Leap

Ok people, it’s that time of the year. Start getting serious about being in shape for the summer. There is still time to make some big improvements, trust me. I’m on a huge health kick right now and I wanted to share some of my favorite resources that I use on a regular basis. If you have any questions, just put them in the comments, I’m happy to help you!

1. Start doing morning walks before you eat breakfast. It doesn’t have to be long, try 30 minutes.

2. Start doing one 24 hour fast per week. Yep, fast. I think it’s one of the easiest ways to cut back on caloric intake. Tip: when you “break your fast” eat a normal sized meal, don’t gorge.

3. Do a 30 Day Challenge, I prefer the Paleo challenge (you already know this if you read the blog). Tough, but worth it, you will lose some pounds and feel great!

4. Add sprints to your workout. Try the 6 Week Sprinting Solution.

5. If you like the booze, consume less than 5 drinks per week.

6. Start strength training. Seriously, if you aren’t using heavy compound lifts, you are really slowing down your progress. Start with Stronglifts 5x5.

7. Sometimes eating healthy can be boring. Get over it. Try my tips for behavior change to increase the pressure to stick to it.

8. Try one of my recommended diets, listed below.

9. The Paleo Diet

10. Leangains

11. Eat Stop Eat

12. The Renegade Diet

13. Carb-Nite or Carb-Backloading

14. Traditional Bodybuilding Diet

15. Reduce stress to lower cortisol. Your mind will thank you too.

16. Aim for 1g of protein per pound of bodyweight. Good for muscle growth and satiety.

17. Eat a cheat meal every now and then. I do it a couple times a week. If you are trying to lean up, do it once. It gets me ready to start eating healthier then ever the next day.

18. Ask a couple friends to do a lose 10 pounds challenge using one of the strategies on this post. It’s more fun this way.

19. Start small. Stop drinking soda and eating junk.

20. Keep this in mind. When you drop a frog into boiling water, he jumps right out. When you start with cold water and slowly bring it to a boil, he’s a goner. This is like your diet. Don’t slowly poison yourself over time.

21. Play a sport. 

22. Forget about instant success, celebrate small victories.

23. Have realistic expectations. No, you won’t have a six-pack in a month.

24. Train for something. How about a 5k?

25. Hangout here to get involved in a fun fitness community, learn from others, and see some awesome success stories.

26. Follow someone’s example. Do you have a friend who is in great shape? What do they do?

27. Stop wishing/hoping/dreaming and just start acting.

28. Read, try these.

29. The Four Hour Body

30. The New Evolution Diet

31. The Paleo Solution

32. The Metabolic Diet

33. Dave Asprey’s Blog: The Bulletproof Executive

34. Use technology, how about:

35. Getting a Fitbit.

36. Nike Fuelband

37. Using LoseIt

38. Doing some healthy Leap challenges :)

39. Trying a workout plan from GAIN Fitness.

40. Using MapMyRun

41. Start NOW

Remember when you were a kid and you saw all the commercials for the awesome toys coming out for Christmas? 

“Mom, mom, mom, PLEASE! I want this so bad!”

Then when Christmas arrived, so did your Shiny New Toy. What an exciting time, opening up a brand new gift that morning. As soon as you found the one you’ve been waiting for buried in the other presents, you were nowhere to be found. All you could do is play with that one toy for weeks. When friends came over you hesitated to let them even try it out.

Then all of the sudden, that toy seemed to lose it’s luster. For some reason you were bored, and before you knew it, you tossed that Shiny New Toy to the side. 

Even though you lost interest in that toy, imagine if another child who had never seen it before had the opportunity to play with it. I bet their eyes would light up with wonder, and they’d be as excited as you were when you first opened it on Christmas morning.

Entrepreneurs look at their products every single day. With the stresses of the job, it’s easy for what you’re doing to lose it’s luster. And you quickly forget what it was like when you had your first prototype or you first launched to the public. 

Think about all the people who have never seen your creation. I bet there are many potential users or buyers whose eyes would light up with wonder, the same wonder that inspired you to put something out into the world in the first place.

It takes a long time to build a great product and it can be extremely frustrating at times. The key to success is to keep pushing when times get tough. I bet you’re actually closer to nailing it than you give yourself credit for. Just don’t get Shiny New Toy Syndrome before you get there.

Both of the products that we’ve launched, Wellthy and Leap have been all about behavior change - specifically, motivating people to make healthier choices. When I first started working on Wellthy, I thought behavior change was a simple process, mostly because it’s always been easy for me to take something on that seems tough and boil it down to something I can do for at least 30 days.

What I’ve learned (and I’m still learning) after studying the space and from our users is that it’s actually a science - and it’s a repeatable process that anyone can learn how to apply to their own life! My goal in this post is to break down my learnings on changing behavior and talk about how you can apply them to your life or to your users.

My Own Behavior Change Experiments

One of the first experiences that I had when it came to changing my own behavior was when I decided to go on Boulder Outdoor Survival School. This was an extreme, life-changing trip that pushed me to the limits physically, mentally, and emotionally. I spent 30 days in the desert with not much more than a blanket, a knife, and a poncho. When I first decided to go on the trip, I had very little experience venturing off into the great outdoors.

Once I started the trip there was no way out, no matter how bad it sucked going 4 days with no food. For one, I’d told everyone that I knew that I was going on the world’s toughest survival school. People thought this was awesome - what would they think if I backed out? Secondly, I also focused on the results that I could get from the program - “if I can do this, I can do anything!”

I completed the program through sheer mental fortitude, and because of the fact that there were strong social pressures involved with telling everyone I was doing it, and my group on the trip was close-knit and highly motivated. If I backed out, I’d look like a wimp - not even an option.

Another experiment that turned out well was when our team decided to do a 30 Day Paleo Diet Challenge. Basically we made a commitment to each other to each fresh, whole foods for a month. No grains, gluten, alcohol, caffeine, or dairy. It was tough for the first few days adjusting to eating a pretty low-carb diet, but we all felt amazing by the time the month was over.

I think this worked because we lived in close proximity to each other in the same house and everyone knew we were doing the challenge since we turned down beers from all our friends every weekend - so again there were social pressures at play. 

We also started snapping pictures of our meals and using GroupMe or Google Docs to share them with each other. It was a fun and simple way of holding each other accountable for our actions (see the relationship to Leap?) 

So looking at my own behavior I can see what motivates me personally.

• Social Pressures: I need social pressure to stick to something, if I know someone is depending on me I’ll do it no matter what. I also tell people what I’m up to a lot, so in a way I think this is an internal “hack” that I’ve figured out to help me see things to completion.
• Challenges: This turns activities that could be mundane into something fun, especially if you do it with friends or other highly
• Set dates: It’s much easier to dedicate yourself to something when you don’t think it’s “forever”

So What Motivates Most People? 

I’ve learned that I’m not the typical use case for behavior change. After all, not many people go on 30 day trips in the desert, do extreme diets, and quit their 9-5 to pursue a startup. Let’s examine what the experts say, and what we’ve learned from having tens of thousands of people on our platforms. 

According to Dr. BJ Fogg, a Standford PHD Behavioral Psychologist, and the predominant expert in the field of behavior change:

BEHAVIOR = MOTIVATION + ABILITY + TRIGGER, all at the same time. (Click here for a graph showing how this works). So if there is low motivation to do the behavior, but it’s easy to do, a trigger might work. If there is high motivation and it’s hard (not ideal), a trigger could work there as well.

The sweet spot is when the behavior is simple and it’s easy to do - an example he likes to use is if you are trying to change behavior to get someone to floss, have them floss one tooth. Then maybe there is a trigger like an alarm or text message at a certain time to remind them of the behavior. If you think flossing is a daunting task, then just floss one tooth. He says these small wins make a big difference and in just flossing one tooth, you get a small win out of it.

Over time, according to BJ, these small actions like flossing one tooth will eventually lead to you taking on the larger behavior - he is a big fan of baby steps. 

Learnings in more detail and how to fix the problems (BJ’s stuff + my experiences)

With Wellthy, we had various levels of health challenges that people could complete, and they got harder each time. We intentionally started out with very simple behaviors for the reasons stated above.

Wellthy was only effective with a small group of people. I think this came down to the motivation to use the platform and engage in health challenges. The problem was that we were targeting corporate environments and for each company there were a very small amount of motivated users.

The social pressures in Wellthy were too weak. To fix this, we built Leap instead. Groups of friends or people who share a similar motivation are much more conducive to engagement and behavior change. This is based off of the learnings from the challenges that I’ve done and what we observed as a team. 

Currently with Leap, the behavior change framework isn’t strong enough. It’s a lot to expect for users to create their own challenge, and in some cases to do it for a month at a time. When it’s not focused on one particular vertical, you miss out on the highly motivated users who are more likely to stick with the the challenge and come back for repeat usage. To fix this, we’ll refocus the product on the health vertical and adjust the featured challenges as such.

The next thing we need is focusing on smaller wins. If a challenge is a week long, we need to improve how we create a variable mechanism of rewards (which is a fancy way of saying, we need to help them celebrate small wins sooner and more often). This could be accomplished by breaking a challenge down into smaller tasks that are completed each day. These wins need to be linked to a real benefit a person gets from doing the action.

Finally, we need to improve the triggers. Right now the main trigger is a push notification when another user posts within the challenge. The problem is that the trigger is too variable and relies on another user’s motivation to engage in the action - it’s not strong enough. 

What can you look at to improve aspects of your product?

• It’s really key to understand a user’s motivation for using your product from a psychological perspective. When you understand that, find other people who are also motivated by the same thing. Groups are much stronger when motivations are aligned. It helps to focus your product on a particular group of people or one vertical to get a grasp on this.
• Understand that your users aren’t you! It’s easy to get wrapped up in how awesome your product is when it’s designed and built around what you want, but sometimes what motivates you or your ability is different from the folks that will be using the product every day. How do you solve this? Talk to them.
• Start small. Figure out how you get people to complete one task, then come back and complete it again. This is key for retention and long term behavior change.
• This falls into motivation, but understand social pressures. Why is it so motivating when people depend on you? When they think you are going to do something? This is what always motivates me, making a pact almost.

(Imagine how he felt in his slump!)

It happens to all of us from time to time. One day you’re on top of the world and then the next you’re wondering what the hell you are doing with your life. This is especially true for entrepreneurs, the adrenaline rush when things are going great leave you feeling extremely depleted as soon as it’s over. I think every single one of my startup friends has experienced this before, and I know my team feels it now and then. The fact is starting a company is extremely difficult, and this is one of those side effects. If you can’t deal with the lows, then this probably isn’t the business for you. Since I’ve experienced these ups and downs quite a lot over the past year and a half I’m going to highlight a few of my tactics to kick your slump in the ass and get back on top of your game.

1. Change your outlook

Get this through your head: this shit is hard. I’m sure it seems easy when you read Techcrunch all day and it seems like money is falling from the sky and photo apps are having billion dollar exits, but the truth is there are thousands of companies out there and most of the time you only read about the businesses that are having a great day - this screws with your perspective. Most startups fail, you should have realized that when you got in the game. If you think it’s a walk in the park, then you’re either a super genius (teach me your secrets) or you aren’t doing it right. Here’s how I look at it: when I’m in a slump, I try to think about the millions of people that are sitting in a cubicle, slaving away for something they probably don’t give a shit about, for some vision that isn’t their own and that they have little personal connection to. You’re trying to do something great right? You’ve stepped away from corporate slavery and had the balls to go do it on your own. This already puts you ahead of 98% of people in my opinion. We are here once and you are doing everything in your control to be the one in control. 

2. Focus on your health

I guarantee you that if your diet sucks and you aren’t doing anything for exercise then your slump will be 10x worse. When all you do is work it’s easy to let health go by the wayside - DON’T DO THIS. This is one of the biggest mistakes that you can possibly make. Don’t go wallow in your sorrows by ordering up a large pizza and some chicken wings (or carrot cake in my case). Instead, please step away from the machine you’re staring at, go to the grocery store and pick up some fresh, whole foods. Grab some protein (chicken, grass-fed beef, salmon), vegetables (brocoli, asparagus, spinach), fruit (berries, bananas, avocado) , healthy carbs (steel cut oats, brown rice) and cook up your meals for an entire week. Then pick at least three days to get into the gym. Do what you want, but I focus on heavy lifting - check out Stronglifts 5x5 if you don’t know where to start. Take some vitamins too. Fish oil and vitamin D are great for your mood and overall brain function. 

3. Work on a fun side project

You know when you are a little kid and you get a present and for a week it’s the coolest thing ever? All you do is play with it, then before you know it you could care less about and you throw it to the side - looking for the next shiny new item. Don’t let this be how you treat your product. You can prevent this from happening by taking a weekend and hacking on something else - we all have a million ideas, take one and give yourself and the team the weekend to see how far you can get on it. This will keep you light on your feet, keep creativity fresh, and keep you from burning out. Hell you might even learn something that can be applied to your business. 

4. Practice meditation 

Seriously this will do wonders for your overactive, caffeine fueled, mile a minute brain. It’s not difficult and all it takes is 15-20 minutes out of your day. When you hit the 3pm plunge and you start to feel like shit, go to a quiet spot and sit in a comfortable position. First, get things in perspective and get your head in a positive place. Then close your eyes, smile, and take some deep breaths for a couple minutes and just focus on your breath. Now once we are feeling good, take deep breaths in and out through your nose, and count each exhale. See how high of a count you can get without forgetting your number. In two weeks you’ll be amazed at your progress. Let me know when you get to 100. 

Perspective, health, meditation, and taking a break to work on some cool stuff will help you immensely. Please take the time to do these things and don’t get burnt out to the point where you even entertain the thought of giving up. When times get tough, great entrepreneurs are made. Some people can handle it and some can’t. If this was easy I guess we’d all have millions of people using our products and services. You’re on the right track - so keep it up and just kick your slump in the ass.

Hopefully you stuck to your New Year’s Resolutions and are well on your way to reaching your Spring and Summer health and fitness goals. If you didn’t, there’s still time to get back on the right track. As a health nut myself, I understand that it seems like there is a new study, diet, or exercise program that’s thrown in your face every single day.

What I’ve learned is that the key to success is to cut through the clutter, find what works for you, and be persistent. It’s definitely not easy, but with the right tools, I’m a firm believer that anyone can get the job done. After experimenting with multiple diets, exercise programs, and apps over the past few years, I’ve finally found my groove. Here’s how:

Channel Your Inner Caveman

If you haven’t heard of the Paleo Diet yet, then maybe you’ve really been living in a cave. The general idea is to model our diets closely to what our ancient ancestors would have eaten before the advent of drive-thrus, processed food, and modern agriculture. I’ll spare you the science (click for a more complete guide to going Paleo) behind it, but the key to eating like a caveman is pretty simple. Focus on eating fresh fruit and vegetables, grass-fed and organic meats, and some nuts and seeds. You should clear your kitchen of dairy, grains, soda, processed foods, and sugary treats. The first few days can be tough as your body adjusts, but trust me, if you give it a week you’ll start to feel the difference. You’ll be falling asleep faster, waking up with more energy, and burning fat like a furnace. The experts recommend going for at least 30 days to reap the real benefits, and obviously consulting your doctor before trying any new diet.

Keep It Functional 

When I exercise, I like to focus on big movements that move my body through space when I perform them. The big exercises like deadlifts, squats, pull-ups, dips, bench presses, and shoulder presses give you the most bang for your buck. If you aren’t doing an exercise that could be applied to the real world, then you should think twice about the program that you are doing. People of all ages can benefit from strengthening their bodies as it can protect bone and muscle mass, help you develop better body mechanics, and boost your metabolism by almost 15%. The simplest and most effective program for beginners that I’ve found is Stronglifts 5x5. You literally start with an empty bar, but you’ll be amazed as to how fast you progress when you slowly add a small amount of weight on each time you enter the gym.

Tap Into Tech

Starting a new diet or exercise plan is the easy part. Persistence and actually sticking to it is what leads to success. This is where tapping into tech comes in handy. I use a variety of apps and tools to keep me motivated and up to date on the best trends in health and fitness. Here is a list of a few of my favorites:

Fitbit: This handy device tracks your steps and calories burned throughout the day. The best part is, you just snap it on and forget about it.

GAIN Fitness: If you’re looking for custom, personal training quality workouts from your laptop or iPhone check out GAIN.

Lose It: I love using this app to track my food. It’s great because they have most foods from popular restaurants and supermarkets loaded in to make it easy to track.

 Leap (of course): If you’re up for a simple health challenge with friends, like trying to eat a healthy breakfast each day of the week, try Leap and prove what you did by snapping a photo and sharing it with your friends to prove you had a protein shake instead of a donut.

Hopefully these three strategies help you cut through the clutter and find your groove for getting healthy!

This is a post that Ryan wrote for a great site focusing on the midwestern entrepreneurial ecosystem called Silicon Prairie News. They’re doing a great job covering startups, so be sure to check out what they have going on!

Many people think about goals as big achievements 10 to 15 years away. That’s great, but that’s only half the battle. The other half is actually working – day in and day out – to complete those goals. I’d like to share 3 simple habits I’ve followed over the past few years that have helped me achieve my goals.

1. Poop Sheet

Sure, the name is a bit odd, but it’s the most vital of all my habits. Keep a list of your life goals (I only have about six) on a piece of paper (right) in your wallet/purse (or spreadsheet). Adjacent to each goal, write the next major milestone you must complete to move closer to attaining that goal. Review this daily. I review mine when I use the bathroom – hence the name of this “P”. This list of goals keeps you focused on what’s important to you, even when other “fires” are burning out of control.
Why is this the most vital habit? For a little more proof, read why 3% of Harvard MBAs make ten times as much as the other 97% combined.

2. Platform

Keep yourself at your best. Figure out what things give you productive and unproductive days. Keep a log for the next 2 weeks. Did you wake up early? Did you sleep more or less? When did you exercise? Who are you around? What did you eat? These factors (and more) build your platform. Give yourself ample time to “build your platform” every day. My platform: a good night of sleep, healthy food, 1 hour of exercise, and an empty inbox.

3. Pace

DaVinci once wrote, “Every once and a while, go away and take a relaxing break, and then when you come back to your work, your judgment will be better – because remaining constantly at work will hinder your power of judgment.”

Big goals (like marathons) are, well, marathons. Nobody ever won a marathon by trying to sprint the entire thing. Run intelligently. Adjust your speed as you go. Sprint when you need to. Build water breaks into your day. 

For example, I’ve noticed I tend to mentally stall halfway through my day – between 3pm and 5pm. Instead of fighting it, I’ve scheduled a “half time” to take a break and do something else that I enjoy. The result: I come back for the “second half” with a much more refreshed mind and am just as productive on the whole day.

I was inspired by Bobby’s story and thought we would interview him to find out what he’s doing to get healthy and how Leap is helping him along the way. Enjoy!

What’s your background?

I am married with 3 daughters. I grew up as a military brat until I was around 12 when my family moved to Oklahoma and I have called it my home ever since. After high school and a few more years of party time I joined the Marine Corps and traveled to a few places and had some really cool experiences and met some fascinating people. I have worked in retail clothing, while in the military I got a part time job as a bouncer for a local dance club and strip club. Boy, I have some whopper of stories I could share with that job. After the Marine Corps I settled back to Oklahoma and have been working in the IT field where I have think I have found my niche with computers. 

What are your top 3 interests?

Disc Golf

Disc Golf has been dubbed the fastest growing sport you never heard of. It has its beginnings from back in the 70’s but has grown into a legitimate sport with a governing body, the PDGA, and sanctioned tournaments that can draw anywhere from 100 players to 900 players. I was introduced to disc golf about 3 years ago and have been hooked. The rules are pretty much like traditional golf but instead of a club and ball you use your body and a disc (commonly known as a frisbee). The sport allows me to get outside and be active. 

Videography

I have always loved movies and all that is involved with producing a movie. But it wasn’t until I was in the Marine Corp that I could afford to buy a Panasonic VHS camcorder that I really fell in love with video production. I was able to capture my adventures and share them with family and friends. Throughout the years it has mostly been a hobby but as video production equipment and software becomes more affordable I have been able to make some fun money from my skills. I have been able to combine my desire for video production and disc golf by producing tournament videos and tournament DVDs. About 4 times a year I travel to video tape disc golf action and put it together for the players to enjoy. I don’t make much from it, just enough to pay for my traveling. You can check out my work at CoolDaddySlickBreeze.com

Health/fitness

It is funny to say that health and fitness interest since I have always been a bigger guy and at one time reaching my biggest at 265 pounds. I was always picked on for being overweight in high school, after high school I hated when people referred to me as, “big guy”. Even in the Marine Corps where we had to run practically everyday and I was able to get my weight down I would get low inspection scores on how I looked in my uniform. The problem was that although I was getting plenty of exercise I was eating crappy foods. After I was honorably discharged from the Marine Corps I stopped exercising and that is when the diet yo-yo started.

I noticed on your blog you lost 92 pounds, how did you do it?

About 5 years ago I finally decided that I was getting too big when my scaled topped me out at 254 pounds. I started using weight watchers and it was working for me and I had reached 230 pounds fairly easy. Then my dad had a heart attack and had to have quad bypass surgery. My dad was overweight and was not being careful with what he ate. That whole ordeal sent me on an emotional ride and I turned to my old ways of eating. It took awhile but I my weight hit 265 pounds and I started having gallbladder attacks. My doctor quickly said that I should just have the gallbladder removed and it scared the poo out of me. I did not want surgery. I decided enough was enough, how many unhealthy events needed to happen for me to wake up? 

I decided to take up running. I did it all the time in the Marine Corps so I figured it would be easy. Boy was I wrong. Check out this video of me running a 1k, my legs felt like they were going to explode. But I stuck with it and trained for a 5k and did it, then a 10k and did that, then a half marathon and I have since down 2. While I was running I read every health blog I could find and resounding message that came from blogs that were centered around a whole healthy lifestyle and not fad diets instructed me that I need to change how I think about food. No more processed junk, no more low-fat this or fat-free that. I needed to eat whole foods, foods with less than 5 ingredients. I needed to start to cook my own food and stop buying the diet frozen box meals. That is when my weight-loss really started to kick into gear and I was feeling great. It took me about 2 years to lose the 92 pounds but it was well worth it.

What inspired you to go paleo?

As I mentioned before I began reading a lot of blogs on eating natural wholes foods and began to notice the buzz word “paleo” mentioned so I did some more research on it. At first it seemed that most people like paleo because of its weight-loss benefits but then I decided to read some books from some of the superstars of paleo like Robb Wolf’s Paleo Solution, Mark Sisson’s Primal Blueprint, and the Whole 30 Success Guide from Whole9life.com. These people did not just talk about the weigh-loss but the overall benefit of eating meat, fish, veggies, fruits, and nuts while saying no to grains, legumes, dairy, and sugar. I also noticed that staying away from these “anti-nutrient” foods were a big benefit to people with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia, two conditions that my wife was diagnosed with about 4years ago. She was told to go on a vegetarian diet to help with her pain. Well, that was not work so I thought it was time to try the paleo “diet”. Currently my wife and I are doing a 30 day paleo challenge. In the challenge we eat only the prescribed paleo foods. I am hoping that I can burn off the last little bit of fat I have left and get some lean muscle. My wife has always been skinny so she does not need to lose weight so we are hoping that eliminating the grains, dairy, and sugar will help relieve some of the joint pain she experiences. You can check out our journey at UncleBobbyJr.com

How is Leap helping you so far?

The 30 day challenge is where Leap comes in, I am a gadget geek, but even more so an Apple fanboy. I have had every generation of iPhone and iPad so I love having my apps. I had the weight watchers app while I tried weight watchers. I used calorie counting apps, running and fitness apps so it was natural that when I prepared for my 30 day paleo challenge that I needed a paleo app. It was in an article I think from Robb Wolf’s site that I discovered Leap and it’s 30 day Challenge. I immediately downloaded it and knew that it would be perfect for me to stay accountable to my challenge. Since calorie counting is discouraged in the paleo forum being able to take photos of my food for a digital journal on my iPhone has been helpful.

We wish Bobby all the best and will definitely keep an eye on his journey! 

Happy Monday friends!

Today we’re going to highlight a few challenges going on around the Leap community that you can join right now. What better way to start off your week than with a great challenge!

Health and Fitness

Eat clean, train mean! This challenge has been going on for a couple weeks, and I have to say, it’s intense. There are some serious health and fitness fanatics posting about their meals and workouts in here. From P90X to Paleo there is bound to be something in this challenge that gives you great inspiration for your next training session or healthy meal.  

Creativity

Create Something Every Day join this challenge to keep an eye on some awesome art from a couple Leap challengers. If you can sketch, draw, paint, or write and need some motivation to hone your skills you know what to do! This challenge just started so now is your chance.

Photography

Photo A Day just like taking pictures? If so, this challenge is perfect for you. Join up and start snapping and sharing whatever kind of cool shots you can get!

Music

The Musical Genius challenge was created to answer a simple question. What are you listening to? Join this group and share the music that you are rocking out to anytime of the day during work, rest, or exercise. Watch the video so that you can get a taste of what to expect! I’d recommend hopping in here to stay up to date on the latest hits that Nick shares on Freshjuicycuts.

Random and Fun

Join this random challenge to find and snap pics of your favorite color. You can take on Ryan Tinker and myself as we battle it out to see who can find the most things blue and green. Bring it!

The importance of vision cannot be put into words. When I was listening to Vinod Khosla speak at Rocketspace the other night, he kept reinforcing the importance of vision as the key to success for entrepreneurs and how you just keep iterating until that vision is realized. Yes it sounds simpler than it really is, and yes it’s extremely difficult to do. But having a vision that is so strong and so inspiring that it enables your team to reach a fanatical level of commitment is what it takes to push through the failures and get a taste of success. 

Your vision needs to be worth fighting for. It needs to be something that you want to solve so badly, you won’t stop under any circumstances until you get there. If you bring the right people together, your vision is what binds the team into a cohesive force to be reckoned with. It’s a reflection of the numerous failures and successes you have experienced, the nuances in each member’s personality, their strengths, weaknesses, and passions fused together.

Sometimes the vision is there at the the start, and sometimes you discover the vision together. I think the latter is even more powerful. When the vision evolves out of the team’s collective experience of launching, getting feedback from users, learning, and supporting each other through the ups and downs, each person has more skin in the game than ever before. The vision very much a part of you, and you are very much a part of the vision. 

If you haven’t uncovered or defined your vision, keep shipping. Up until recently, we never really articulated our world changing vision, partially because we didn’t really know what it was. Now that we have, everything is clear. We’re working backwards from that vision and figuring out how we are going to get there. If your team hasn’t found that fountain of inspiration yet, I urge you to keep moving forward. There is a reason you are doing this in the first place and when you uncover it, believe me, you will know.

We’re going to completely change how you engage in your interests and connect with people who are just as passionate about those interests as you are. Believe me, this is the first thing each of us think about every morning. It’s what makes us tick. It’s what gives us the confidence to sell all our belongings and move across the country, to live without an income, to give up a cushy job. It’s what we’re fighting for, and the importance of this vision can’t really be put into words. When you come across it, you’ll know.

What’s your team’s vision? 

I was having lunch with a friend last week. Both of us are really into trying the latest health and fitness hacks, trends, diets, and programs. We also have a passion for behavior change and personal challenges. So, naturally when we started talking about Leangains, the diet he was currently doing, it sounded extremely intriguing. When he said “c’mon man, it’s time for a cut, every man deserves to see his abs at least once in his life,” I took it as a challenge - and that was all it took. I had heard a lot about this diet, but never took the “leap.” Over the weekend I started looking into Leangains. 

This is the guy who created the diet, Martin Berkhan, as you can tell he’s in unbelievable shape. If you think it’s just “genetics” you’re mistaken. Take a look at some of the results that his clients have had, it’s just unreal. Now, you’re probably thinking that this diet is extreme and that it’s near impossible to follow for the average person. I thought so too at first, but I found out that once you find the right resources and can navigate through all the information, it’s actually very manageable.

Leangains Basics

Leangains is based on Intermittent Fasting. Yep, fasting. This means that you will be going for a certain period with no food. Now I’m not going to go into all the science behind why it works - but it does and it’s great for fat burning. If you want to know the details, you can check the “resources” section at the end of this post for additional reading. But I’ll show you the basics and how my plan is set up.

Here are the basics:

• There is an 8 hour feeding window and a 16 hour fast, this means that you can only eat from 1pm to 9pm during the day. The rest of the time, no food!
• You cycle your calories. On lifting days, you eat a little over your basal metabolic rate (the calories that you burn naturally). On rest days, consume a bit below BMR.
• Lifting days are higher carb and lower fat. Rest days are higher fat, lower carb. Every day is high protein.
• Lift heavy weights 3 times per week and focus on the big 4. Squats, deadlifts, weighted chins, and bench press. Training fasted right before your first meal is optimal.
• Don’t eat crap. This diet isn’t as restrictive as Paleo, but avoid processed stuff the best you can. Focus on eating real food.

So how can you get started?

• First, calculate your BMR, here is a great tool for getting this number right. Mine is around 2500 calories.
• Decide if you want to bulk up, cut, or keep the same bodyweight. Right now, I’m cutting. It’s recommended to start with a “recomp” -20% calories on rest days and +20% cals of your BMR on training days.
• Calculate your macros and calories for training days and rest days. I’m doing +10% of my BMR on training days, and -30% on rest days. Thats around 2750 cals on training and 1750 cals on rest. I’m aiming for over 200 grams of protein on all days. On training days 300 grams of carbs and between 20-40 grams of fat. Rest days: 50 grams of carbs and no limit on fat (from healthy sources).
• Start working out. If you’re a beginner check out Stronglifts 5x5, intermediate or advanced? Try this: Reverse Pyramid Training.