Last night was Game 7 of the NBA Finals between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Boston Celtics which is also the biggest rivalry in basketball history.

In order to win the finals, a team must win 4 games out of a 7 game series. This series went the distance. As you can imagine, a game 7 is pretty intense.

The entire game was extremely intense but in the 4th quarter there was a certain kind of…intensity.

I was almost nervous while watching the game during the last few minutes because you can imagine the pressure the players are feeling. Both teams are so close and desperately want to win and they know that in x amount of minutes they will have won or lost the title. It’s now or never.

Back to us…

I see so many people in the gym reading while barely walking on the treadmill, taking 10 minute breaks between sets, talking on the phone and all sorts of other activities that distract them from the task at hand: exercising!

There’s two ways to burn more calories when it comes to exercise. Increase the duration of your workout or increase the intensity. These days, I don’t have the time, nor do I want to have 2 hour long marathon workout sessions like I used to do in high school and college.

We all have a million other priorities and that’s a challenge in itself – because the first thing we forget about when everything else gets hectic is our health and fitness. However, if you’re going to spend your precious time in the gym or exercising then gym or exercise it up!

Bring that certain kind of intensity!

Here’s how I do it:

What would happen if you were not allowed to exercise for more than 30 minutes a day? Or 45 minutes a day? Or 60 minutes a day? Or even 10 minutes a day?

How would you use those minutes? I guarantee if you timed your workouts you’d have a certain kind of…intensity – that you didn’t have before.

It’s also a lot less daunting knowing that you only have to exercise for x amount of minutes.

Try it. See how it feels.

Ready. Set. Go.

A client sent me this article about a trainer that purposely tried to gain weight. Apparently, he wanted to be able to better empathize with his clients on why they’d miss workouts and continue to eat junk.

So he traded in the lean proteins and fruits and veggies and complex carbs for fatty, fried and sugary foods.

He said, “I’ve become quite addicted to the kinds of fatty sugary food that is bad for you, and it’s going to be hard to get out of that habit.”

He then goes on to say, “Once you start eating an unhealthy diet, it is tough to break that cycle. I used to enjoy healthy food and eat a lot of lean meat, grilled fish and green leafy vegetables.

But now I’ve got the taste for chocolate, biscuits and fizzy drinks. The energy these foods give you is short-lived, so your body is soon wanting more.”

He said he also feels sluggish all the time.

There are a lot of interesting golden nuggets in this article.

I don’t even want to mention the fact that he was a trainer and had no idea what his clients were going through!

Regardless, I do understand how hard it is. That’s exactly why I started MyBodyTutor! I was working in Corporate America and I found myself constantly making excuses. Constantly rationalizing my poor eating and lack of exercise…and I hated it!

We truly are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act. But a habit!

I was in the habit of forming bad habits and making bad choices.

Just like we can get into healthy habits meal by meal, workout by workout, we can easily get out of healthy habits just like this guy did.

Great habits are very hard to form. Bad habits are very easy to form.

The more I exercise, the more I want to exercise! The less I exercise, the less I want to exercise!

The more sugar I eat, the more sugar I want! The more salt I eat, the more salt I want!

Unhealthy foods that are loaded with salt and sugar (especially) are mentally and physically addicting.

Each time we eat sugar, we’re further reinforcing learned behaviors. It’s very hard to break the habit. Believe me I know!

Here’s the obvious kicker:

The only thing that’s going to change things is changing things! And the only way to stop craving sugar is to actually stop eating it!

We’re not robots, though!

Saying you’re never going to eat sugar again is ridiculous. Start with a crazy small goal of, say, just today! No refined or processed sugars.

The only sugar you can eat is natural sugar in the form of fruit or in real food. But just start with your next meal. That’s it! And go meal by meal.

Realize each time you have an intense craving for sugar, and each time you feed it with natural sugar, not refined, your changing what your body wants.

Each time you give in, your further reinforcing those cravings.

And I’m not saying you can’t ever indulge in cake or cookies or candy. But we can all agree that we feel so much better when we’re ‘off’ sugar, for the most part.

Flex your sugar muscle!

The more you say no, the easier it’ll become! The more you say yes, the harder it becomes to say no!

I hope you enjoyed your weekend and made lots of good decisions!

The broken window theory is fascinating to me and I believe it applies so much to our health and fitness.

The broken window theory suggests that people on streets with lots of broken windows, graffiti, garbage, etc., are more likely to throw trash on the street, graffiti the walls, and overall have much less respect for the property on that street than if it were gleaming.

When former Mayor Giuliani first become mayor of NYC, he went after the small infringements like meter skipping for subways, graffiti, and getting rid of the guys that washed car windows whether you asked them to or not.

He felt that if you attack the small nuances, the big ones like assault, rape and murder would take care of themselves.

He was right.

So, I believe this applies to us as well. I find that:

When my room/office is messy, I’m not nearly as productive and organized and on point.

When my kitchen is messy, I tend to order food in a lot more.

When my laundry is piling up, I skip the gym because I don’t have any clothes to wear.

When I don’t have healthy food stocked up, I’m way more likely to eat unhealthy.

I try very hard not to let the small annoying things build up. I make sure to stay on top of those tasks.

Like —> spending 10 minutes a day cleaning and organizing, walking home the long way and stopping at the grocery store, and doing my laundry every 2 weeks.

I have found that staying on top of these small (but hugely impactful) tasks has helped me to stay so much more consistent with my diet and exercise.

This concept applies in other ways too:

When I go to the gym on Monday, I’m way more likely to go every other day.

When I start off the day with a great breakfast, I’m way more likely to finish the day off great.

How does the broken window theory affect you?

And if it does affect you negatively, what can we do to change that?

You can say she has amazing genetics and you don’t.

That he’s always lucky and you never are.

That she can eat whatever she wants and not gain weight.

That he’s stronger than you are no matter how hard you try.

The list of things we don’t have, that other people do, is endless. It always will be. Besides, we can’t control what other people have.

But of course, it’s a lot easier to hope and wish and complain.

However, there is one thing that we are in control of. And it’s absolutely the common denominator for successful people.

Effort.

You control the amount of effort you exert each and every day. Every workout. Every meal you prepare.

You can decide to put forth more effort. You can control how much effort you’re willing to give.

Instead of focusing so much on what we wish we had, or what we don’t have, we should focus on how we can get what we want using one simple but extremely powerful tool…

Effort.

Think about effort today and this weekend. Think about that next time you habitually complain and wish to yourself.

You are in control. We are in control.

We just need to use effort to get there. It always works.