Balancing life with work; here are some personal truths

Posted on by mack fitt pijewski

If you analyze the concept of balancing work with life it results to be an uncomfortable aspiration, for a wholesome lifestyle. Because balance is about stasis and staying in the comfort zone: happy family, kids well behaved, work doing well and then pray that everything is going to be perfect forever. Besides this way of thinking result toxic in the end because we are giving categories such as “work” is bad and “life” is good, working is a nightmare and living is a dream, we survived another day at work but instead we live our life happily. Therefore, the goal, or so we are told, is to diminish the weight of work with the pleasure of life.

However, the meaning of work is not something that we could consider as opposed to the concept of life, it is instead an important part of life as it is: family, friends, hobbies and being part of a community. Combined all these aspects of life share the good, wonderful and wholesome moments but also they share the sad ones too. And the same applies to work as well, but since we are conditioned to think in it as bad, we tend to lose sight of all the great possibilities and positivity implicit in working.

Then is logic that is going to be more positive giving up to the idea of trying to balance the unbalanced. Instead let’s treat work just the same as we do with life: by seeking the maximum benefits doing what we love. Here is what I want to say.

Please consider the next, two persons that work having exactly the same task. They appear to be gaining strength and joy in very different moments.

Let’s make the next mental exercise, think in the activities you do regularly as threads; some can be black others grey, white or even red. Then some of this threads appear to be formed by an estrange substance, with all these activities you can develop a love relationship, to say it that way: even before you do them you find that you are looking to it, while you are doing the activities times goes by quickly and after you finish you feel accomplished. These activities are red threads and the more of them you have in your life less probabilities of experiencing burnout.

In order to emulate these results with your job, you can spend a week in love of it. However, this might sound odd but what it means is just to take a regular week at work and with the help of a pad, that is going to be with you the whole week; make two columns and on top of these write “loved it” and on top of the other column “hated it.” Now during that week at any moment when you feel any of the sings of love write it in the “loved it” column and describe exactly what were you doing at that moment. But if you find yourself feeling the inverse then write it down in the “hated it” column along with the short specific details of what you were doing at the moment.

It is likely that many of your weekly activities won’t make it to the list, but since you are going to spend your week in love with your work by the end of this period you are going to see a list with plenty of activities in the “loved it” column and this activities are going to feel different to you than the rest of your work. Because they will have a different emotional value which is going to generate in you a distinctive positive feeling that is going to lift you up.

Conducted research in over nineteen countries that revealed that more than 70% of workers feel capable of modifying their job to fit their strengths better, however only 18% of workers do that so. Now your challenge is to start changing, over time, the perspective and content of your job to contain more of the things you love doing and less or any of what you hate.

Instead of thinking in categories such as “work” and “life” that we should not be trying to balance. We should be focusing in “love” and “loathe.” Then our goal should be that over time, day by day and week by week, to balance the terms of our work closer to activities we love and far from the others. And in result we are going to feel better and our colleagues too; friends are family as well because our good energy is going to be contagious.

Attitudes that only the best online fitness coaches have

Posted on by mack fitt pijewski

If you already enjoy teaching people how to build a healthy lifestyle and even more building a specific body physique, loss fat or be better in their sport, the career of personal fitness trainer or coach is your day to day operation and your reality. Now it is time to ask yourself what next for you, maybe event for your team if you build one. Considering moving to an online model of business, this is what next!
I know you will have some concerns and a lot of questions, and I’m happy to help.

Becoming an online fitness coach has some excellent perks:

  • You can reach a greater audience, and help them.
  • The money flow is going to increase.
  • Like in any other online business, you will gain more freedom.

Here at MackFitt.com you are going to find many lessons that would help you to become the best online fitness coach.

Work for your audience, not for your idol (ego)

A common mistake that I have seen in many new online coaches is that they tend to create content according to what they think might be liked by their fitness heroes, idols or person of inspiration. Even worse sometimes they copy them.

The fact is that if you want to connect with the public to help them to reach their goals you need to start structuring your content to make it easily understandable for people that are just starting with fitness.

Be open-minded about guidance from other experts.

It is beneficial to have access to people with different perspectives about the goals you have, how to achieve them and overall your career path. That is why you should be looking for someone that has already obtained what you are seeking for and learn from them, but not copy them.

Create a conversation or honest talk with someone successful in the niche you want to exist; this can be more helpful than reading many books about the subject, besides you will be proven that your goals are possible.

Teach with actions

Your future clients expect that their online fitness coach looks like someone well trained. That is why in that sense, you need to embody your lifestyle philosophies. This is because it is usual to find qualified coaches that don’t look fit at all.

If your target client with some extra weight you should be showing them that you dominated the lifestyle that they are aiming for then you need to look healthy.

Be prepared for working like a beast

In order to make your online career successful first, you will need to work extra hard. Because besides maintaining your regular job duty, you also need to write the scripts for your videos, manage your social media, posting the content and reading the feedback from your audience. All this takes time and effort.

You will need to mature a new mindset and be prepared because some other parts of your life might be left as secondary priorities. New workflow and creation of some online process can take months to start thinking that you can move forward with your online career. Because you want to build a sustainable business, not a quick buck.

Become an influencer (but not for social gain/game)

Being an influencer means to have the power to reach, “be listen” and take into consideration by a great person for your followers.

Besides, if you are an online fitness coach having this influence is going to give you authority and validity, which is helpful to sell your brand, services and products.

From the potential client perspective, they will like to get feedback from many people..”how good of a coach you are and how you were able to help all them”. Additionally if your budget alow, they can see your ads all over the internet; it is just natural for them to think that you are serious trainer or couch.

Do not stay only with the mainstream media

To become a relevant online fitness coach, the only thing that you always have to be producing is new content, new routines, exercises, diet plans and more. This is the only way your brand is going to grow and become relevant. Select what works the best for you, but don’t create falls statements to just to create content, be true to yourself and to your knowledge about the subject.

Now there are many channels from where you could distribute the content you are going to be producing and those channels are mostly free: Youtube, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and even Twitch to name a few.

However try sometimes testing new channels, that are not as popular, but they have good traffic. This is an excellent strategy to get to know people and start promoting your brand. However, it is usually really effective if at the start you just focus on helping them without expecting anything in return. Select the channel/s what works for you regarding the creation of the content and distribution of it. 

Offer free coaching for friends and family

At the start of your online career, you should not be focusing on the profits but in spreading the name of your brand. Because of that, you might want to give some really cheap and even free coaching sessions. There are two significant benefits by doing so:

  • You learn by doing. The fastest way to acquire the skill sets of an online fitness coach is coaching people for free to gain experience.
  • You will gain more and more referrals once people start getting results fast and that is translated into more clients and eventually more money. After all your clients are the ones that show the success of your brand, and if they love using your service, they will tell other people.

Connect with your clients with honesty

Once you start managing a big number of people, there is not going to be possible to answer each one of them individually. So you should not be promising that you are going to give them a personalize session since, in the end, everything is going to be automatized, as much as possible. Nonetheless, this does not mean that your service is not going to be effective. Structure your offering so you can deliver what you will promisse, with understanding how much time you will have.

Besides, you need to be ethical, so you should not be telling your clients that they are going to achieve their fitness goals without any effort and in a few weeks. You have to show them you care about them because this is the start of their new healthy lifestyle.

The fact that there is not going to be an individual direct communication, or if need it or designed very limited, does not mean that you cannot know what is going on with your clients’ journey through your program or coaching.

You as an expert know there are several reasons that make people binge into food or embrace other self-destructive habits: a bad break up, being fired from a job or just being sad can trigger these behaviours.

Using statistical tools, you can administrate all this information and prepare for a more meaning full coaching session.

9 Proven ways to Stick to exercising and your diet

Posted on by mack fitt pijewski

Consistency might be the best advice to give to someone pursuing a lifestyle change. Because it is so easy to know all the right steps to follow, so many useful methods, people capable of teaching you everything you need to know. However, most fitness enthusiasts fail to be able to achieve the most difficult part, staying on track for the long run.

If you are motivated to change your lifestyle here are 9 proven ways to help you to keep on track and be consistent with your goal.

1.            Build momentum bit by bit

There are some people that at the beginning of their training tend to feel like doing 6 days of a week routine without considering that they can get exhausted. And this attitude is most likely causing them to quit, especially if they used to have a sedentary lifestyle. We must start at a pace that we can keep in the long term.

Start slowly and as you get stronger, building momentum, intensify your routines. One key is to make exercising and habit: it only takes between 3 to 5 weeks to form one. Once you are able to repeat the simple routine it would get easier and more enjoyable. And to make this even easier try starting with a two-day workout routine the first month, after that you can advance to something more challenging.

This slow pace is also beneficial for dieting; start learning how to control the hunger with a low calories deficit and increase it once you build some momentum over a month.

2.            Motivation is not infinite

The power of will is like a muscle and it can get tired or depleted, and when that happens, we can lose our motivation. Therefore, it is fiscally impossible to be motivated all the time, even professional athletes can be down from time to time. However, the good news is that if you focus to make the exercise and habit then you won’t need motivation, your body will need exercise, with time. Also, take in mind that skipping training days can also become a habit, so don’t fall for that.

3.            Find a good friend

If you introduce someone else to your routines it becomes harder to skip a workout routine or eat unhealthy foods. Because no one wants to show their friends that kind of lack of determination, actually you would feel motivated to be accountable.

Make sure that your bro or sis has the same fitness level, same schedules, and goals as you. Since that would make the process easier for both.

4.            Make a precise fitness plan

It is recommendable to search for a routine adequate to your level and compatible with your goals. Because it would help you to stay on track, also it is a way to register your progress. And because of that, you are going to be able to celebrate each small victory building confidence, each day you followed the plan.

5.            Focus on monthly goals

Losing a noticeable amount of weight might take months in the best cases. Sincerely maintaining your diet and workout plan for that long might prove to be difficult, for anyone. This is why you need to keep your mind in the short-term goals and live them month by month. Once you start seeing yourself fulfilling the small goals you are going to feel motivated and committed to keeping it going.

6.            Stick to your own rules

It shows commitment to yourself to have a strict set of rules and it becomes easier to follow your own fitness plans. By example, you could start by saying to yourself to never to skip more than 3 workout sessions and always have good proteins and vegetables with most of your meals.

7.            You can improve your routines by having small habits

Habits, like sleeping 6 to 8 hours every day or eating fruit with every breakfast, are some of many small habits that can be built easily than later might be able to help you to remind your subconscious of your bigger habits and goals. After all, you are doing all of this because you wanted to change your life for the better.

Actually, there are many studies backing up that small habits have a huge impact in long term goals. Since people that are able to rest properly or drink the adequate amount of water are able to lose more weight than those who do not.

8.            Start your day by exercising

In the morning you are going to be less tired which makes more difficult to skip sessions but also there are fewer distractions since your days are just starting. Besides, it becomes easier to make healthier decisions with your meals during the rest of the days, if you start focused first thing in the morning.

9.            Do not hide behind some weak pretext

Having a healthier lifestyle is not something easy to achieve and it requires a lot of commitment. Don’t fall in those justifications: I feel tired today, there is no time, or I am busy with work, just to name some. That won’t get you anywhere just do what you have to do, and don’t feel afraid of coming out your comfort zone.

The Biggest mistakes we are making with our diets

Posted on by mack fitt pijewski

The best way to improve is with a personal trainer

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Nowadays our society is so deeply connected that it is no longer necessary to go outside to treasure hunt in our towns in order to find the perfect professional able to help us to be healthy. Instead, we can use social media in order to reach our goals in fitness.

Instagram has become one of the most popular platforms to follow experts by example: Jeanette Jenkins (@msjeanettejenkins) or Hilda Laura Amaral (@hilda.laura.amaral). Because, in real time, you are going to be able to see their routines, their results and seek their advice.

Many of these experts have years of experience, their own gymnasiums, fan clubs, and in some cases, they have published books. You can follow all their trajectory with a simple click and once you have the confidence in someone’s method you can let them help you improve your lifestyle and diet.

Do not try to change your lifestyle habits in one day

One of the most common mistake in dieting is to have a black and white vision with food. That might help us to avoid some really bad foods, like junk food, but it will not save us from bad habits. So it is recommended to have a wider perspective over what we are needing to eat.

Lowering the intakes of calories and sugar, even when it has good intentions, is not always recommended. However, precise control of calories does matter. We must keep our attention on the quality of the foods we are eating.

One rule of thumb is to seek that 80% of all our calories are made of real food prioritizing proteins, fats and vegetables. This is fishes, eggs, fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds and with all these the right proportion of carbohydrate depending on our energy expenses.

You are going to expend more energy the more active you are. Therefore you are going to be able to take more carbohydrates. Our body is like any other machine the more work it does the more energy is going to need.

The human organism can store the extra of carbohydrates as glycogen until certain storage capacity; we use this resource when we exercise. However, when we have that excess without any activity, it is just going to be transformed into fat.

Do not overdo yourselves

In order to improve your lifestyles, the first big steps are to change your diets and also to exercise more. However many experts agree that changing the diets might prove to be the most difficult of the two.

Usually changing our diets require a long time commitment and some painful sacrifices, at first. But exercising can be enjoyable, relaxing and it only requires a few hours of the week; that way is not near close as overwhelming to most people.

Like in any other discipline to be successful with fitness it is necessary to find something you love about it. Besides, it is best to take things one step at the time in order to build momentum. Those who are able to manage to be at a slow pace without desperate are, in most expert’s experiences, the ones that achieve the most.

Is about to improve what you have rather than changing it

People tend to see lifestyle changes as a way to change what they are into some expectation, most of the times unreal, of what they want. This view is totally wrong as it builds unnecessary weigh over our shoulders.

Before starting a new routine let’s remove the phrase “I should” from our vocabularies. Instead, try to find something you feel interested in that new lifestyle and with the new training; becoming stronger, faster, having more stamina or even just being healthier. It is better to find that thing that motivates you to seek your goal.

Take in mind that we live in an era where our time seems to be mostly busy. This is due to the easy access to a never-ending stream of information; that can take our attention in any second. That means that in order to stop saying that you are going to do it and doing it for real it is going to take some will force.

Besides you are going to find so much data and different pieces of advice about diets and exercise that won’t be a mystery if you don’t know how to even start. Because of that, just make it simple and remember your body needs amino acids (meet), minerals and vitamins (fruits and vegetables), omega 3 and omega 6 besides other fatty acids (nuts, seeds, avocados, olive oils, and oiled fishes).

The best advice to anyone interested in a goal is to celebrate the small victories. Small changes add momentum and allow you to see and feel your progress. With time all these changes are going to add up making possible everything you dreamed about.

“FIT IS NOT A DESTINATION, IT’S A WAY OF LIFE”

Posted on by mack fitt pijewski

Starting off our today’s post with a beautiful quotation, “It’s not about perfection. It’s about the effort. And, when you bring that effort every single day, that’s where transformation happens. And that’s how change occurs.”

If you want to stay fit & healthy and away from the illness then you should establish a healthy lifestyle. Living a healthy lifestyle paves the way to do all those activities that you wanted to do; it gives you strength and robustness. Question, how to adopt a healthy lifestyle? Well, the easiest way to sustain a vigorous lifestyle is by doing regular exercise followed by a balanced diet.

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However, many hypotheses predict that life today is much busier than it once. That’s why a lot of people don’t have enough time to go to the gym and exercise. Still, they can maintain their healthy lifestyle by doing a few simple activities ranging from jogging, walking, swimming even dancing to simple (at home) push-ups or sit-ups. These activities can be performed anywhere and at anytime.

Let’s talk about healthy eating now. One of the healthier intakes is natural fresh fruits and veggies accompanied by drinking sufficient amount of water.  If veggies and fruits are not just your thing, and you just can’t avoid sizzling and finger licking junkies than you gotta at least limit yourself in eating such kind of unhealthy foods folks. Just avoid canned goods, sweets, fatty foods etc.

Last but not least way to adopt a healthy lifestyle is to stop utilizing unhealthy vices in every possible way. Too much smoking and drinking alcoholic beverages can significantly harm your body and health. It reduces your stamina and weakens your immune system. You should avoid these unhealthy vices. I understand, you like going to the parties get drunk and all; you should enjoy the parties, nobody is stopping you from that, but try to limit your alcoholic intake. Additionally, start taking health supplements to boost up your energy levels and brain cells. A couple of vitamins, mineral water could help.

“Cleanliness is half health” – said by doctors. It is also an essential part of adopting a healthy lifestyle. Make sure to clean your environment, maintain fresh air at home. How?  Plants! Go grab a few pots and a little sweet soil-plant a few seeds and you are good to go. Nevertheless, these are the only guidelines in adopting a healthy lifestyle. The only way to make it work for you is the commitment by yourself in following these simple steps that will surely help you become happy and healthy.

SHOULD YOU INVEST IN DNA FITNESS AND DIET TEST

Posted on by mack fitt pijewski

Ever since I heard about the emergence of fitness and diet testing on the consumer market, I was tremendously mesmerized. The concept of a plan based on our own DNA’s just gained my affection. And, I really like this idea; it made me anticipate that DNA testing could be more helpful in the long-run. I was really curious to know what my DNA could tell me, and whether it could further help me to improve my health lifestyle through fitness and diet.

GENETIC TESTING

When taking these tests, I have discovered that these tests are really important & useful and totally fascinating to properly know the various things that are being tested for. Here a question arises “what are genes?”

GENES

A gene is defined as a segment of the DNA (short for deoxyribonucleic acid) molecule, which consists of the instructions for how, when and where your body makes each of the many thousands of proteins necessary for life. Our every gene consists of thousands of combinations of 4-letters that makes our genetic code. These are A, T, C and G. Indications of a predisposition to dietary issues or sporting potential can be made through different variations. We are blessed to be a part of such an advanced era where access to DNA testing has amplified a lot.

HOW IS GENE TESTING EXECUTED?

One of the very common examples of gene testing is an “A heel Prick Test.” You might’ve heard about this test before. These are carried out on all the newborn babies in the US & EU to detect few rare but serious health conditions. After that, the necessary DNA data collected from these tests are used to diagnose people with genetic conditions. However, consumer prescribed DNA tests gets results far less clinical and ruthless. For now, they are quite limited to emphasize and define correlations between gene expressions and exercise-related or dietary character. A simple, quick and non-invasive approach to collect DNA data is embraced by these kinds of tests. The DNA from cells is picked up from the inside of your mouth.

A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF FITNESS DNA TEST

The company that I came across, providing DNA-based diet and fitness testing was “DNAFit.” I was not only the fan of what they were offering but also loved their strong branding.

The DNAFit offered a test kit which was really impressive. It was quite well-presented and easy to get used to it. The test was very simple; I woke up in the morning, opened a pack containing swab and rubbed it inside of my cheek for a minute. The swab was then enclosed in a tube, barcoded, and sent back to DNAFit for processing.

REPORT AND CONSULTATION

After a couple of weeks (because like you guys know, I live in Hong Kong), I got my hands on the reports. I found the reports very helpful. They appeared in a professional report format. They can be downloaded with a single click to refer to time and time again…

The report you get is very compressive, highlighting and explaining each and every aspect of providing you with your results and recommendations. I really love this kind of stuff; I get to know all my data and results in a really organized manner.

My personal DNAFit Infographic;

Also what I got:

  • Introduction to genetics and genetic engineering
  • A summary of key results
  • Results covering an explanation relationship with attribute tested
  • Additional information
  • Glossary

Though DNAFit presented a lot of data in a very clear way still, it is important to consult one of their experts to talk through this. The expert will talk you through all the aspects of my report in depth and help you in understanding the implications of the result. Working hard to improve aerobic potential may only witness small improvement to other athletes. Nevertheless, with the assistance of coach interpreting these results, anyone can tailor there training and fitness lifestyle to short & long-term goals.

So, I learned that implication of the results can be a “little” complex. It would be beneficial to seek the advice of an Athlete expert if you’re utilizing these results to amplify your sports performance.

PACKAGES AND PRICING

The price range for DNAFit testing for fitness starts from $2450 HKD with a premium version which includes additional benchmarking and reporting.

DNAFit testing kit + DNAFit’s Expert advice and your consultation can be done with 50% discount code: ARCH18

Ulisses Jr. off camera about DNAFit, 

GOAL SETTINGS; THE FIRST STEP IN TURNING THE IMPOSSIBLE INTO THE POSSIBLE

Posted on by mack fitt pijewski

“The victory of success is half won when one gains the habit of Setting and achieving goals”- Og Mandino.

In each and every corner of the world, top-level athletes, successful business people, and achievers in all fields all set goals. This deed gives you a long-term vision, and boosts your self-confidence, plus, it also gives your life a healthy direction. Setting a goal is easier said than done and this is what that compels #MackFitt and #FitTeam, to bring you a few very easy ways to set and achieve different very essential goals in your life. Since I am based in Hong Kong so; I’ll be incorporating a few facts and figures related to this city in setting up goals. So, without a further delay, let’s jump into it.

It’s January 2018, and while celebrating the New Year’s Eve, I am getting a strong feeling that you might have thought about whether or not you are keeping a New Year’s Resolution this Year…And also looking for lifestyle changes like competing in a Spartan Race HK (discount code: MACKFITT)or half marathon or taking up a new sport. But like always, after working 2 or 3 months in the race of achieving your goal, in the end, you find yourself exhausted, sitting on the couch and thinking about never going back to training ever again. But now I think it’s enough and we need to break this myth. To help you out with this, I will try brings you the best ways which could help you a lot in achieving your goals in 2018.

UTILIZATION OF NEW YEAR AS THE CATALYST

At the start of the year, everyone is back to get fit and so you should be, all it takes is a little bit of time and effort to kick the things off. Step outside and you know what everything else will follow.

GROUP TRAINING

While paving your way to achieving the goal of being fit, keeping yourself motivated is the main key. Getting yourself charged and motivated on your own can be a little difficult and can lead you in the disastrous direction. In order to encounter that, you should train with someone or a group of people that push you and gives you extra motivation during thick and thin to carry on and progress.

MUSIC IS THE KEY

Music is the key! And that is something that I’d never talk about before. Yes! Music that you love charges you a lot like nothing else! Listen to good music can give you goosebumps and emotion which you can transform into energy and helps you to remain concentrated during your workout. Music could also be a great source of stress reliever too, which ultimately gives you strength to push harder because you won’t be thinking of the negatives and pains.

GET YOURSELF NEW CHALLENGES

One of the most common mistakes that people make is that they set their goals way too high, then their strength and when they struggle to achieve them they lose interest. Now, truly I am not against this, I reckon you should set high goals, but make sure to remember that it is going to take a while to get there. And while working hard with a very little progress may let you in a phase which could be quite boring for you. How about setting up smaller goals and smaller challenges along the way? This will definitely help you make that goal.

For instance, presently you are going to the gym two days a week, how about going 3 or 4 days a week or even 5? Suppose you are running 5KM in 10 minutes, how about setting up a challenge of running the same distance with less time interval? Now these challenges may sound interesting and get you out of the boredom! Ultimately, it will help you in achieving your bigger goal too.

START WRITING YOUR PROGRESS.

Penning your progress is a good way of keeping an eye on your track to achieving the goal. Whenever you write down your progress and later on track it down, you’ll be able to see yourself developing over the time. When I started my bodybuilding transformation and training sessions when I moved to Hong Kong, I used to write a record of all the circumstances and I still do it…And I see a lot of improvements in my work when I compare the previous and present record. Getting there is way much better than before. :). In this way, you can also keep an eye on what speeded your progress and what delayed it… So, you can adopt some improvements in your goal achieving way.

GET PROFESSIONAL HELP

By this, I mean a “Professional Personal Trainer” who could be a useful weapon when you faced with challenges that prevent you from reaching that higher level. The last sentence could have left you with a lot of questions like how to find a perfect personal trainer, etc. I have written a whole article on this, which I insist you please have a look if you are looking for a personal trainer.

A professional trainer can assist and guide you going forward with your progress. Think of them as a friend who’ll motivate and push you, and never let you down. His only wish is for you to succeed and transform yourself.

PRIORITIZE YOURSELF NO MATTER WHAT

It’s the matter of common observation that people nowadays place a premium on caring for others. Although, it’s a good deed, but sometimes holding on to too much stress could be harmful to your mental health. You need to take control of your own life and make yourself to priority. I guess there is really nothing wrong with that. At the end of it all, it’s only you pitted against your soon-to-be former self and with that in mind; you should be taking care of numero UNO.