How To Get Fit For Summer Using Fitness Mental Mastery With Andy Laughlin From FitBodyStrongMind

Hello, this is Kev from LifeSuccessEngineer.com! Today, I’ve got a special guest, Andy Laughlin, and we’re going to share with you how to get fit for summer using the Fitness Mental Mastery from Andy himself, who is from Fit Body Strong Mind!

Watch the video below:

=> Watch The Video On YouTube <=

An introduction on Andy

Andy runs www.fitbodystrongmind.com and has had a lifelong passion for health and fitness and more recently, he’s been interested in the workings of the mind and how our mind contributes to our successes and failures in different areas of life.

He was recently head of operations in a corporate role at a sports company but realised he wasn’t working in an area he was interested in and the way he wanted to help people was to help them get fitter and healthier by understanding the power of their mind. This is why he started Fit Body Strong Mind.

A little Q&A with Andy

Q: I know you have a free guide from your site about Fitness Mental Mastery, could you expand on what this guide is all about?

A: I believe that success in fitness and health, like success in anything is really all about taking action. I believe that taking action comes from the way you think, your mindset, and what I find is people understand the power of the mind and they try to apply it in all sorts of ways but not so much when it comes to health and fitness.

What I’ve found is that people really struggle with their fitness and getting in shape and I believe that a lot of it is down to the way they think and apply their mind, and this is why I’ve written this guide to try and help people to go from first of all, understanding what they want, all the way to getting what they want!

Q: For everyone trying to get fit for the summer, which is right round the corner, what is your advice for someone trying to get their mind in the right place for the summer?

A: The first thing to say is that from working with a lot of people, what I can see is a theme. People who don’t seem to achieve what they want when it comes to health and fitness often seems to come from their self-image.

Basically, the first thing people have to get right if they want to get fit, whether it be long-term or short-term, is the belief that they have that they can achieve what they want. In fact, sometimes it goes back earlier than that. Sometimes people are afraid to admit to themselves what they want. Perhaps they have a desire to have a great body but they shove it to the back of their mind and they pretend they don’t really want it. Sometimes it’s about the honestly and courage of saying, okay, I have a dream, this is what I want, and I really believe that I can do it. This stuff is all mental.

In my guide, what I try to help people with is to give tools and strategies for two things. First is to help them harness what I call higher mind, which is having the courage and honesty to understand what you want and then building a vision for what you want, setting your goals and harnessing that mind that always wants to do and achieve and be something more! The second part is the part of the mind that always tries to trip you up. It comes up with doubts and fears and worries and excuses, and you need to manage that mind. So few people understand how to do that.

So if you want to get fit for summer, the first thing you have to do is understand all those mind processes so you’ve got your mind working for you, instead of against you!

Q: A lot of people (including myself), when they think about getting fit, they just want to go to the gym, it’s all new and exciting, but you’re emphasising getting clear on what you want and getting your goals down as a starting point.

A: It is, and what I think is interesting is that as you said, you and I are both about taking action. I don’t focus on the power of the mind because I think that by thinking about something, it automatically happens. But I believe that you can train and manage your mind in such a way that taking consistent massive action becomes not only more possible, but easier.

Q: Now that we’ve covered the mental side of things, what’s the best advice you can give for someone wanting to get fit for the summer physically?

A: If people are trying to get fit for summer, I imagine the goals is likely that they want to get leaner, more defined, trim, shredded even and probably a little bit more muscular as well. It might be different for guys and girls but that would generally be what people are looking to achieve.

If that is the case, the first thing you have to be prepared to do is lifting. You have to lift some weights because if you are trying to lost weight or body fat, you have to have something that tells your body to hold on to your muscle and to lose fat.

If you don’t do any weight, your body has no incentive to drop body fat. It can drop muscle and water, but you really need to send that signal to your body.

Whether you want to work out at the gym or at home, you have to find a way to lift and to lift quite heavy, full-body compound movements so you’re really sending that signal to your body that it has to at least retain your muscle mass or even build more muscle mass.

In my experience, I’ve found that females in particular are a little bit scared of weight because they think it’s going to make them bulky but that’s just not the case. If you want a lean, defined, tone body, weights are a necessity because you want to hold on to your muscle mass and you need your muscles as you grow older anyway to maintain your quality of life.

Q: In your free guide, do you have a couple of exercises that you would recommend?

A: Absolutely. Essentially, if you’re going to choose one exercise, it’s the squat. It has to be because it gives you the biggest return for your time and energy investment. Whether you use barbells at the gym or a kettlebell at home, squatting and squatting with heavy weights is the single best way to get started with building and retaining muscle mass.

The deadlifts are also very effective, full-body movements like chin ups and pull ups and dips are every effective. Any type of press or benchpress too, but the key is really that you’re working the full body and you’re doing it with heavy weights.

What I’ve found is that a lot of people are constrained by time, and if you are, you can get away with getting one or two workouts in the entire week and still see amazing results, provided you’re ready to do some heavy lifting.

Q: Could you talk us through a little bit on nutrition and diet and the importance of that when getting fit?

A: Certainly. The first thing that is really important is to try to dispel the idea that diet is all about restriction, suffering and sacrifice. When you throw out the word “diet”, people often think about salad, soup and struggle, but it doesn’t have to be like that.

In fact, the first thing I would say is if you want to eat correctly to get in the best shape possible, the first thing you have to focus on is your protein intake. For a number of reasons in our society, we have a really bad view of protein and a positive view of carbs and we’ve got a very high carb culture.

Your protein intake is so important because if you’re trying to lose weight for summer, as I mentioned earlier, you need to send your body the signals that it must maintain its muscle mass, and one way to do that is weights and the second way is your protein intake.

So when you’re dropping the weight, it’s protein that retains and builds new muscle. It’s protein that keeps you full and will prevent you from wanting to eat rubbish. Protein is also less of a caloric load than carbs and fats as well, so by eating protein, there’s so many benefits and so many people don’t appreciate just how good it is for helping you with your results!

It’s one of the biggest problems, and in fact, diet is actually 70%-80% of your results when you’re trying to get lean. I actually have three golden rules for getting lean and if you follow them, it’s very difficult to not see great results:

RULE 1: Get sufficient protein.

I recommend two grams per kilogram of body weight, at least.

RULE 2: Lift heavy weights one to three times a week.

RULE 3: Be in a calorie deficit.

If you adhere to these three rules, you will absolutely achieve amazing results probably quicker than you imagine.

Q: That’s a great tip for everyone, to make sure they’re getting that protein if they want to get lean for the summer.

A: Absolutely, it’s such a good starting point because just by guaranteeing your protein intake, what you’re actually doing is you’re preventing yourself from needing or wanting a lot of the other stuff because it fills you up.

Because it contains so many of the nutrients that we need, I actually think it makes your body feel much more satisfied than just eating something like salad for example, and because you’re feeling satisfied and more full, you don’t have the desire to snack and eat rubbish.

You also have higher energy and recover better, so it’s really something I would recommend everybody to focus on a lot more.

Q: Lastly, where can people find you and get hold of your mini guide? Also, I’ve heard you’re going to releasing a book in the near future?

A: The Mental Mastery guide is much more geared towards the mindset side of things, and the e-book I’m bringing out in a couple of weeks is much more of an A to Z, step-by-step guide of how to get from where you are now to where you want to go.

It includes some mental stuff, workouts, nutrition guides as well as some cardio tips. It’s much more comprehensive, and for anyone who is really struggling and needs a bit of a step-by-step guide, that’s what I would go for!

Q: Where can people get that?

A: www.FitBodyStrongMind.com is the website and there’s a link at the top that says Free Guide for the Mental Mastery guide! The full e-book will be available in a couple of weeks!

I want to thank Andy for his time and his valuable insight! For anyone watching, if you’ve got questions for myself or Andy, please comment! If you want to know more about Andy, check him out!

Let me know in the comments if you’re doing anything special to get fit this summer! 🙂

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