positive

Protein (Part 1)

protein, food, chicken, bean, rice, avocado, beef, egg, bean, nut, milk

What’s up ? This is THE stephane ANDRE. With my training, I’m interested in nutrition to stay in shape. I read some advices from Arnold Schwarzenegger and I learned some good stuff.

Your body uses protein to build, repair and maintain muscle tissue. Bodybuilders have a great knowledge of nutrition, especially the protein for building muscle. Since they want to consume much more muscle than the average person, they consume more protein than average.

Your body uses protein to build muscle only if all the necessary amino acids are available. The small problem is that your body doesn’t produce by itself all the necessary amino acids. Amino acids that your body can’t produce are called essential amino acids and fortunately they’re available in foods.

Proteins are made of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen like other macronutrients, but proteins have one more element, nitrogen. Bodybuilders often explain that they have a positive or negative nitrogen balance, which means that they’re in an anabolic state (muscle gain) or in a catabolic state (loss of muscle).

Food and protein

There are foods called complete proteins, which means that they provide all the amino acids needed to create usable proteins. Milk, eggs, meat, fish and many vegetable products have complete proteins. Be careful because these foods don’t have the same amount of usable protein by weight. For example a food that contains 10 grams of protein, your body can use only 7 grams.

Here is a table that shows the amount of protein by weight and the protein’s amount used in your body as a percentage for the most common foods :

Food% Protein by weight% Net Protein Utilization
Eggs1294
Milk482
Fish18-2580
Cheese22-3670
Brown rice870
Meat and flowl19-3168
Soybean flour4261

(Whey is a byproduct of milk that contain much more protein than eggs)

This table tells us that an egg contains only 12% protein by weight. Despite this small percentage, an egg contains an amino acids balance that allows your body to use 94% of it. However, the table tells us that soy flour contains 42% protein by weight. But because of the amino acids composition, your body can use only 61%. This shows us that there is a difference between the protein’s amount in a food and the protein’s amount your body can use.

This is the end of Part 1.In Part 2, I show you that in cases where you don’t have complete protein foods, it’s possible to make combination of food to have the maximum protein used by your body.

Subscribe to my newsletter and share this article if you think it can help someone you know. Thank you.

-Steph

P.S. If you’re in Miami and you like Caribbean food, go to my cousin’s bistro to eat Haitian food, click here .

How To Reduce Stress (Part 2)

stress

I watched an Olivier Roland’s video  and I learned good stuff.

If you didn’t read Part 1, click here. 

3rd step – organize yourself and communicate

organize yourself

 

Organize

Managing your schedule helps limit stress and to do that, here’s what you can do :

  • Prevent an additional 10 to 20 minutes on your travel times.

  • Make a list of priority tasks to do and not to do.

  • Identify bad habits, tasks to eliminate and tasks to delegate.

  • Automatize a maximum of tasks.

  • Focus on taks that immediately bring visible results

  • Avoid to scatter you.

  • Stop these time consuming habits like reading your emails as soon as they arrive of watching your smartphone as soon as there is a notification. Tamagochi  is a toy, not a lifestyle.

  • Do things in their time. Each task, even minimum, must be completed before moving on the next one. This method allows you to improve your concentration and the satisfaction of having completed a task is very motivating.

  • Pause during the day and cultivate your patience. In a situation where you have to wait, take the time to relax instead of sighing and complaining. For example in a queue for a counter, use that : Wait = relax and breathe deeply. Concentrate on yourself in a positive way and on the present moment.

Communicate

  • Stress is often born from the fact that we don’t know what our interlocutors expect from us. We can’t read people’s minds, so don’t hesitate to ask clearly what people expect of you. Dare to ask questions and create a direct communication. Banish your ego and think that you aren’t absolutely right. You can also avoid sensitive topics.

  • Say « no ». If you can’t render a service someone asks you because you have no time or no resources or you don’t want to take additional responsibilities, then explain that to your interlocutor. Your interlocutors will understand the situation and you will find an arrangement. It’s better to say « no » from the start than to force yourself to keep your commitments. With this attitude, you will avoid being overwhelmed.

4th step – turn away or adapt and accept

 

turn away

 

accept

 

  • Avoid the trigger elements of stress. Limit your contact with people who stress you. Be aware of your environment and control that. For example, use an alternative road to avoid traffic jams. Turn off TV to avoid listening to information that makes you anxious. If you did the analysis of 20% of sources that bring you 80% your stress, you know the people that you must see the minimum or eliminate them from your contacts.

  • Adjust yourself by being willing to compromise. Be assertive by adapting your requirements and avoiding perfectionism.

  • Reframe conflicts by analyzing the problem in a positive way. Look at good things and find benefits of the situation. Focus on positive elements.

  • Accept the trigger of stress and admit that you can’t control everything.

  • Looking for opportunities to improve yourself. Concentrate on what this stressful situation can teach you. Follow the principle of this quote : « What doesn’t kill you , make you stronger » and ask yourself these questions : « How can I get better with this experience ? What did I learn ? ».

  • Forgive. Accept that others make mistakes (because you also make mistakes) and try to evacuate any feeling of anger. When you free yourself from all this negative energy, it’s easy to resume your projects.

In summary « The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another » as William James said.

Subscribe to my newsletter and share this article if you think it can help someone you know. Thank you.

-Steph

How To Reduce Stress (Part 1)

stress

I watched an Olivier Roland’s video  and I learned good stuff.

I am doing a synthesis of the Dale Carnegie’s book “How to stop worrying and start living”  and other sources on internet for a blueprint to manages stress in 4 steps.

Stress is about change, it means adapting to the environment of a changing structure. Stress is a feeling triggered by the interpretation of an event. It’s a reaction related to the constraints and the pressure undergone in its environment. Stress can be interpreted as something positive, whether it’s considered a challenge or as something negative, if it’s considered a harmful event.

The truth is that stress is a mistake of reasoning in relation to the attitude or behavior we adopt. This is an answer that isn’t adequate. It’s an alert for mental dysfunction as the body gives us an alert for physical pain. Fortunately, people can learn to control stress in 4 steps : Take a step back and analyze what triggered the stress ; anticipate and visualize ; organize yourself and communicate and turn away or adapt and accept.

1st step – Take a step back and analyze

 

keep calm stress

 

It’s necessary to step back and analyze what triggered the stress. Because before trying to solve that, it’s important to know what caused it. By analyzing what caused the stress, we can avoid certain consequences.

To do that, here’s what you can do :

  • Make a list of sources of annoyance that you have in your family, friends, school, work, transportation, etc. Once you have found them, classify them from the most impacting to the least impacting. You can also do a 20/80 analysis, that means identify the 20% of the sources that bring you 80% of your stress.

  • Ask yourself these questions : « What is the problem ? What is the cause of this stress in these sources ? What are the most serious consequences that I suffer of my experience ? »

  • Understand the emotion that created in these moments. Then check if it’s a real fear or rather a theoretical concern that doesn’t have much to happen in your life.

If a situation is truly unavoidable, you need to prepare yourself to accept it. We must give up the impossible because it’s extremely stressful to have no way to change a situation. To avoid this, you need to anticipate situations that may lead you into an impasse. Once these situations identified, you must try to really avoid them or change the course of things from the start.

It’s impossible to keep control of all things in your life. It’s useless to set inaccessible goals.

2nd step – anticipate and visualize

 

anticipate visualize telescope

 

 

The best way to handle stress is to anticipate. Based on the list you made in the first step (source of stress), imagine solutions and possible answers. Ask yourself these questions : « Why did you agree to be in this situation ? ». If what you do make sense, it limits the stress.

Decide how you want to live a situation. An event that happens to you can have not effect on you until you choose words to qualify it. If you say that an event is happy, boring, sad or extraordinary, it can become so. By qualifying the event, you modify the perception that you have of this event.

The way you see the event determines your body’s reaction. So take a moment to think before judging and classyfying a situation as negative.

Take Olivier Roland’s example. When Olivier Roland began to meditate, his neighbor’s dog was barking. At first it disturbed Olivier to focus on his breathing, it was stressful and annoying. After a while, Olivier realized that it wasn’t the barking dog that was stressful, it was Olivier’s interpretation of the situation. From the moment that Olivier decided that the barking dog was something neutral or positive, he began to appreciate when the dog barks. It’s a sign of life.

Imagination can be used to help fight stress. Get in shape before a stressful event. You can create a positive state of mind when an event is negative. Think of something positive like music, a holiday, projects in progress. Visualize a happy moment, a happy memory.

This the end of Part 1. In the 2nd Part, I talk about organize yourself and communicate and turn away or adapt and accept.

Share this article if you think it can help someone you know. Thank you.

-Steph

Techniques To Learn Quickly And Efficiently Based On Science (Part 2)

learn

I watched an Olivier Roland’s video  and I learned good stuff.

If you didn’t read the Part 1, click here .

Ok, this software used in the scientific study is not accessible for more than 80 % of the population but there are several software that can allow you to improve your intelligence like that used in the scientific study.

There is IQ Mindware. There is another one that is open source so free called Brain Workshop. These software are for people who really want to improve their intelligence because they are based on the principle of Dual n-back . It’s very difficult and it’s the only way to improve your intelligence.

The results of this scientific study showed that the maximum gains obtained with 20 minutes of training per day for 19 consecutive days. This is 10 % improvement with the 8 consecutive days of training and 44 % with 19 consecutive days of training.

Train your brain with IQ Mindware or Brain Workshop (I use this one) will allow you to improve your concentration and motivation. Everything you need to improve your ability to have successful projects.

Meditation

meditation

Meditation is excellent for improving your concentration. Before, I was often lost in my thoughts when I was doing a task and in the end, this task was done badly. Have you ever been lost in your thoughts when you were doing a task ?

Meditation is cool because you can do this in 5 minutes a day and you don’t need any equipment. You just need a little time and a quiet place. You see meditation is accessible to everyone and can be done by people of all religions or these who have no religion.

The goal of meditation is to train your concentration. That means to focus your attention on something specific. For example in bodybuilding, when you do the dumbbell curls, you fix your attention on your biceps. Meditation is a simple and effective way to become aware of your « parasitic thoughts ». These « parasitic thoughts » that make you no longer focused on your task and lost in your thoughts. When you realize that you’re lost in your thoughts, you can redirect your thoughts to be focus again on your task.

Scientific studies have discovered and are still discovering meditation’s benefits like an enormous reduction of stress, anxiety, anger, depression, immune system improvement, positive emotional improvement and a better attention. For people with hypertension, there is a decrease in blood pressure and an increase in longevity of 23 %. Scientists always find new benefits in meditation.

And

and

Meditation improves health AND also intelligence as ability to manage emotion, increase concentration, reduce attention problems, increase memory and visual processing capacity, improve learning ability and reduce your risk to multi-task. Doing multi-task ruin your productivity.

If you want to enjoy meditation’s benefits, you can start with a simple exercise without equipment today :

  • You sit comfortably in a quiet place. If you want you can sit in the lotus position but it’s not obligatory. You close your eyes and take 3 deep deep breaths to relax. Once you relaxed, you focus on your breathing. You focus on your inhalation and your exhalation and the goal is to concentrate as long as possible on your breathing

While you are going to think about your breathing, full of thoughts will come constantly and it’s normal. It’s destabilizing but there is a technique for your mind to be less distracted. The technique is to count the number of your inhalation and exhalation.

  • When you inhale, you count « 1 » in your head (don’t speak) and when you exhale, you count « 1 » then when you inhale, you count « 2 » and when you exhale, you count « 2 ». You do it from 1 to 10. When you’re 10, you count upside down from 10 to 0. When you realize that you’re lost in your thoughts and you’ve lost count of the number of breathing, you start again at « 0 ». You don’t give up until you’ve been able to count from 0 to 10 and 10 to 0 without interruption at least once.

You’ll see that many thoughts will come because it’s absolutely impossible to think of nothing. Don’t worry, it’s normal. As soon as you realize that you’re lost in your thoughts, come back to focus on your breathing without feeling any particular guilt.

Do this simple meditation 5 minutes a day will give you many benefits that I quoted in this article.

Scientific studies

scientific study

Here is a list of scientific studies concerning benefits meditation.

« A Randomized Controlled Trial Of Compassion Cultivation Training: Effects On Mindfulness, Affect, And Emotion Regulation », Hooria Jazaieri, 2013. Click here. 

« Initial results from a study of the effects of meditation on multitasking performance », David M. Levy, 2011. Click here.

« Effects of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy on neurophysiological correlates of performance monitoring in adult attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder », Poppy L.A. Schoenberg, 2013. Click here.

« Mindfulness meditation improves cognition: Evidence of brief mental training », Fadel Zeidan, 2010. Click here.

« Buddha’s Brain: Neuroplasticity and Meditation », Richard J. Davidson, 2010. Click here. 

Share this article if you think it can help someone you know. Thank you.

-Steph

Dispersing In Several Projects

project

I watched an Olivier Roland’s video  and I learned good stuff.


I know several people who explain their projects and 6 months later, they explain a new project and so on. I think you know people like that too.

It’s a problem that happens very often and to understand that, you have to see the 3 steps of a project.

Fist step – start

This the excitation step. You discover project’s elements and everything is wonderful

Second step – crossing the desert

This is the step where you understand that you must give a lot of effort for little result. What is frustrating in this step is seeing people who have many years of experience doing incredible things easily while your work like crazy to do a basic thing.

Third step – experience

This is the step where, thanks to the experience you accumlated in the crossing of the desert, you begin to master the elements fo your project to make better progress.

What happens is that there are a lot of people who addicted to the first step : start. This is understandable because it’s in the step where everything is wonderful. When it’s necessary to go to the second step : the crossing of the desert, these people find a new project to redo the frist step.

Changing project for all the time to stay in the first step is a type of intelligent procrastination. These people avoid every second step, they want to have excitement without having the disadvantages of being persistent in something.

In this case, intelligent procrastination is about giving you a good conscience by telling yourself and others that you’re doing something positive for your project. But inside, concretely, you avoid doing the most important things to do to advance your projet. For exemple, you worked for months designing your Amazon website (this looks like a good idea) but since the creation of your website , you have done only 2 sales (it’s really a problem).

Solution

solution

Projects are means to reach your final goal. The first thing you need to do is to determine your final goal and then select projects to do to achieve this goal. For exemple your final goal is to become a successful author and your project is to have a blog where you’ll write chapters of your book.

Becoming conscious of your final goal is important but it’s not enough. You need to take action to complete your project because therse projects are just means to reach your final goal.

There is another phase, it’s that after a certain time, you need to select a minimum number of projects. Successful entrepreneurs are entrepreneurs who know how to say « NO » and it’s really important. You can’t succeed in all project in your life.

Select project

select project

How to select a promising project ? This is what you’ll want to know during the first step : start. This is the start step that will let you know if you’re ready to go to the second step : crossing the desert. It’s obvious that there is always a risk in the choice of a project. That’s something we can’t avoid at 100 %

One way to have more perseverance is to have organization, increase the strength of will and increase discipline. These are elements to work on a daily basis.

Share this articles if you think it can help someone you know. Thank you.

-Steph

Beginners Errors

beginners

I read a Nerd Fitness article  and there is good stuff.

Chasing the illusion

illusion

« This training shocks muscle », « it’s a training from army » or « this diet work without change what you usually eat ». You have already heard these slogans several times I think.

This type of advertising always encourages us to look for the last training program, last supplement, DVD,etc.

We’re happpy, we can have an athletic body in 3 weeks with a training program. We believe it but after 3 weeks, we have little result, we stop and we depress. It was an illusion.

All the year, be consistent and patient, this is the solution. 2 elements are enough to be healty : diet and exercices. Matrix’s companies sell us illusions like « this training program target the belly’s fat ». These illusions have as objectives to incite us to buy them and not to help us to be healthy.

Select a simple training program and use it all the year. I offer simple and free training programs for all body muscles. Test it.

Remember, the body need a maximum of 12 weeks to be accustommed to a new diet and a training program. Once your body is used to it, you have to wait several years to have an athletic body (3 years). Day after day your body improves but it’s first inside and after outside. Your internal organs have priority.

Emotion

emotion

Our emotions prevent us from being in good health. Do you don’t believe me ? Here some exemples :

  • I did my training session today, I can eat cookies
  • I eat a cookie just one time. It’s good, another one
  • It was hard today at work, I need to eat it

We need to learn to control our minds by associating positive emotions with exercices and healthy diet. It’s important because we can have some cases where we eat 1000 calories of cookies and we burn only 300 calories during a training session. These emotions These emotions make us make exceptions and if we do them more often, we risk doing no training and healthy meals in the week.

Do meditation and follow a personal development’s program are great to reprogram our minds.

Tips to start

  • Use calendar’s alert in your smartphone for your training session

  • Cook your healthy meals of the day ahead

  • When you’re hungry between meals, drink water

  • If you want watch TV, do bodyweight exercices before

Pleasure

pleasure

Often people think that do physical exercices isn’t fun. They imagine that to be in good health, it’s eat salad and run for hours or be on a bench surrounded by athletic people. This image is enough to discourage a lot of people.

I’m healthy and I don’t eat salad, I have my portion of vegetables. I run once a week and there is others way to do exercices like strenght training, gymnastics, frisbee, hike, etc. Find the physical activity you like. If you do a physical activity you don’t like, choose another. You need to have pleasure doing this physical activity. If you don’t have any idea, do a search on internet.

Bulk

bulk

Women say often « I don’t want lift weight because I don’t want bulk ». Then women avoid dumbbells and run for hours and do crunchs. And if they use dumbbells, they choose the lightest possible.

Women have this behavior because in a women’s magazine, they read that to have a « toned » body, it’s necessary to make high reps with lightweight.

A « toned » body is a word or term create by marketing specially for women. Women can’t bulk up by lifting weight. To bulk up, it’s necessary to eat more calories than the body burn them. The truth to have a « toned » body is that you have to use heavy strength training with low repetitions

The most articles write in magazines, it’s the Matrix to ruin your life. It’s lies and the proof is that women are still looking for an effective training progam. Look, my sister still doesn’t listen to my advice and 4 times a year, she changes her workout.

A strenght training is great to build compact (or « toned ») muscles. Test a strenght training for a month, do a picture before/after and I sure that your pant’s size will change. Test it one time with a healthy diet.

Action

I know a lot of people that read a hundred of documents about fitness/bodybuilding and they don’t do a sport activity. Theory without practice is useless except to show off in front of friends. Einstein to validate his theories had to test them on the field. I don’t know, may be they’re afraid to choose a bad training program and diet ?

If you want my opinion, start today. Select a training program and follow it. The truth is that there is no perfect training program. And the secret of a perfect training program is to use it and adjust it month after month. Here are the steps of the perfect training program :

  • Select a training programme

  • Follow this program for 8-12 weeks

  • Track your progress

  • Look how your body change

  • Make adjustments

  • Repeats all these steps to infinity

Which training program you had the least results with ?

-Steph

P.S. Do you want a free training program ? Click here 

Smartphone apps :

To track my calories, I use MyFitnessPal 

To track my training program, I use Jefit 

Pass Through Obstacles

pass through obstacles

There are some days I watched a super interesting JamCore DZ’s video (in french). In this video, he gives some advices to overcome obstacles in training.

Obstacles that prevent you to succeed are in two categories.

Category A

obstacles

Lack of discipline

Without discipline you have nothing in life. Everyone knows and the Matrix attack you every day with viruses to destroy your discipline. Less you have discipline, more viruses will be more powerful day by day to prevent you from reaching your goals.

Virus List :

  • Procrastination

  • Disappearance of responsibility

  • Depressed

  • Fear – you feel like a dumb, you don’t love your life.

  • Total loss of self-confidence

  • Mental block

Lack of discipline triggers all these viruses and you live a life of existence instead of a life of substance.

Category B

obstacles

In this category, it’s mental virus that affect your body. This is regarding the training.

Don’t be realistic

People aren’t realistic to loss weight or gain muscle. They think only 3 weeks or 3 months is enough. You want to lose fat ? Ask yourself a question : « It took how long for your body to be in this situation ? ». Now you have the answer ! You will not lose that weight at the speed of light because you will need discipline. Gain muscle, it’s similar. Build a body takes time. Steroids or no steroids ! Everything takes time in life. Just don’t take steroids, it’s really better for your life.

Complication

People complicate things too much. It’s why they can’t succeed. In the world, there are good and bad information and internet amplified everything. It’s up to you to do your research, it’s up to you to study how you can evolve your body by analyzing the information. Many people are creating scandals to get attention and it’s up to you to unmask them. If your life is too complicated and you’re gonna give up.

Consistency

Most people aren’t consistent. They start and they stop, they restart and they stop, they restart and they stop and they wonder why they don’t succeed. When a person starts without stopping, results are there.

Training based on week

Your training isn’t judged on week, it’s judged throughout the year ! Lose fat or gain muscle, it’s on all year. Look yourself now and look yourself a year later, this is the way to think. Don’t think a week but by 6 months or 1 year. The body you have now will not be the same in 6 months or 1 year, if you do things right. It isn’t to do shoulders 2 times a week you’re going to have broad shoulders as Simeon Panda in 3 months.

Everything is based on one year because of your recovery, your nutrition and your evolution during the year. There are moments in the year when you have unexpected things (professional / private) that will affect your training. Yes, it’s happens. Do you know anyone who felt good for 365 days ? No !

Impatience

Impatience makes you in «fool» mode. People are too impatient. They start, they stop and when they restart, they do bullshit. Be called to have faster results. The only thing they will have soon is injuries.

Solution

plan

The plan

You have to have an attack plan ! Without a plan, you’re screwed in life. Have you ever seen an army without a attack plan ? With this plan, you’ll have objectives and objectives will give you daily discipline.

When you have daily discipline, you will increase your self-confidence, it’s automatic. When you reach 2-3 goals in a day, you feel good before sleeping. When you reach 0 goal in a day, you feel bad before you sleep, you feel like a dumb. This self-confidence will increase from week to week, from month to month and nobody can tell you anything because you have the disciple.

To continue to increase your self-confidence, you must protect yourself. There are 2 things :

  • Your environment – your environment is very important. Surround yourself with positive people who do the same thing as you, because if you surround yourself with fool, your self-confidence going away and you will be in « fool » mode.

  • Your support – your support is very important that can be friends, family, boyfriend or girlfriend.

When we’re surrounded by positive people, we inspire on each other to be better. When we’re surrounded by fool, we become stupid.

When you increase self-confidence, you increase your focus. You’re not distracted by unnecessary things.

When you increase your focus, you increase your happiness because you realize your daily goals and you’re proud of reach them. Day by day, from week to week, from month to month, from year to year, you accumulated the number of objecives reached. Nice scores !

When you increase your happiness, you increase your determination because you see that your plan is working. Ready for the next level ?

With this solution, with your plan, viruses of categories A and B are ineffective. The Matrix will try every day to send you these viruses but you build your kingdom and nobody can invade your kingdom !

Did you wrote your plan ? What’s this ?

-Steph