Are you maximizing your time in the gym, eating healthy, and operating with the most energy possible to be your best?
Chances are, if you’re busy and working a lot, you can likely improve something, and making that one change could 10x your ability to produce as an entrepreneur.
Health and fitness are very important, but there are many key factors that are constantly overlooked. I mean look… if you want to get fit and healthy, we know the following very well:
- Your time is limited, so you can’t spend all day in the gym
- Your ability to produce every day is a massive priority
- High-performance hinges on your levels of mental energy
If you want to know how you can get into your best shape while maximizing your time, being more productive, and improving your mental energy, then keep on reading.
Workouts Should Challenge You Without Eating Up Your Time
As a busy entrepreneur, time is not just money. It’s everything. You can’t get it back, so none of it should be wasted. And that goes for your workouts, too.
Why put in 90 minutes for a workout when 40 minutes would do?
Why go to the gym 6 days per week when 3 days is more than enough?
Exactly.
If you value your time, you won’t spend an endless amount of time in the gym.
Here’s why short, infrequent workouts are better than longer, more frequent workouts.
- More time: less time in the gym means more time for other, probably more important things you can spend your time on.
- Better recovery: More time away from the means you’re able to recover better. Recovery. Is. Everything. Seriously… without recovering properly, all your time in the gym is in vain and it will only slow you down.
- More strength and muscle: training less allows you to make more progress because you give your body a chance to adapt (we grow outside of the gym) and because you maximize your ability to recover.
Oh, by the way… when I write ‘workouts’ I am 100% focused on strength training.
Lifting weights give you a much higher ROI than any cardio-only movements when it comes to losing fat and building muscle.
Cardio takes up lots of time and does nothing to help you get stronger and more muscular. In fact, too much cardio can hinder your ability to recover, which will cut into your ability to make progress from your weight training.
And here’s what’s amazing.
When you opt for short, intense workouts, you automatically increase your productivity and energy levels.
Why?
Because when you’re exercising 6 days per week, you’re usually annihilating yourself.
But when you go back to shorter, more intense workouts just 3 days per week, you allow yourself to get the best bang for your buck in terms of time spent in the gym.
To get some more insight on why I love short workouts for more energy and productivity, see this video:
Now, let’s discuss something that many entrepreneurs overlook and how to easily fix it.
Eat Today For Tomorrow (How Your Diet Builds Or Tears You Down)
Energy is everything. And what you eat today affects how you feel tomorrow. What you eat tomorrow affects how you feel the rest of the week.
If you want to be energetic for your work and everything else you have going on, you have to start eating right yesterday.
Yes, what you eat counts, and in order to maximize your energy in the gym and at work, your diet matters more than you might have ever imagined.
A good diet is everything. And that diet will compound. The same is true for a bad diet. It will compound as well, but just make you feel worse over time.
So you want to make sure you’re taking care of your body with good food on a regular basis.
In fact, eating well is a form of self-respect.
What’s a good diet, exactly?
In short, here’s what matters most:
- Whole foods 95% of the time. No takeout, no fast food, no plastic-wrapped cakes or candies.
- 3-4 regular meals during the day, no long breaks or extended, unnecessary amounts of fasting.
- Plenty of lean protein sources.
- Healthy fat and carb sources every meal.
This is a very simple list of what matters. But so many people get this wrong and they wonder why they have no energy, can’t make progress in the gym, and feel tired all the time.
Hint: your diet probably sucks. I created a framework called BBED, which is short for the Boring But Effective Diet. You can check out the framework here:
Improved Mental Energy Starts In The Dark
Yes, improving how you perform mentally… literally starts in the dark.
Sleep is the most overlooked aspect of a healthy life. As busy entrepreneurs, we tend to shrug off sleep as this annoying thing we have to do every night. And some of us even cut it short so we can maximize our awake time.
But if you try to shortcut this overly complex, ultra regenerative, life-giving system, you will pay for it massively.
The negative consequences won’t simply show up around your waistline (yes, lack of sleep is associated with higher fat gain), it’ll show up in your daily work life.
Most people who are underslept are lower in energy, less charismatic, more anxious, and end up performing poorly compared to those who are well slept.
In fact, sleep deprivation can cause your hunger levels to rise, and can completely wreck your ability to concentrate and multi-task. Consistent, restful sleep is also associated with a lower body fat level.
So if you’ve been ignoring your sleep to get some extra work in, you’re fooling yourself into thinking it’s making you better. In fact, it’s probably holding you back.
How Efficiency Makes You Invincible
Look, I don’t need to tell you that being efficient with your schedule makes you a better entrepreneur. I’m sure you’ll agree that being efficient with your productivity and planning is a high priority.
But do you have a plan for your workouts, eating a proper diet, and a good, consistent sleep schedule?
If you’re like most, you might feel like you can improve.
Here’s a quick 3-step checklist you can use.
Step #1: forget about hitting the gym every day. Instead, schedule three 1-hour blocks during the week to get a good workout in. And make sure you have a plan that you can follow. I have 3 and 4-day workout plans you can begin implementing immediately. See 4D Fat Loss and LGN365.
Step #2: make your diet so easy to follow that you can’t screw it up. A good place to start is having a regular meal schedule where you have a planned breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Here’s a sample meal plan for illustrative purposes:
Step #3: have a work cutoff time. Set a time at the end of the day to be completely done with your work. It can be any time you decide, but be reasonable. For example, if you wake up at 6 a.m. and need to be to work by 8 a.m., then you know you’ll need to be in bed by at least 10 p.m. to get a full 8 hours of sleep.
So this means you need to work backward and make sure you’re done with work in time with a few hours to relax, have dinner, and do something in the evening that allows you to unwind and get ready for bed.
An example would be to cut off work at 5 or 6 p.m. This gives you 4 hours to chill out, have a meal, take care of anything else that needs to be done outside of work and to get to bed on time.
This all may sound simple, but simply putting these tasks in your schedule and sticking to them will do wonders for increasing your productivity and making you much more efficient than leaving it all to chance.
