What is calibration and how can you use it to improve your health, performance and become leaner? Calibration is a system in which, you realize that in order to improve, you have to pay your dues and face the consequences of being a beginner. That means, you sometimes have to face frustrations, embarrassment and failure. But that is ok. Because that is the only way to get better.
In short, you have to screw up a lot to make it. You are not going to make it and achieve your wildest dreams without failing many times. Keeping that in mind will help you go through the setbacks without quitting. It is quite a powerful thing to have. And now you know it and have it. So look forward to screwing up and failing vigorously.
Start now!
Living healthy active lifestyle requires calibration as any other skill. If you are overweighed, inactive couch potato and you eat garbage food, than you are calibrated to live poor, miserable lifestyle.
If you decide to change it, you’ll have to start calibrating yourself to healthy, active lifestyle. Yes, you can buy few books on fitness and healthy nutrition and get some simple ideas how to start. But eventually, and hopefully immediately, you’ll start living lifestyle like that. No reason to wait for perfection. Just tell yourself that you are starting and start.
That means, you’ll start eating healthy diet and exercising regularly. The change will not come fast, but you’ll start calibrating for this. Nobody ever got fit in 1 month. Getting fit and healthy takes longer than that. Actually, once it starts, it never ends. But by trying and doing stuff, healthy, lean and fit people do, you’ll get closer and closer to this kind of lifestyle. Calibration will begin.
Decide to eat better now
I remember, when the breakthrough came in my diet. I knew, that healthy diet is important, but I would still eat a lot of crap like a whole bar of chocolate everyday, pastries in coffee shops, candy, tons of pasta and fries. I would drink 2 litters of boxed juice and have can of soda several times per day.
Yes, I was eating plenty of fruits and vegetables too, and yes I thought my diet is great. But the truth was, that I had a substantial room for improvement. I wasn’t getting fat from all this foods, because I was very active. I had a physical job – moving furniture all day long everyday. And I would always play tennis in the afternoon, hockey or go surfing during the weekend. But my diet was still terrible. And I was somehow fortunate at that time to realize that.
So, I decided to try to eat better. Firs I stopped to drink anything that was sweet. I activelly refused to order a coke with my lunch, even if I really craved it. I would only drink water and unsweetened teas. I noticed a difference in a way I felt and I tried to stick to it. I started to calibrate myself to a healthy eating. I wish I could say that I haven’t have anything sweet since than to drink. But, that is not truth. I failed many times drinking sweet stuff I liked so much. But I persisted and kept trying.
Than I cut all sweets, candy, deserts and pastries. I started to feel great. Next came pasta, breads, rice, flour. Than I increased my consumption of vegetables and fruits and increased protein intake and added good fats like nuts, olive oil and avocado with every meal.
The change in my performance, general feeling and look was incredible. Before then I thought that I already lived healthiest lifestyle possible, but as soon as I tried to experiment with my diet, my performance and overall feeling improved by 100 times. It didn’t happen overnight. It took me 4 years to bring my diet to perfection. And even today I occasionally give up and have Tiramisu after dinner.
Start your strength training today
If you don’t do any strength training in your life, start doing it immediately. Start today. You can’t just leave the benefits of strength training behind. If you do, you are missing a lot. Go to your local gym today, sign up for membership. Than have few sessions with a trainer and tell him to design you a weekly work out routine. Or just get on the floor and start lifting observing other people and asking lots of questions. The dumber the questions the better.
Over time, you’ll become more knowledgable and stronger. You will be calibrating yourself to success in strength training.
I became more consistent and included muscles worked out on regular bases in my routine, that are not only visible on the beach, like hamstrings, gluteus, lover back muscles, and that helped to improve my overall physical strength. At the weight of almost 185 lb and hight of 6’3″ I was able pack another 10 pounds of lean muscle on my body with clearly visible six pack abs.
Experiment ruthlessly
All my improvement didn’t happened overnight. It took a long time, trying, experimenting, studying and mainly applying what I learned. What I was doing and still am doing is calibrating myself to better health, leanness and performance. I am by far not done improving my health and performance now. Actually I have a feeling, that this is just a beginning. My performance is constantly improving and I feel better and better and stronger while also getting older. And you need to do the same. Start calibrating yourself today for success.
I am certain, that I would be a much more successful rower and certainly reach olympic final, knowing what I know now and being fit like I am now. Thanks to a crappy diet, poor coaching and mainly low awareness of us athletes about the ways to improve our performance, we never really achieved our true potential.
I think this is a problem of many young athletes. They don’t seem to be that much interested in improvement of their performance through diet and they mainly listen to their coaches without knowing themselves. Quite frankly, if the coach is mediocre, the athlete becomes mediocre too.
Act yourself to success
Let’s say, you want to improve your strength and loose some weight with it. It’s ok to study a lot of books and read a lot of blogs about how to do it. But eventually, you will have to do it. You can read 1000 books and 10 000 articles about weight training and you will still not loose a pound. To really get stronger and loose some weight, you will have to hit a gym and start lifting some real weight. And as soon as you start working out in the gym, you start calibrating yourself to become stronger and leaner.
You will make a lot of mistakes in the beginning, but eventually you’ll get a grip on it. You will realize, that you have to lift heavy enough weights to improve. You will find out that you suck at doing pull ups and you can do barely one and that, that girl in the corner is bench pressing more than you do. You will get sore in the beginning and maybe even pull the muscle. But that’s ok, because, you’ll have to go through this stage anyway. And slowly, if you pay attention, you will adjust and improve.
The important thing is, to not give up. You have to pay your dues to become better. Everybody has to do it. There is no way around it. Make peace with it. Faster you fail, sooner you succeed.
A good way to handle being newbe is to make a little fun from yourself and not hide that you are a newbe. It is also great to get together with other newbies, so you don’t feel alone struggling. But it can be accomplished just by yourself. Don’t worry about embarrassment and failures. Embrace them. If you get super embarrassed today by your acting into a dumb failure, well, consider it as a total victory. More embarrassed you get and bigger mistake you make while acting, of course without injury, the better.
In Calibrating yourself to becoming fitter, leaner, stronger and healthier, doing is everything. It is the most important thing you do. Start now, don’t quit and course correct. And your success is eventually certain.