FURY Friday || #Truth

Hey kids. Today I’m dropping a little truth bomb on you. I know all the fitness gurus you see on the IG and the Facebook and all the other Social Medias talk about consistency, talk about that healthy lifestyle, talk about being fit in general. The biggest problem I see with that is this: they make their LIVINGS off being healthy. Day in and day out, they see clients, they train, they compete, and it’s their LIFE. Of course they can be about that lifestyle. 

But what do you do if you don’t have that life. It can be difficult to manage sometimes. Even 30 min. Even the 8 min I asked for last week. And you know what, it’s OK. 

The biggest realization we need to come to is that we need to make sure that where ever we left off, we have the determination to get back on the damn horse and ride that shit till it bucks us off again. Because really, life’s gonna do that shit. Because it’s not that fair.

To put it in perspective, I’ve fallen off the horse. Yes I like to be healthy. I like to be strong. I like to give the people in my life a beautiful person to see everyday. But sometimes life doesn’t give you that break. Or it tests your metal.

Recently, at work I’ve begun to feel a whole lot more exhausted than usual. It’s a psychological problem. I stopped going to the gym about a month and a half ago. My strength has been declining. I’ve been busy with side projects. I haven’t had time to count my macros. I’m up almost 10 lbs. My commute got longer. I don’t see my friends anymore. My reasons for being at work are slowly leaving. Holy shit. Where did the time go. Where did my energy go. 

This is a real problem, because if I feel like this, there must be 10, 20, 100, 1000, more people that feel the same way. It’s mental fatigue. Mental exhaustion. You aren’t tired because you’re physically tired. You are emotionally tired. Your psyche is tired of dealing with all the bullshit that’s around you.

The thing that sucks is that my advice is some that I haven’t been able to fulfill yet: MAKE A CHANGE. All the fitness gurus in the world would say the same thing, but it’s always easier said than done. You’ll be doing your damnedest to make the change and you won’t feel the weight off your shoulders until it’s done, but you won’t have the energy to do so because you haven’t made the change yet. Double edged sword, right?

So I’m sorry. You may say I’ve been putting up a facade to you. But I’m trying to be honest with you here. The way I see it, I’m in a setback. Now, in all cases, I need to bust my ass to get back to where I was and better. I know for sure I want my health back, but I also know I need to make some big changes for my soul to be rejuvinated.

I promise to make the change. Do you?

#truth

(mainly because I like cheese)

-FURY

FURY Friday || BEST QUICK WORKOUT - Kettlebell Swing

Oh FURY! I have no time to go to the gym to get any kind of decent workout in. What do I do? Well let me tell you, I have the key. And it takes less time to do than it takes me to take my morning poop. Yup. 

The exercise in question is the Russian Kettlebell Swing. Now, before you get on me for not being patriotic and not recommending the American Kettlebell Swing, there is a key reason why I recommend the Russian version first: SAFETY. It’s easier to get hurt during the movement of the American version and if you don’t watch the weight you are using and your form, you can hurtskie the old shoulders and back. So we’ll can the American Kettlebell Swing the more awesome, expert mode version that you can get to after you master the Russian Kettlebell Swing beginner mode. Fair?

OK. Steps are a good idea:

1) Stand with feet shoulder width apart.

2) Pick up Kettlebell from between your feet. It should be at mid-foot. DON’T ARCH YOUR BACK. SQWAT DOWN TO PICK IT UP. For the sake of simplicity this time, use both hands to pick up the weight.

3) Swing the weight back behind your butt, bending your knees and pushing your hips out backward. DON’T ROUND YOUR BACK. KEEP THAT BACK STRAIGHT AS A PLANK.

4) Using your hips and butt cheeks, push the weight forward, clenching your butt cheeks as you push that weight through your body. Keep your core tight and your back straight.

5) At the top of the swing, your arms should be at perpendicular with your body. That means they should be straight out in front of you for those not gifted with geometry skills. 

6) Let the weight fall back between your legs, swinging behind you just like it did in step 3.

7) Rinse and repeat steps 3-6

You can get away with doing 4 sets of 8-10 reps and feel the burn. Or you can be like The Rock and do 5 sets of 20. Most males can get a challenge out of 30-40lb weight and females would feel the same with about 15-25lb, but you may want to see if there’s a sports store close by that has the weights for you to try. Then check out Amazon.com because they usually have the weights for some kind of deal.

CAP Barbell 20 -Pounds Kettlebell -- I purchased a 45lb of this brand just recently.

This workout is so great because it literally works out everything in your body. There are many variations to this workout that you can do to get all kinds of other conditioning going as well. But I’m going to emphasize on the glutes, legs, and back here. It makes all of that business strong. And ladies, this will make your booty look on point. And fellas, this will make your booty look on point. There are many variations to this workout that you can do to get all kinds of other conditioning going as well.

Keep grinding. Rome wasn’t built in a day. Stay persistent and you will attain greatness.

-FURY  

Fury Friday || SLEEP

So. Let me tell you, my down trodden, sleepy, restless worker bees about why you need to get rest. Not just like a nap. But some good, quality sleep. The kind of sleep that you go "Damn, I slept how long?" 

Now you may be thinking, "Why is this guy telling me about sleep? I thought he was going to get me SWOLE." Listen people, sleep is a huge contributing factor  to weight loss! I bet you didn't know that. BOOM. Drop the mic. "But aren't I just supposed to be working out harder and eating less?" Yes and no. You should be working out like your life depeneds on it. You should be hitting failure to help promote growth and stimulate your muscles and help burn off that pesky fat that's laying around your body. AND you shouldn't be eating LESS (well maybe depending on how much you actually eat) but you should be eating more QUALITY. 

So then why sleep? Bruh, most of your muscle recovery happens at night. What does that mean for you? Gains. Ideally you want to properly nutrition so that when you are sleeping your body is properly able to repair it's damaged cells with those crucial delicious building blocks you ingested and divested during the day.

To reap said benefits, you probably want to sleep more than 6 hours a night. Why? To get that REM sleep. That deep. Long. Special. Sleep. OF COURSE THO people have different bodies and need different amounts of sleep, but you gotta decide that. I ain't your momma.

To do this too you can take a few EASY STEPS. 1) make sure your room is dark as f*ck. buy some black out curtains. Know why you feel so rested when you go on vacation and stay in hotels? They got the blackout curtains baby. They put you in a sleep cave. 2) move the electronics out of the bedroom! So here's the real. All the screens you have around you (TV, iPad, laptop, PHONE) all emit light, even if you're looking at it in the dark. That light disrupts your melatonin secretion (sleep juice from your body) and makes you stay awake or keeps you from getting that deeeeeeep sleep. Using an iPad up to 2 hours before you sleep can seriously jack up your sleep cycles and melatonin secretion, so much so that it would be like you were in bright day light in the middle of the day. So hey, read a book instead. Mental sweat. 3) have a good time with a special someone ;) So really though all kinds of chemicals secrete into your body after the big O in high levels and they all have to do with either sleep or healing the body. So handle it.  Which leads me to the last point: only sleep and sex in the bedroom. That's why it's a BEDroon and not a theater, office, or ballpark.

Sleep well my friends.

Best,

-FURY 

FURY Friday || Hydrate B****S!!

You want to drink water. Like a metric ass ton of it every day…. Or realistically way more than you think you need.  I’ll tell you how much more later in this post.

Heads up kids: your body is made up of water. Like 60% water. So let me ask you something: would you rather keep your engine lubricated with clean oil or sludge? 

See the important thing to remember about hydration is that it is highly underrated by most people. Just because you can get by with 2 glasses of water a day doesn’t mean that it’s healthy for you. 

Quick test: is your pee yellow? If YES then you’re not hydrated properly. You want that shit to be clear. (It’s not actually shit… but you know what I mean)

Some of the most important body parts are heavily dependent on water. Your skin? Yup that’s got a lot of water. Why do you think your skin is elastic? Water in the cells baby. Drink tons of water and it starts becoming butter soft. Your stomach? Yup that uses water to help digest, transport nutrients to cells, take nutrients from cells, and bring the waster to your intestines. And don’t get me started on why you need water to poop. 

Additionally, water makes up 93% of your blood. Seem high? Your blood is LIQUID!!! And that shit flows through your body easy! This is where my car analogy makes more sense. If your blood starts loosing its water content or you don’t hydrate to clear all the crap out of your body (blood helps transport waste), then you start feeling like CRAP. Why? If your blood doesn’t transport the waste out, and that doesn’t exit the body, all the junk literally starts cesspooling. Do you want your body to work on it’s own waste? Would you let your car run on old, sludgy oil?? Would you kick a puppy???? 

Majorly your vertebrae discs are made up heavily of water. Back problems? Start hydrating a ton. Your vertebrae discs are like rubber bands. What happens when rubber bands are left out and not cared for? They brittle up and snap like a g-string on a hippo. And this is what happens often to people who are experiencing compressed discs. As we get older, we already start loosing substance from our spinal discs. Why would you shorten their lifetime by drying them out prematurely? Do you want to look like the hunched over old person who looks small because their spines are getting shorter? Or do you want to look like the action stars of the 80’s today. Because I mean, Arnold, Sylvester, and Bruce are still a lot more appealing than most of the action stars today. And I bet they hydrate like beasts. 

So back to it: how much water should you drink a day? TAKE YOUR BODY WEIGHT AND DIVIDE IT BY 2. That’s how many ounces of water you should drink a day. SIMPLE! 

I did all that build up for such a simple answer but the problem is so much more complicated. The first step is putting the water in your body. I’m going to applaud that greatly because your body really needs it. 

Next we’re going to talk about upgrading your water supply, but that will come in the future...

-FURY

FURY Friday || Where to Start

So you decided to start a fitness journey. Cool.

You’re going to go to the gym. Do a shitton of cardio. Lift a little weight. You want to get TONED like a mothaf***a. It’s just common knowledge. Right?

I’m not here to tell you that you won’t lose weight doing that, but realistically, it’s a tough road that you’re going to be trudging through. Actually, you will lose weight, but will you look like an Adonis?? Nah. The body doesn’t really work like that. Human beings were not made to do endless amounts of cardio and crunches so that it can get toned. 

In fact, doing tons of cardio can actually burn MUSCLE and force FAT STORAGE. That or it will emaciate you. That’s cute.

There’s a ton a science behind this. But I’m not a scientist. If I were, I’d be credible. What I do know is that I’ve listened to the research of a lot of different people. People who are successful in losing weight, and helping others lose weight. People who help people build muscle and feel the best they ever have. 

If you want to look like those people in the fitness magazines, there’s some important steps to take. The biggest one though: UPGRADE YOUR DIET. Not even kidding. It’s one of those things that everyone says. “Cut out fast food, eat salad, low fat!!!!” JK. I eat salad. But my salads are the bomb dot com. I put all kinds of colorful things in them so it’s exciting when I eat it. Like Disney’s World of Color for my mouth hole. But you need to be careful of what you put in you. Whole foods are the best really. And that would be step ONE.

Do yourself a favor: download a food tracker like MyFitnessPal on your smart device. Put in your salad because you’re going to eat one. Because I said so. Hell, you can make your salad a drink by blending that thing in a blender and make it grass juice. Then throw some fruit in it to make it sweet. Then you’re eating greens like a boss. 

Oh back to MyFitnessPal, the read the labels of everything else you eat or search it in the MyFitnessPal database and follow the App’s recommendations for Fats, Carbs, and Proteins. Boom. Diet upgrade. You will be forced to pay attention to what you’re putting in your body because you will be making yourself aware of what major nutrients are going in. You are now a diet gangsta. 

BE ASSURED: You don’t need to be EXACT with your nutrient goals, but get as F*****G close as possible. I mean, I never hit that shit exactly ever. Maybe once. Like a boss. And if you’re unsure, err on the side of PROTEIN. Because protein makes muscles. And muscles are buff. You like muscles, right?

REMEMBER: this is just a start. But it’s one of the easiest things you can do.

OH SHIT: DRINK A TON OF WATER TOO. Like half your body weight in water. Like SRS. I’ll tell you why soon. 

FURY Friday Introduction

Allow me to introduce myself, my name is FURY. Brian FURY. While this may seem silly, and a few may recognize the video game origins of this name, The nickname was given to me in college by my best friend. It has since stuck. 

I’m coming to you today mainly to introduce myself and explain what I’m doing here. I was asked to be part of this blog collaborative because of my unique perspective on things. But actually I’m here to talk about fitness things. And not fitness things. Like my hair. But fitness things like how I lost 40lbs. Or how to stay motivated when it seems like all the hard work you do doesn’t pay off. But really it does, you just can’t see it because we are our own harshest critics.

In the following weeks, I will be bringing you recipes, workouts, ideas, motivation, and hopefully smiles and merriment. To round out the experience some of these will be linked to videos or other resources that can help better your understanding of what I am doing.

Questions? Bring it. I’m flexing for them.

It's Finally Happening!

Welcome to Notably Notable!

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Monica will kick off Introductory Week, so swing on by tomorrow for Motivational Monday!

Thanks again <3

The Notably Notable Team

Monica, Sharmaine, Jayme, Rox, and Fury