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Hey Body Gainers!

In this weeks weekly wrap I’m focusing on:

Sharpening The Axe.

It’s applicable to food, exercise and I guess mindset too. I’ll also share the habit and the podcast I’ve been loving this past week and what’s been more struggle street.

Let’s get rolling…

First up, you’ve heard of the Sharpening The Axe metaphor right? Perhaps via Abraham Lincoln’s famous quote: “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”

Although it’s an old metaphor and I guess most of us wouldn’t go anywhere near an axe these days I still love it for many reasons. First up, to sharpen your axe is the preparation you do in advance for the more focused, effective work to come.

Even beyond that, perhaps surprisingly this little tree-hugger (!) likes the idea of an axe. By comparison at least. I like it a whole-SUPER-lot more than the idea of indiscriminately clearfelling entire areas of rainforest with bulldozers, log trucks and log loaders and later – when the worthy wood has been removed – dropping a self igniting ping pong ball injected with a napalm like substance from a helicopter to regenerate what’s left.

I imagine there’s no room for mindlessness when it’s you, the tree and the axe. There would be a presence and an appreciation in the same way that I’m sure folks who run small lifestyle, self sustaining farms are a lot more connected to their food than those of us who purchase it so hugely removed from it’s origins.

To get specific with this metaphor and FOOD, Sharpening The Axe is ensuring your home is a trigger free zone. I succumbed to a little trigger spree last week and I should have known better! I had one late night which left me with less than 5 hours sleep and a busy day.

As I’m sure you’ve experienced when your body is low on energy due to a lack of sleep its natural instinct is to demand energy in the form of food. Generally not extra leafy greens either! Your body (my body!) will crave fattie, carbie easy to metabolize energy when really all it needs is some quality shut eye.

So even though I know better I attacked the jar of tahini – and not even with a fork – I just dug in with a spoon.

The tahini incident was my struggle street this week.

It’s a good reminder to set your house and work up for your most sleep deprived, potentially sad, bored or just plain outta daily discipline quota future self rather than that ideal, best case scenario you that it’s so tempting to assume will show up yet often (very often!) doesn’t.

Stepping away from the triggering-tahini, Sharpening The Axe might also be a big weekly shop for fresh food so that trigger free home is well stocked with the type of food you do want to be turning to.

It does not matter how committed you are to eating fab food, if you get home late after a busy day and there’s nothing in the house aside from a few scraps of cheese, half stale crackers and some old chocolates up the back of the pantry then that’s what you’ll be nibbling on for dinner.

To get specific with this metaphor and EXERCISE, Sharpening The Axe is putting the time into a training plan and exact programming… Rather than wandering aimlessly onto the weighs floor & hitting some bicep curls and tricep extensions.  

Or worse, strolling straight pass the weights and entrenching yourself in tedious cardio land doing the same old slog you do every time you drag yourself to the gym.

If you’re not sure where to start with a training plan check out this previous show on your I.D.E.A.L. Training Plan.

Equally Sharpening The Axe might also be the foam rolling you do several times a week to help work out the tightness, imbalances and restricted movement that inhibits your exercising. This week I asked a dear client if she’d upped her foam rolling action? “How did you know?” she replied. “Because I can see! It’s absolutely visible both aesthetically and in the way you move more freely through our exercises – keep up the good work!”

The HABIT I’m loving this week is deceptively simple.

Although it’s right up there so far as the most vital tool / habit to keep me focused and effective.

Are you curious? It’s simply setting my iPhone timer for focused blocks of work. In fact it’s the only reason I’m working right now. I’m tempted to go have a little chillax after a busy morning. However my plan for the day tells me what I’m yet to achieve and my iPhone timer is the task master to keep me on track.

It lets me know I’m not destined to limitless, daunting hours and equally it adds a little sense of urgency and a big sense of achievement at the end of the day when I get to see all the ticks on my daily plan.

Of course a timer is your perfect workout companion too if you struggle just starting. Alternatively, you could compile a playlist for the period of time you want to exercise. No song skipping or early mark allowed!

Moving on to my PODCAST recommendation for the week I’m going to go with Lewis Howes’ The School Of Greatness again.

Lewis gets some really amazing guests and he has a special knack of both asking them insightful, unique questions and creating the space in which they feel comfortable sharing valuable and often vulnerable responses.

It’s absolutely not a cookie cutter show.

In the recent show on: Overcoming Huge Obstacles Through Big Belief, Lewis interviews Tim Storey. My fav quote in an hour of gold was possibly:

“When you feed your faith with education you starve your fear.”

Now even though Tim is a man of faith my interpretation of faith includes the faith you have in yourself. Your ability to back yourself. And isn’t it true? So often fear stems from a lack of knowledge.

Knowledge gives you options, choices to make – faith in your ability to move forward one step at a time.

To get actionable today is there an aspect of achieving your body gain goal in which fear is holding you back? Something that you’re a little uncertain of. You don’t have all the info and as such you’re maybe assuming the worst?

I do that all the time. Not with body gain so much however absolutely with other things. I keep myself ignorant, imagine the worst and basically feed my fear. It’s not an effective or fun approach! Here’s to feeding your faith in yourself with education and starving your fear.

That brings us to the end of another week in Healthification.

Healthification is proudly bought to you by The Body Gain Lifestyle – an online self-paced course, community and coaching program… which is currently undergoing a Vego/Vegan-i-fi-cation!

As I mentioned in last Fridays show, I’m committed to proving that a strong, healthy, smokin’ body you love can be created via a vego or vegan lifestyle.

In fact more than prove, I want to make it as simple and fun as possible.

And sustainable for both you and the planet.

And I want to be able to effect change as a community – a community or force of body gainers (!) that helps reduce the impact of inhumane and unsustainable animal agriculture.

It means the Body Gain Lifestyle needs a little overhaul to be completely congruent.

If you like the sound of where I’m heading with the community – or as a lovely and super appreciated podcast listener you have any feedback or suggestions – I’d really value hearing them.

In the coming weeks I’ll share more about the Vego/Vegan-i-fi-cation of the Body Gain Lifestyle. 

If you liked this you’ll also like: Back Yourself 100%

If you’re yet to share the Healthification love – just click here to zip over to iTunes and leave an honest rating and review. It’d help me out big time. With gratitude, Kate.