📖 Bigger Leaner Stronger by Michael Matthews

Topic: Health & Fitness | Medium: Kindle | Rating: 4/5

This book includes workouts and meal plans, but I found the sections on mindset/psychology particularly valuable. Your body is an accessory to your mind, and building your body is an opportunity to exercise focus and discipline like every other goal. No shortcuts or secret formulas. Just preparation/strategy, hard work, and dedication.

Three keynotes

1. Exercise with purpose

In fact, what most people do in the gym doesn’t even qualify as training but is merely exercise .... Exercise can make you healthier, but it guarantees nothing in the way of fat loss or muscle gain, the two biggest physiological levers you need to know how to work to build the body of your dreams. (Matthews 2019, p.75)

• Do you exercise with an intention/purpose?

2. Don't justify behaviour with moral licensing

"The moment we feel an itch for moral permission to stray from our goals or standards, it’s all too easy to find that emotional green light. ... We need to view these actions as independent steps necessary for achieving the outcomes we desire, not as “good” behaviours that we can “cash in” for sins. (Matthews 2019, p.141)

• I have fallen down this rabbit hole (food binge) all too often! It's nice to have a name for it now.

3. Delay gratification to maximise long-term gain

Human nature is full of paradoxes, and willpower and self-control are no exceptions. We’re drawn to both delayed and immediate gratification in the forms of long-term satisfaction and short-lived spurts of delight. We’re inherently susceptible to temptation but also have the power to resist it. We’re often juggling contradictory emotions like frustration, anxiety, and doubt intermingled with happiness, calm, and certainty. (Matthews 2019, p.145)

• The irony of life. However, pressure is necessary for growth.