Tag Archives: exercise

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5 Things Productive People Do in the Morning

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Photo by Cathryn Lavery on Unsplash

 

We all want to accomplish more, to make the most of our lives and the hours of our day. Productive people accomplish more than everyone else, and it isn’t because they have less to do or more hours in the day. They do specific things that everyone does not do.

Yet, few of us accomplish all that we want to. Why is that? What do productive people know and do that others don’t?

I think this becomes especially relevant right now as so many people seem tired and struggling to keep up. If that’s you, learning how to use your morning more effectively can be a game changer and help you move ahead in life.

Here are five things productive people do in the morning:

5 things productive people do in the morning.

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1. Make their bed. I came across this from Admiral William McRaven, the Navy SEAL who commanded the operation to capture Osama Bin Laden. He says, “Start every day making your bed, which was the first task of the day at SEAL training. Doing so will mean that the first thing you do in the morning is to accomplish something, which sets the tone for the day, encourages you to accomplish more, and reinforces those little things in life matter. And, if by chance you have a miserable day, you will come home to a bed that is made–that you made,” McRaven said, “and a made bed gives you encouragement that tomorrow will be better.”

2. Read. Productive people read in the morning. It might be the Bible, a leadership book, but something that will grow them. This is pouring into themselves, so they have more to give to others. At this time, they don’t check their email. The most productive people check their email at lunch or a few hours into work. You’ll see why in #5.

3. Eat breakfast. Breakfast is the day’s most important meal and starts things off well. Productive people not only eat breakfast, but they eat a high-protein breakfast. That means no cereal. You will be hungry in an hour and then spend the day snacking, which will hurt your health, and you’ll end up overeating sugar, and you’ll feel it in the middle of the afternoon.

How to fuel yourself in the morning to make it through the day.

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4. Sleep. While sleep isn’t a morning thing, it does determine the morning. Productive people do get better and more sleep than unproductive people. They go to bed at a decent time (usually the same time each night) and get up at the same time each morning, so their life is more routine. A good night of sleep goes a long way to having more energy and better clarity to conquer the day.

A great day starts the night before.

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5. Plan your day. All of us have known the feeling of our day getting away from us. That doesn’t happen to productive people. They don’t waste time. They don’t sit in meetings they shouldn’t be in; they check their email on their timetable, not someone else’s. The first thing I do after reading in the morning is list the 2-3 most important things I need to accomplish in a day and then strive to do those things.

What are the 2-3 most importnat things you need to accomplish today?

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You might think you don’t control your schedule or your kids hijack your morning. And that might be true, but as Carey Nieuwhof points out in At Your Best: How to Get Time, Energy, and Priorities Working in Your Favor, you control more of your time and schedule than you think. The key is to figure out what you control and schedule and focus on that time. 

How you start your day determines how your day turns out.

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My Journey of Losing Weight

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Over the last week, I blogged about my journey of losing weight and keeping it off. It has been awesome getting messages from people about how this series has challenged and encouraged them. I hope it spurs you to being healthy.

You can read the posts here:

  1. How I got to where I am 
  2. The idol of food (the spiritual side of weight loss)
  3. Have a plan
  4. It’s for the rest of your life
  5. The effects
  6. Do your homework
  7. The idol of exercise & staying in shape
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Losing Weight Part 7: The Idol of Being in Shape

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I’ve been chronicling my journey of losing weight this week. It is by far the thing I get questions about the most. You can read part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5 and part 6 here to get some background on this post. I talked in part 2 about the idol of food, one thing I want to end on is the idol of being in shape.

In the same way that it is easy for us to make an idol out of food. It is just as easy to make an idol out of exercise, being in shape, looking fit. This hits a different idol. While food can often be for comfort, the idol of being in shape often hits approval.

When I got assessed for Acts 29, they asked about my weight loss. The reason is because most church planters put on a ton of weight. The stress of church planting, the meetings at restaurants and coffee shops, the long hours, sleepless nights lead a lot of guys to put weight on. I was the opposite. I think that is one of the reasons we were able to make it through the hard start up months of Revolution.

As I described my journey, which you’ve read this week and talked about the idol of food one of the guys asked me at the end of the story, “Has exercise become your idol?” I think at first, as I was losing weight it did. If I missed a workout I would get angry, like I used to if I was hungry. It is natural for this to happen. When you lose 100 pounds, 12 inches off your waist, you want to keep it off. This makes sense. But it doesn’t make it right to make it an idol. It is easy to trade one idol (food) for another idol (being in shape or working out).

Now, I am not as tough on calories or working out as I used to. Our church has grown significantly, so has our family. It is harder and harder to make time to workout, so I’ve created a plan that fits my life. In fact, I went 10 days without working out to see if my food plan would allow me to not gain weight, and it did. If you have lost a bunch of weight and are working out, go a week without working out. If you just gasped, you may have an idol of working out that you need to deal with.

Don’t mishear me, there is nothing wrong with working out, being in shape, wanting to be healthy. Only when we elevate it to a high status in our lives. When we find our identity in working out or being in shape.

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Losing Weight Park 6: Do Your Homework

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I’ve been chronicling my journey of losing weight this week. It is by far the thing I get questions about the most. You can read part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4 and part 5 here to get some background on this post.

Many times people go into the idea of losing weight or being healthy without doing their homework. They might have a plan, eat better and exercise. But what does that mean? Are you going to do the right thing? Recently, for our workout plans, I started using Men’s Health Huge in a Hurry and Katie started using The Female Body Breakthrough and one of the things they both pointed out is that many people shoot themselves in the foot by doing the wrong things. While I am not a trained personal trainer, going on what they have said, what we’ve seen happen to our bodies, their logic (while not conventional) makes sense.

Often the idea that men have who want to lose weight is lift a light weight a lot of times. Not true. Cardio alone is the not the best plan for losing weight. This is why, the authors point out, you see aerobics instructors, strict runners who don’t have a lot of overall muscle.

My point? Do your homework on your plan.

I used to think, if I wanted to lose weight and be healthy, I needed to run. Not so. I maybe run once a week now (which because I hate running is awesome for me). This isn’t to say running isn’t good and healthy, but make sure you do your homework.

While there is a ton out there, here is one thing I’ve used to wade through all the information:  Look at the person giving forth information and ask, “Do you want to look like them? Feel like them?” If someone isn’t healthy, I don’t want to hear their opinion. Just like I don’t take marriage advice from couples whose marriages aren’t healthy. I do the opposite.

It’s the same with making a plan.

When I started out almost 4 years ago, I read almost every article on Men’s Health’s website. I wanted to learn what food does. When to workout, how often. It took me awhile to find something that fit my body, my schedule and I could do for the rest of my life. That’s the key and that’s why this takes so long. It is not a quick fix. I didn’t become 300 pounds over night.

So, do the homework, read, study, make a plan that you can stick to for the rest of your life.

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Losing Weight Part 5: The Effects

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I’ve been chronicling my journey of losing weight this week. It is by far the thing I get questions about the most. You can read part 1, part 2, part 3 and part 4 here to get some background on this post.

This last post I want to talk about what losing weight and being healthy has done in my life. It brought things I hoped for and some things I didn’t expect. My goal here is to give you a vision of what the future could be like. You have to have this to continue on this journey because it is easy to quit. Losing weight is hard work. Being healthy takes time and is difficult. If it wasn’t, everyone would do it.

There are the obvious things like I feel better, my body doesn’t hurt like it used to. I have more confidence in my life, when I speak, etc.

One of the most interesting effects of losing weight was being more organized and purposeful in life. I realized that I was very sloppy in my life. When I used to eat whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, not exercising, having bad sleeping habits. You don’t have to plan for that.

You have to plan to eat well, plan a menu, buy food, plan out buying fruits and vegetables. If you are going to be going out for lunch or dinner, you have to plan ahead, look at the menu and decide what you will eat. You have to plan mid-morning and mid-afternoon snack. This changes a lot. You no longer just grab McDonald’s cause you are out and didn’t think ahead, you have to. This will change other areas of your life. I found that I started being more proactive and purposeful in my job, my relationships (especially with Katie in our marriage and with our kids). I also became more purposeful in my relationship with God. Until I started eating better and exercising, I hadn’t realized how lazy and sloppy I’d become in other crucial areas of my life.

The idea of planning though is one of the reasons many people struggle with weight or keeping weight off. It is easier to not plan.

If you are going to exercise 3-4 days a week, you have to make the time to do it. Which means, you will spend less time on something else. I find that I watch a lot less TV than I used to. I get up earlier than I used to. Get to bed earlier than I used to so that I can exercise and get done what I need to for work and my family.

Tomorrow, I’ll wrap up this series. Stay tuned…

 

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Losing Weight Part 4: It’s For the Rest of Your Life

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I’ve been chronicling my journey of losing weight this week. It is by far the thing I get questions about the most. You can read part 1, part 2 and part 3 here to get some background on this post.

The reality of your plan (exercise and eating) is that it is a lot like getting out of debt, most people miss this concept. They think about losing weight as something they do now, put the weight back on and then lose it again. The ones who see it as a lifestyle change are the ones that keep it off. When getting out of debt, it is a lot of little changes over a period of time, it starts to snowball to quote Dave Ramsey. Eventually, your start to see money differently. It is the same as dieting and exercise. You lose 2 pounds here, 3 pounds the next week, and then it snowballs.

Like someone who has worked their way out of debt, I can’t imagine going back to the way I used to live. I can’t imagine eating like I used to or feeling like I used to. When I think about the pain I used to have, the self esteem I had, the way I felt after eating a meal. I can’t imagine that.

Have a plan. Start small and slow. Know that this is a lifestyle change, not an overnight change. Nothing overnight lasts forever (just look at all the one hit wonders in music history).

If you go into losing weight and being healthy with the mindset that you are looking to do something that you can do for the rest of your life, it will affect your plan and how you do it. Many of the diet fads and workout plans are things you won’t do for the rest of your life. I have a friend who did a diet that was 25 days and claimed you’d lose a pound a day. It might be true, but you aren’t going to eat that diet for 60 years. But the people who write them don’t care. If you quit, put the weight back on, you’ll just buy more stuff when you get miserable. The up and down nature of weight loss fuels this industry.

Whatever your goal is, do you have a plan you can do forever?

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Losing Weight Part 3: Have a Plan

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I’ve been chronicling my journey of losing weight this week. It is by far the thing I get questions about the most. You can read part 1 and part 2 here to get some background on this post.

One of the problems many people run into when they want to lose weight or be healthy is that they don’t have a goal or a plan. If you say you want to lose weight, how much? How will you know if you are healthier? How do you plan to get there?

I remember when I went to the doctor when I was 27 and telling him I wanted to be skinnier. He told me that wasn’t the goal. He said, “The goal is to be healthy.” So, I set out to be healthy.

We started small. Before going on I need to say this, if you want to lose 30 pounds in a month, what I am about to describe will not help. It is not sexy what I did. But here is the prize, what I did I can do til the day I die. Which means, I accomplished my goal of losing weight and my doctor’s goal of being healthy. So, start small. We started by changing to wheat bread, which was a bigger battle than you might think. We stopped drinking soda, sweet tea (this was a battle for me).

To get an idea of what I would eat. When Katie and I would go out to eat, we’d share an appetizer, I’d eat my meal and finish hers. No leftovers was my motto. It wasn’t uncommon for me to eat a footlong sub, drink a gallon of sweet tea, eat a whole can of pringles (not the snack size) and sometimes eat a can of chunky new england clam chowder. That was a meal. Recently we were back in Maryland and ate at our favorite sub shop where I would drink 60 oz. of their sweet tea, eat a footlong sub, a huge bowl of cream of crab soup and eat a side of fries. That would be a lunch. It was not a secret for me why I was fat. This trip, I could barely finish an order of the soup. My stomach and appetite has truly shrunk.

But again, this has taken since 2005. I started working at it at the end of 2007. In 4 years this change has happened. You will never see that on a magazine, but if you want to be healthy for the rest of your life, you must take the long range view of it.

So, what is your plan?

I read books and magazines on food, understanding calories, and I began to see food as fuel for my body, not just something I enjoy or turn to. The secret to losing weight is exercise and portion control. Regardless of what fad or plan you use, if you boil it down you will get to these two things.

So I started controlling my portions, eating less. I still grill out meat, eat dessert, enjoy good drinks, coffee. I basically eat just about anything I want, just less of it. Now when I grill out meat, instead of a large portion of potatoes and a small veggies, we will have meat with 2 veggies. I often get asked about alcohol and weight. According to Men’s Health, you should limit it to 2 drinks a day. The calories in alcohol is pretty high, especially mixed drinks, so if you drink, be smart about what you drink. You can go to Starbucks, but again, be wise. You can get a drink at Starbucks and knock out a third of the calories for the day.

Exercise is the next part of the puzzle. When I was my heaviest, I couldn’t run as it hurt too much. So I bought a bike. We spent more than we normally would have, but it needed to hurt for me to ride. I started riding and slowly started to see the weight come off. When I was able, I started running. And running.

Now, I use the workout plan found in Men’s Health Huge in a Hurry. I eat 5 smaller meals a day (lots of protein and veggies). I workout 3 days a week and then watch what I eat. The great thing is that I have essentially been this size and weight for almost a year. Since using this workout plan I have seen a difference in my weight and physique.

Again, these are all changes that I can do for a long time. I can eat well and exercise regularly.

More tomorrow.