain what you mean by those things? So in terms of order and then transitions. Okay. So I like to think of these as two separate concepts, but they kind of work together. So if you were to block out your schedule, like you were just mentioning, you would have blocks of time where you were doing things and then you have a line in between them. And the line in between them is the transition time, which is the amount of, you know, however many minutes it takes you to switch from either your morning to your afternoon or your afternoon to your evening. And the blocks themselves are the time blocks. So I like to group tasks generally together by location or by type. So the way you
Starting point is 00:10:38 would do that is for a time block where you're running errands, for example, you would do all of your errands on one side of town, like the west side of town first, and then you would commute, however you commute, to the east side of town and do all of your errands on that side. You wouldn't go back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And that's, I think, the easiest illustration for people to kind of get. So in that instance, you're grouping things by location because you're going to save time in transition going back and forth between the two. And or it could also be like at the computer. So if you're going to have a block of time and you're going to be paying your bills at
Starting point is 00:11:15 the computer and then what else? Okay. Going through maybe personal email, stuff like that. Exactly. Exactly. And that's a little more of an in-between example, which I actually really liked that example. I'm going to use that one. So that's kind of grouping activities by type. So the one I like to use for this is if you're cleaning your house, it's really inefficient to do what a lot of people do, which is like, oh, I'll wipe down the mirrors today and then like maybe I'll get to the shower tomorrow. Maybe I'll vacuum the next day. today and then like maybe I'll get to the shower tomorrow maybe I'll vacuum the next day if you're going to be doing a cleaning activity it's really great to kind of condense all of it into one time block which you know you've got to find the hour or two time block to clean everything
Starting point is 00:11:56 but once you do you'll spend less time cleaning overall throughout the week because you won't have to drag everything out and put it back and then drag everything out again and put it back. So that is grouping tasks by type or whatever resources they require of you. The example you just gave, you're required to sit at your computer and type things and be at your desk. So that's nice to get all of your computer-based activities done at the same time. Cleaning's the same way. You pull out all of your computer-based activities done at the same time. You know, cleaning is the same way. You pull out all of your cleaning supplies and just do everything at once and then you put it all back. You don't have to keep dragging it out. Okay.
Starting point is 00:12:31 So what about technology? Are there any like software services, SASSs that you like to use for this stuff? Because there are a billion apps and a billion SASSs out there and proposed solutions for becoming more productive or managing your time better. I actually mentioned planner. So it sounds like you're old school. Look, and I'm going to sound really old school. I'm only 29. I promise. I'm not like some old lady. I really do believe in the paper and pen planner. I know a lot of people use their phone and that's totally fine. If that works for you, they use it because, you know, it's always with you. It's convenient. It sits in your pocket or
Starting point is 00:13:09 your purse and it's always there. But the way our brains work, you're actually more likely to remember something if you physically write it down. And again, that results in a lot fewer surprises than, you know, you're not waking up in the morning with you know that little dot on your iphone calendar which by the way what does the dot mean it just means there's a thing on this day that's not helpful at all yeah um you know you're not waking up to that dot and being like crap i have you know this huge thing that i should have been preparing that's not just some little dot that's some big funny thing that's a a big dot. So I find that the planner, if I can see my whole week on two pages and actually physically write things down, I'm more likely to remember if someone says, hey, can you come to this thing on Thursday? I'm more likely to remember I wrote something down on Thursday. I may not remember exactly what it is, but I know to check.
Starting point is 00:14:00 And the dots mean nothing on the iPhone. I can't handle the iPhone calendar. So one that I do like, though, is Wunderlist. The reason I like this is it's more for, like, checklists and stuff that I share with my husband, Jeff. We put our grocery list on it, and, you know, you can kind of both walk around the grocery store with the phone and checking things off, and that helps maximize our time there. we do it with like chores which sounds you know we have a chore chart where two adults live we're married it's not really a chore it's not really a chore chart but it's like no the things that you get done like what do you want exactly like the dog the dog needs her like tick
Starting point is 00:14:39 preventative today okay got it yeah you know and and stuff we need to share i love wonderlist for that but we don't really use it for scheduling. It's more for just checklists of like repeated things that you need reminders for. Alrighty, that was Donata White on how to get the most out of every day. That's the title of the episode originally published May 24th, 2017. So if you are interested in hearing more, then go check out the full episode and let's move on to number two, how to build muscle and lose fat at the same time. You've probably heard that you can't build muscle and lose fat at the same time. That's just not possible. That's not exactly true. It definitely is possible. I mean, it's been shown in, you'll find it in quite a few scientific studies and you'll find it in, in quite a few
Starting point is 00:15:25 scientific studies. And you'll find it anecdotally, you'll find people you'll either, I mean, chances are, you probably know somebody that, that clearly built muscle and lost fat at the same time, whether it was just by looking at them or, you know, by actual measurement, like if, if, if they're doing a good job calipering, you'd be able to know that. Or if you're, if you're getting DEXA scan, you'd know that. And I've had quite a few people, uh, uh, DEXA scanning in particular, um, because they, they were, they didn't quite believe that they actually built muscle and lost fat at the same time. So they wanted to be as accurate as possible. Um, and there, yes, they did. And the, the, the key factor here is, um, what your, where your body's currently at in terms of, uh, conditioning. Um, if you are like in, in, in the, the scientific
Starting point is 00:16:17 research where you'll see building muscle and losing fat happening simultaneously is with untrained individuals, meaning people that, um, they don't, they, this is, this is their first introduction to weightlifting. If that's you, if you are new to weightlifting, if this is, if you're within, let's say your first three months of weightlifting, or if you have done some weightlifting already, but if it is a very inefficient type of weightlifting, which is a natural weightlifter, the worst way to train is to focus on isolation exercises, which would be exercises that isolate a certain muscle group versus compound exercises, which are exercises that involve multiple muscle groups. So for instance, you know, if you're going to work out your back and you're going to do isolation type of workout, you might do single arm lat pulldown like these guys or single arm seated type of rows.
Starting point is 00:17:18 And you might then go do some cable work, same type of like pulling on the cables. cable work, same type of like pulling on the cables. And, you know, back workouts, there's going to be a little bit of a compound nature because there are multiple muscle groups. I mean, your biceps are going to be involved no matter what. But compare those types of exercises or even, you know, you could say that even lat pulldowns, two arm or close grip pulldowns are a bit more isolation than compound. And so compare those types of exercises to something like doing a bunch of deadlifts or doing a bunch of barbell rows, or even dumbbell rows are going to be more compound just because of the free range of movement, which requires more muscles to stabilize. And also you have to use a bit of your body to even stabilize your core.
Starting point is 00:18:01 But of course, I mean, the real, in my opinion, the foundation of a good back workout is some sort of deadlift, whether it's a traditional or a sumo or a hex, um, because you're going to get the most whole body development and strength out of that exercise. So if you're a new weightlifter, or if you're a weightlifter that's been doing a bunch of isolation type of work, and then also high rep work, if you don't lift heavy weights and you just kind of go for the pump and go for the burn. And so if you're doing that kind of stuff and then you switch to heavy compound lifting and then do what you need to do with your diet, which we'll talk about in a minute,
Starting point is 00:18:35 then yes, you can build muscle and lose fat simultaneously. I've seen it, you know, hundreds of times by now. There's just no question. So newbies to weightlifting, you can build muscle and lose fat simultaneously guaranteed, uh, newbies to proper weightlifting. You can also build muscle and lose fat. Even if you've been doing, you know, an isolate, if you, even if you've been weightlifting for, I've seen guys that have been doing those, you know, high rep isolation type of workouts for upwards of a year, switch to heavy compound lifting, go into a calorie deficit
Starting point is 00:19:06 and build muscle and lose fat simultaneously. So to lose fat, you have to now do the opposite. You have to feed your body a bit less energy than it's burning. And that's called a calorie deficit. Now, the problem when it comes to building muscle is when you're in a calorie deficit, and this has been proven, I'll link the study down below if you want to check it out, that the body's ability to synthesize proteins is impaired when you're in a calorie deficit, and this has been proven, I'll link the study down below if you want to check it out, that the body's ability to synthesize proteins is impaired when you're in a calorie deficit, and that applies to muscle proteins. So long story short, make it simple, when you're in a calorie deficit, your body is simply not able to repair and synthesize. When you're in the gym pushing weights, you're breaking down muscle proteins. Your body has to replace them with new muscle proteins. It has to repair the damage. If it's not able to do that
Starting point is 00:19:50 as efficiently as normal, what happens is you get to a state where you go work out and you need a certain amount of muscle damage to occur to stimulate muscle growth. Because really what muscle growth is, and I've said this before, but in case you haven't heard me say it before, what muscle growth is, is you have your protein breakdown on one side of a scale, and you have your protein synthesis on another side of the scale. Muscle growth is synthesis in excess of breakdown over time. That's it. So you broke down this muscle protein, your body replaced or built or, you know, synthesized this much.
Starting point is 00:20:27 You've gained that margin there. You know, let's say it's like in a week when you're new, you know, especially in the beginning, you can gain upwards of a pound of muscle a week. It slows down. But that's, that's what muscle growth is. So what happens is when you're in a calorie deficit, the muscle damage is still occurring. And I'm not sure if I've seen research that indicates that there's excess muscle damage in a calorie deficit. Not that I can think of, but for sure, protein synthesis rates are now lower.
Starting point is 00:20:58 So basically you're kind of just fighting to keep them balanced when you're in a calorie deficit. What you don't want is protein synthesis rates to go really low because that's muscle loss. If protein, if your body is breaking down this many protein molecule or muscle protein, you know, cells, and you're only replacing this much, that margin is muscle loss. And that's what you want to be preventing. And you can cause this imbalance by, you know, a lot of mistakes. You could eat too little protein when you're in a calorie deficit. You could be in too large of a calorie deficit, starving yourself. You could be doing too much exercise, especially too much cardio. very, very stressed. If your cortisol levels are very, very high, cortisol is a catabolic hormone, breaks tissues down. So there are big mistakes that you can make that cause that imbalance. But when you have everything dialed in, you can keep a balance. You should be able to,
Starting point is 00:22:01 no matter how trained you are, I mean, if you're like me, if you have a decade of training experience and you're pretty much at the peak of your genetic potential or as far as you want to go. In my case, I'm pretty much as far as I want to go. I don't really want, I don't want to be much bigger than I am right now. I would like to be stronger, but then that's kind of a catch 22 because really to get stronger, if I want to add a hundred pounds to my deadlift, I have to get, there's no way I'm not going to get a little bit bigger. It's going to require a bit more muscle. I'm not going to be getting out of the muscle tissue that I have. I'm not going to be gaining 100 pounds on a lift just in neurological function alone. That's not going to happen.
Starting point is 00:22:35 But you should, if you're in my situation or if you have even five years of, you know, solid lifting under your belt, you're going to be a, you're an advanced lifter at that point. You want it to just balance. And that's, that's what you're looking for when you're in a calorie deficit. You don't want to lose muscle, but you can't, you can't really expect to gain muscle either. So let's say you're in a situation, you're new or you're new to proper weightlifting. You have some fat to lose and so you can lose it and build muscle. How do you actually do that? And it's very simple. You just put yourself in a calorie deficit, a high protein diet. I recommend relatively high carbohydrate intake.
Starting point is 00:23:12 And I'll link an article down below on why I don't recommend low carb dieting and moderate to low, lower fat intake enough to sustain health, but no more because it's unnecessary. You don't need excess amounts of fat. The hormonal differences are so minor. That's just not going to matter. And you're going to get a lot more out of those carbs in your training, unless your body really doesn't do well with carbs that I do run into that rarely where people, um, guys will find they'll usually find, figure it out. It's usually, well, I'd say it's guys and girls. They'll usually figure it out. I just run into it more with guys because guys run into it when they're bulking
Starting point is 00:23:47 and girls don't seem to bulk as much as guys do. But that's usually when people will find out is when they're bulking. They'll hit a certain level of carbohydrate intake where their body just doesn't feel good beyond that. Like I've seen guys, they kind of settle into about a 300 gram a day, which isn't, depending on your body weight is okay when you're bulking, but ideally you could go higher. Um, but I have run into guys that once they hit that 300 grams a day, or in some cases it's 400, some cases I've seen as low as two, two 50, they don't feel good
Starting point is 00:24:15 anymore. And this is not like highly processed junk food either. This is a, you know, potatoes and sweet potatoes and grains, whole grains and stuff. This is good food. There's just a point where their body doesn't want any more carbs, and they just don't feel good with more carbs, so we cut it off there. But I recommend that you – and again, you'll see in the article, the meal planning article I linked down below. This lays out how to work your numbers out. So if you want to know how much protein exactly, how much carbohydrate, how much fat, just go there and check it out. Um, but I recommend that you
Starting point is 00:24:48 start with a high protein, moderate to high carbohydrate, moderate to low fat breakdown and see how your body responds to it. Um, and yeah, so if you want to lose fat and build muscle simultaneously, put yourself in a calorie deficit, lay your macronutrients out correctly, be consistent with it, and then train hard. All right, well, that's it for the highlights from how to build muscle and lose fat at the same time. Again, that was published February 19th, 2015. So you can go listen to the full episode if you liked what you just heard. And now let's get to the third and final part of this best of episode. And that is the book club podcast. My top five takeaways from meditations by Marcus Aurelius.
Starting point is 00:25:33 If you like what I'm doing here on the podcast and elsewhere, definitely check out my sports nutrition company Legion, which thanks to the support of many people like you is the leading brand of all natural sports supplements in the world. Okay. So let's get to the featured book, which is meditations by Marcus Aurelius. And I know, I know this is pretty basic of me as Stoicism is all the rage these days, but I am going to make this recommendation anyway, because I really do believe everyone can benefit from this book and Stoic philosophy. I also feel that is especially true in today's world, feel that is especially true in today's world, in today's zeitgeist, which is moving further and further away from things like individualism, resilience, and responsibility, and toward fear, fragility, and egoism. In fact, many young people in particular are upping the stakes even further by downright scorning many traditionally admired attitudes and behaviors and blindly celebrating their opposites. experiment because we know the world that tradition can give us. We are living in it.
Starting point is 00:27:07 And while it is not perfect by any means and will never be, no matter what we do, an important point, the world now is far better in so many ways than it ever has been before. and especially when you look to human welfare generally. And so as we, at least in the West, continue our modern revolt against our ancestors, against our heritage, we really don't know what comes next. Are we throwing the baby out with the bathwater? We will find out. And again, I don't think it's going to go well. We are already seeing the consequences. They are already unfolding in a number of ways. And I do think that things are going to get a lot worse before they start getting better. But hey, hopefully I'm wrong. Truly, I actually hope I'm wrong.
Starting point is 00:28:10 In case you are not familiar with Marcus Aurelius, he was a Roman emperor who earned the reputation of a philosopher king during his lifetime and has since been recognized as one of history's greatest rulers in both character and deed. And this book, Meditations, was originally titled To Myself because it was Aurelius's journal, really. He wrote it for himself and it contains his reflections on many different things, including virtue, desire, rationality, emotions, the nature of the gods, and more. And while many of Aurelius' insights resonated with me, the messages that hit home the most were his views on how to dispassionately and effectively deal with the many difficulties of life, which are unavoidable, his thoughts on the importance of avoiding hate and the
Starting point is 00:29:15 intention to harm, and on the value of living honestly and purposefully. So if I could summarize this book in one line, it would be something like this. A bit of humble self-reflection is always good for the soul, and meditations will take you on a brief but meaningful and maybe even cathartic introspection. All right, with that, let's get to the takeaways. Here's the first. Choose not to be harmed and you won't feel harmed. Don't feel harmed and you haven't been. And my note here is don't think you can't do this. No matter how challenging a situation might be, you can respond to it in one of two ways. You can view it as a challenge or as a threat. And that choice can make all the difference in how it affects you.
Starting point is 00:30:12 To quote Brad Stolberg and Steve Magnus from their fantastic 2017 book, Peak Performance, quote, some individuals learn to assess stressors as challenges rather than threats. This outlook, which researchers call a challenge response, is characterized by viewing stress as something productive and, much like we've written, as a stimulus for growth. In the midst of stress, those who demonstrate a challenge response proactively focus on what they can control. With this outlook, negative emotions like fear and anxiety decrease. This response better enables these individuals to manage and even thrive under stress. Now, one way to do this is to choose to view feelings of anxiety, stress, and fear that accompany uncomfortable situations
Starting point is 00:31:08 as natural responses that can be redirected toward positive outcomes. In fact, you can even view the process of pushing through and reflecting on pain as an opportunity to figure out the lesson or lessons that can be learned. In other words, you can view it as a game of sorts. And the better you get at this game, the more you will come to enjoy your struggles and the rewards they provide. And that's it for the highlights from my top five takeaways from Meditations by Marcus Relius. If you want to hear the rest, go find the full episode. It was published on February 11th, 2019. And make sure to keep an eye on that podcast feed because here's what I have in store for you next. I have an interview I did with Pat Flynn on inequality, egalitarianism,
Starting point is 00:32:05 and human flourishing. I have a monologue of me explaining how to find the best workout split for you, as well as a success story episode with a guy named Brian Miller, very cool story, as well as the next installment of my Q&A series of episodes. All right, well, that's it for this episode. I hope you enjoyed it and found it interesting and helpful. And if you did and you don't mind doing me a favor, please do leave a quick review on iTunes or wherever you're listening to me from in whichever app you're listening to me in, because that not only convinces people that they should check out the show, it also increases search visibility and thus it helps more people find their way to me and learn how to get fitter, leaner, stronger, healthier, and happier as well. And of course,
Starting point is 00:32:58 if you want to be notified when the next episode goes live, then simply subscribe to the podcast and you won't miss out on any new stuff. And if you didn't like something about the show, please do shoot me an email at mike at muscleforlife.com, just muscle, F-O-R, life.com, and share your thoughts on how I can do this better. I read everything myself and I'm always looking for constructive feedback, even if it is criticism. I'm open to it. And of course, you can email me if you have positive feedback as well, or if you have questions really relating to anything that you think I could help you with, definitely send me an email.
Starting point is 00:33:38 That is the best way to get ahold of me, mikeatmuscleforlife.com. And that's it. Thanks again for listening to this episode. And I hope to hear from you soon.

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