My “Only Pee Yellow Once” Rule
I have a little rule I like to follow to make sure I’m staying hydrated and keeping my body in the best and most efficient state as possible.
It’s called “only pee yellow once”.
Did you know that dehydration is HORRIBLE for your body? When you’re dehydrated, not only does it slow down the fat burning process, but it also makes you more irritable, more tired, makes you weaker and have less endurance when you workout, constipated, and a whole slew of other things that you don’t want happening in your body.
And as you probably know, if you want to know how hydrated or dehydrated you are – just take a look at the color of your pee.
If it’s yellow, you need more water.
If it’s clear, you’re good to go!
Now, when you wake up in the morning you’re probably going to be peeing yellow because your body hasn’t had water in at least 6-8 hours. That’s perfectly fine.
But the first thing you should do when you wake up is go downstairs and pound a nice tall glass of pure water.
No coffee, no tea, no breakfast.
Just let that water soak into your body for a few minutes and get re-hydrated.
Then after 15 minutes or so, feel free to have coffee or whatever you want for your breakfast. A lot of people say not to drink coffee early in the morning because it dehydrates you but if you’re drinking a big glass of water I don’t think it’s a big deal.
Another great thing about drinking water on an empty stomach is that it’s going to help you stay regular and not get constipated. JUST by doing this you’ll feel A LOT better and more alert!
So go ahead and try this method out.
I bet you’ll not only wake up faster in the morning, but you’ll have more energy throughout the entire day – and if you’re not into the habit of drinking a lot of water throughout the day, I can almost guarantee you’ll see an increase in strength and endurance when working out.
What To Do If You Eat Crappy…
Memorial Weekend is coming up pretty quickly and my guess is that unless you have incredible willpower, you’re probably going to end up eating worse than you normally do.
After all, who can say no to a few drinks and some hot dogs and hamburgers while hanging out with your friends and family on Memorial Day?
So what do you do since you’re going to eat more calories?
It’s easy, you compensate for it either before or after!
For example, maybe this weekend you don’t go out to eat. Or you lay off a few beers and save them for Memorial Day.
Or Tuesday, you fast for 24 hours. Or you throw in an extra 20 minutes of cardio for the next few days. Or you eat very lightly before and after your “big” meal on Memorial Day.
It doesn’t have to be that hard. It all comes down to planning. If you plan ahead, you won’t gain an ounce even though you’ll be eating worse on Memorial Day.
It’s the people who don’t plan that end up gaining “holiday weight” – which then never seems to come off their bodies.
So instead of just going into this weekend not even thinking about the added calories on Memorial Day, start planning to either eat a little less or workout a little more to compensate for it – and don’t worry as much about how much you eat and drink on Memorial Day.
Why Endurance Exercises Are SO Important
When exercising there are various ways to perform that workout.
For example you can workout for strength, muscle building, explosivity, endurance, etc. etc.
Today I want to tell you why having enough muscular endurance is crucial to staying healthy, and why this should be even more of an issue as you get older.
As you know, many people today suffer from joint and muscle problems. We’ll use lower back pain as an example because that probably hits home with a lot of people reading this.
Did you know that one of the most common reasons for having back pain is simply not having enough lower back endurance?
Think about it.
You wake up, sit at a desk for a few hours and your back starts hurting.
This happens because over time your muscles are starting to get tired and more stress is placed on different parts of your body to counteract the fatigue your lower back muscles are receiving.
So not only do you get stress (e.g. pain) in your lower back from them being fatigued, but the pain then starts to radiate throughout other parts of your body because those places are trying to counteract the fatigue your lower back has!
I’m sure you’ve experienced this at some point in your life. I know I have.
Taking Control Of Your Muscle Pain
So if you’re suffering like so many other people are, what can you do about it?
Start doing more endurance exercises!
I actually love endurance exercises for 2 reasons.
First, when you start training your muscles to be able to move a certain weight around for longer periods of time, you’ll see that you can start moving HEAVY weights around for longer periods of time.
In other words, instead of being stuck at lifting 200lbs. for 3 reps, if you start implemetning more endurance exercises you’ll notice that you’ll be able to move that same weight for 4,5,7, or even 10 reps after just a few weeks.
The second reason I love them is because when you start doing them, and this is especially important for your lower back/core – you’ll start having less pain.
As I said most of the pain we experience is because of a lack of endurance in those muscles, so when you start getting more endurance – the pain starts vanishing.
And if you’re having lower back problems, the absolute BEST exercise you can do to relieve that pain is simply holding a plank for a specific time, a few times per week or even 2-3 times per day for shorter times.
So start doing more endurance exercise. Heck, just add 1 set of them to the end of all your workouts and you’ll start seeing improvements!
Do You Have Fat Loss “Perfection” Syndrome?
Going back to my college days, I remember hearing a lot about “anorexia” and how bad of a disorder it was to have and how the people were so obsessed with getting skinny that they’d go to extraordinary lengths to do so.
Yadda yadda yaddda…
And while anorexia is a horrible disorder to have, there’s one thing a lot of people forget about.
Perfection syndrome!
Perfection syndrome occurs when you’re so obsessed with your body that you’ll do nearly anything to keep it incredibly ripped and free of any and every little ounce of fat imaginable.
I remember going through a bodybuilding forum a few years ago and they were talking about how they get “super” lean to go to the beach for the week and meet girls (these were younger guys saying this).
So all of a sudden one guy comes on and said he purposely makes him dehydrated because “your skin gets thinner and you look more ripped”.
So I figured..”wow…what a lunatic, I can’t wait to see the response on this one”.
Much to my surprise, everybody in the forum was SUPPORTING his decision to do that!
Listen, when you’re willing to do things THAT unnecessary just to look a tiny bit better, you have a problem. You honestly need to go talk to someone and figure out what kind of self-esteem issues you’re having because (and I’m not joking about this) – you have issues that need to be taken care of.
If you’re that kind of person, you honestly need to relax. First of all, nobody is gonna notice a tiny little difference like that. Second of all, you should NEVER compromise your overall health in order to get a little more lean – I don’t care what the circumstances are.
And by the way if there are any guys reading this thinking it’s still a good idea to get super-ripped to the point where you can see every muscle striation in your body….girls like “normal” looking guys better anyway.
Anyway, no matter who you are you should take a quick look at your daily eating and exercise habits and judge yourself objectively to find out if you have a problem or not.
Everything you do should be focused on staying as healthy as possible while staying as lean as possible. But those boundaries should never touch each other. If something is going to make you leaner but compromises your health…eat more vegetables instead of carbs for your next few meals.
It makes me sick what people will do to get super-ripped when it’s not even necessary to begin with.
Do you agree? Leave your comments and let me know what you think!
How To Make A Homemade Dipping Belt
When I used to lift in the gym one of my favorite tools was a dipping belt. Unfortunately I just never got around to making one for my ownhome gym..but I just came across this great video showing you how to make one for just a few measly bucks and some materials you can pick up ay any local hardware store or Home Depot.
Dipping belts are AWESOME for doing pullups and dips with. Since most people probably don’t have a dipping station at home, I’d say the best use for one of these will be for pullups.
Enjoy the video!
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Recent Comments:
- Johnine Bailey: You could mix it with water to make it less caloric. Or possibly substitute a cherry powder or herbal instead. There’s a Cherry Blossom herbal that is available, I’m not sure it would do the same, but maybe it would help.
- Darlene Siddons: great post and great 10 ways to attack those last few pounds….loosing weight is about attitude and feelings, when they are aligned right it is really easy…i use Vision Map Videos to keep my goal of correct body weight in a positive realm… darlene http://visionmapvideo.blogspot .com/
- Megan: great story, and so true! And i laughed a few times during this. keep up the good work!
- What Happens When You Stop Being “Healthy”: important if you’re doing workouts that are very intense and demanding on your body, such as High Intensity Interval Training or things like Tabata
- Weight Loss Excercise: You can also check out his post on weight loss goals here – http://hasslefreefatloss.com/b log/weight-loss-goals-getting- crazy/
- Johnine Bailey: You could mix it with water to make it less caloric. Or possibly substitute a cherry powder or herbal instead. There’s a Cherry Blossom herbal that is available, I’m not sure it would do the same, but maybe it would help.
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