With the master control habit, we can wrap up Week 2 of Bulletproof Habits. I’ve said before, but I’m always happy to retrace my steps, exercise leads to a healthy mindset. By routinely making the decision to jolt the system a little and nudge the heart rate up, you’re cultivating a state of mind that’s likely to make healthy decisions as the day stretches on.
Here’s a study that demonstrates just that, showing some lazy millennials being told to get up and move for a few weeks. Without getting any instructions on their nutritional habits, they started choosing healthier foods without getting asked to.
It makes perfect sense when you think about it. Once these people jumped on a treadmill and ran themselves ragged for ten minutes, they probably all arrived at the same conclusion. The number on the screen was much closer to zero than that one slice of meat feast domino’s pizza saved over from the other night.
When you make that connection, and realise how pitiful the number of calories that exercise typically burns, you tend to be a bit more careful on what is allowed to sneak on your plate. So it’s always worth running yourself into the ground on a foggy Saturday morning. Like anyone who’s lived through war, the pain makes you smarter.
And here’s the Week 2 blueprint of your exercise habit.
Week 2 Bulletproof Exercise Walkthrough
1. Pick a set time, preferably early on in the morning. This way the day doesn’t end fast-forwarding as you pick your way through the related content on youtube.
2. Change into your workout gear. State your intent to take care of business. With practice, the brain will start to pick up on these patterns. Spandex means serious.
3. Head outside as you would have on Week 1, or stay indoors if you’ve already hit your quota of thrill-seeking. That doesn’t mean you’re getting off, because there’s plenty of options at home. Check out my blog if you don’t believe me.
4. Whereas Week 1 only required that you started to exercise, this time we’ll raise the bar by setting a timer for twenty minutes. You can’t throw in the towel until those minutes are up.
5. For some excellent ideas that don’t involve cardio, feel free to try out any of my band workouts. If you don’t have bands, I’ve left a few links somewhere on my facebook feed. Or just look up ‘CrossFit bands’ on ebay.
6. Repeat this daily. If you miss a day, it won’t matter as long as you’ve still tallied up 4-6 successes over the week. The goodwill stacks up quickly.
Whenever you’re in need of a pick me up, and motivation’s dipping, remind yourself that strength is the product of struggle.
