Full Strength LIFE

My no iPhone Experience: From Raving Fan to Just Raving

I love my Macbook. No big thing until you consider I used to think macs were for artists. I was an engineer, wrote code, never liked Windows but knew how to make a PC work, low-level. So Macs were not my thing.

Then I got one—a new one—and loved it. Still, I miss a few things about my PC’s but overall, no comparison. It’s all Mac, all the time for me.

All good. Then I finally decided to get connected, to get the new 3G iPhone.

Being a busy guy who values my time immensely, I waited until the rush was over. I think it’s way cool (like as in "nuts" cool) that people will stand in line for days to get a phone but don’t think for a moment I’m going there.

Now way, no how.

So, I wait… and wait… then it looks like things are easing up. And it’s my birthday and my wife, Angie has given me a gift certificate to get one a new iPhone, so off the APPLE world I go.

Here’s the really, really short version of my ravingly bad experience. I walk in… no one talks to me. Perhaps I look too old? Who knows… I walk and walk. No one. Then I spot a random, unlabeled line in the center of the store. More people my age standing there. I ask. Yep, this is the iPhone line.

Just 4 people ahead of me. No big thing, right?

The Opposite of DIET = TI < EDHow to eat more and weigh less

Dieting sucks! And yet, at this moment nearly half of the US population is engaged in an ongoing struggle with food.

You can flip dieting around and stop focusing on deprivation, on less and embrace the freedom to eat more and still weigh less.

For most, a diet is a period of suffering, deprivation and a moment to moment battle between willpower and desire. Certainly not a long term success strategy for life. As I share in my book, Strength for Life, you can free yourself from this battle with the “10-steps to Dieting Freedom” in chapter 11 but today I want to go farther and expose the major flaws of the dieting mindset.

You see, dieting as a strategy for losing weight is at best half the equation. It’s focus is on limiting your total intake (TI). It’s got nothing to do with the other half of the equation: the energy you use through exercise, movement or your metabolism (Energy Depletion ED).

Trying to get thinner with nutritional limbo—eating less and less—is like trying to budget your way to wealth. Controlling your expenses does not wealth create. Want more wealth, create more value, offer more, generate more. Just the same, want to enjoy eating more freely? Take real action and use more energy in your life.

Dieting works on the simple (and relatively if not entirely accurate) concept that losing weight has simply to do with consuming fewer calories than your body utilizes each day. Thus, if you eat less than you “burn” you will utilize energy reserves which is in some part body fat.

Like I say, this is a relative truth for not only are all calories NOT created equal but when using ONLY calories in (Total Intake in this equation) to regulate fat loss, it’s a slippery slope. Try a little too hard to encourage fat loss, drop the calories just a wee-bit too low and the body will freak out and start holding more fat.

The opposite of dieting—and the more sound, sensible and complete solution for weight loss is to emphasize Energy Depletion (ED). It’s simple, rather than simply trying to eat less than you burn each day, focus on burning more calories than you eat. For when you’re (TI) Total energy Intake is less than your (ED) Energy Depletion you’ll lose weight. And as bonus you will be gaining a leave of fitness, a stronger more energized body.

This may seem rather obvious as I point it out but be honest… how often have you been told and or wanted to believe that it’s ALL about the diet, it’s about intake? It’s not. Effective, sustainable fat loss requires that you manage both with some level of clarity and mastery.

The REAL Joy of REAL Victory

Wow! Can’t you almost feel the victory yourself from the expression on Michael Phelps entire body?

In our plastic-idol, paper-thin, make believe world you don’t get any more authentic than this expression. You can rest assured, not one iota of this response was intended to entertain or impress.

If you too were fortunate enough to witness last nights (or this morning’s) miraculous come from behind, underdog victory of the US Men’s 4 x 100 relay team, you know why Michael Phelps was not alone in this stance. So amazing was the come back in the last 25 meters that the best I could come up with was

“Wow!”

Impressive on their part… speechless on mine.

This is why we watch sports—not to idol worship but to get a taste of the human experience—the ecstasy that comes only from achievement well earned. Sure, we want to be a small part of great achievements but there’s also that awakening of our own (often disowned) potential greatness. Fact is, success and belief—which go hand in hand—are contagious. When we bask in the glow of those who “can” we start to feel (and recognize) that “we can too.”

This is the first and essential step to achievement for what we believe is our reality.

The Easy Way Fantasy
Unfortunately, for many it’s not the belief they are infected with—it’s not a dose of possibility that gets ignited but a want—the desire to have this thing or that experience. Whether it’s riches, winning or even finding a companion many it’s in our nature to find an easier way—to want the short-cut.

Now, this time like you mean it

Some people will tell you I'm intense--others, myself included, prefer "passionate" as a descriptor for my unrestrained energy.

As passionate as I am about a strong body and strong mind, I'm equally passionate (e.g. intolerant) of those who mail it in... who are just faking it. And I mean that in any and every aspect of life. As a whole, it seems to me that's there's far too much acceptance in America today... we've taken to settling for "good enough" far too often to excel.

And as a result we're getting our proverbial ass-kicked in many areas by other cultures around the globe. This is impact I can see but the day to day reality of it is maddening--we simply expect too little of ourselves and those around us.

Look around, you'll see people "phoning life in" all around. They do it in the gym, watching TV and talking more than exercising, they do it at restaurants any place where there's an opportunity for service.

I agree with Christopher Walken and Seth Godin, no doubt we could use "more cowbell."