2 Reasons Why We Self-Sabotage, Redesigning Your Kitchen For Health, and 3 Tips To Speed Up Your Metabolism

Date: June 28th, 2024

Read on: veganfitnessredefined.com​

Read time: 5 minutes

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Today’s issue is brought to you by Vegan Fitness Redefined. We help vegans, veg-curious, and plant-based humans get lean, strong, and build healthy bodies.

Are you a high performer who wants to drop body fat, build lean muscle, and tone up while feeling confident in your health?

Click below to apply for a free 1:1 consultation and see if our Accelerator Program is a good match to help you get in the best shape possible while leading by example.

(2-week waiting list and new spots capped at 5 per month)

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The past week has been family-filled.

It’s brought heart-warming moments.

And it’s also brought up triggers.

Speaking on a recent high-performance mindset class inside our Lv1 program Accelerator, I shared some of my experience with our students.

I’ve noticed past triggers that have come up with certain family members.

As a reminder - whatever triggers you in someone else, is usually something that’s unresolved within us.

Most of my life, I’ve projected responsibility and blame onto others.

With experience (and a ton of failures) I’ve started to regain more awareness around my unconscious patterns.

The more I’ve done this, the more I’ve become uncomfortable.

Uncomfortable because it means I’m forced to face the parts of myself that I’ve separated from my life.

Because the only thing that can trigger you in someone else is something that you’ve cut off from yourself.

Once you reclaim those dark and light sides of yourself, being triggered by others is hard to happen.

Stay centered and neutral.

Reclaim each part of yourself.

That’s my reminder to myself each day.

On another note, you may have noticed there’s been a name shift with your Friday letters.

Moving forward, you’ll start to receive our new rebrand of the 1-3-1 Fridays.

There was a slight conflict of interest with another newsletter so I made the decision to rebrand to avoid any future issues.

1 - 1 personal insight

3 - 3 new health and fitness tips

1 - action step

Let’s dive into your second edition of your 1-3-1 newsletter.

I hope you enjoy this new rebrand as much as I’m enjoying writing these for you. 🙂

Lesson: The more you reclaim each part of yourself, the more whole and centered your life will become.

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Here's Your 1-3-1 Friday:

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#1.) 2 Reasons Why We Self-Sabotage

According to Carl Jung, Swiss psychiatrist and world-renowned psychologist:

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”

Why is this important?

Two reasons:

a. Most of our life is governed by our unconscious mind.

b. Our shadow (or unconscious parts of ourselves) will continue to show up until we reintegrate it within.

Self-sabotage is just another word for an archetypal behavior (usually the weakling or tyrant can be found behind this type of behavior).

When you’re centered - connected to your core, self-sabotage disappears.

The society that we live in is mostly unconscious.

The culturescape and behaviors that are displayed globally and individually are a prime example of what self-sabotage looks like on a big and small scale.

So how do you integrate your unconscious parts?

Start by bringing awareness to the areas of your life where you self-sabotage, procrastinate, or hold yourself back.

Hold space here.

Ask yourself why you might be holding yourself back.

There’s no need to make yourself wrong or judge yourself.

Be curious and speak with yourself (this may feel weird or uncomfortable but I can assure you we all speak to ourselves already; consciously or unconsciously).

See what comes up and have a journal ready.

You may be surprised at what answers come through for you.

An open mind is a prerequisite for permanent transformation.

#2.) Redesigning Your Kitchen For Health

Berard’s Law states that the food around you - you’ll eventually eat.

If you have junk or processed foods around you 24/7, you’ll eat it.

If you have fruits, veg, and whole foods near you, you’ll eat it.

So how do you design your kitchen for health?

Focus on 3 key areas:

• Your fridge
• Your pantry
• Your cupboards and snack areas

Remove all offending foods that detract from your health (including GMO foods, processed foods, animal products, and excessive junk food).

You don’t need to STOP eating your favorite foods forever.

But I’ve found after working with 100’s of plant-fueled high achievers over the past 12+ years, that having a clean slate from the beginning can give you a winning start.

Once you feel confident with your choices and can eat in moderation, reintroducing a few of your favorite foods (I love plant-based pizza and Thai; however I have both of these in moderation) can make sense.

Or you may find you aren’t craving them as much due to giving your body the correct nutrients and feeling full.

Either way - give yourself a turbo boost on your health and start strong.

See this as a true health experiment.

Then, note down your progress and track your results.

You might be surprised at your findings after doing this for 90 days.

Give it a shot.

#3.) 3 Tips To Speed Up Your Metabolism

1. Eat at regular times

One of the most common things I see every month when new students come to us is undereating.

It’s become increasingly more common each year.

Part of it is due to dieting culture.

With more people health conscious, diet and fitness culture has become more mainstream.

But it’s come with its own problems.

Chronically undereating is a fast way to slow down your metabolism.

Your liver and brain rely on a consistent stream of glucose every few hours to perform at a high level.

Ignore this and you’ll feel fatigued, sluggish, and slow down your metabolism.

Eat regular meals with lean protein, healthy carbs, and fruits and veg each meal.

Aim for fruits and protein snacks in between,

Stoke the metabolic fire.

2. Strength train each week

When you lift weights, you increase your ability to build lean muscle.

Muscle mass is metabolic.

What that means is that for every 1 pound of muscle you have, your capacity to burn calories at REST increases.

The more lean muscle you have (keep in mind, after 30, we lose muscle and strength per year; we lose power each faster), the more you ramp up your metabolism.

With that in mind, lifting weights and strategic strength training will be a key ally to help keep your metabolism high.

The more you lift and train hard - the better your chances of building muscle -> which improves your metabolic rate.

Every opportunity to build muscle especially post 30 should be taken.

Train your body each week.

3. Aim for 1-2 interval sessions per week

There’s recent evidence showing that doing several interval sessions can also increase your metabolic rate.

The EPOC effect or excess post-exercise oxygen consumption is the ‘afterburn’ effect which has been popularized by HIIT workouts.

What this means is after interval training, your body has a temporary increase in the amount of calories and oxygen that it uses after you stop exercising.

Why can this be beneficial?

Because it ramps up your metabolism.

Cardiovascular activity in general is a great way to improve your endurance and heart health.

However, it seems with interval training, you can also have multiple benefits with a metabolic increase, the afterburn effect, and improving your heart health.

Add this tool to your exercise kit.

Use it to your advantage each week.

A great interval protocol is the fat burner workout, introduced by Dr. Martin Gibrala and revised below by Dr. Cody.

Here’s how it works:

The Fat Burner Protocol

1.) The key to this protocol is figuring out a convenient way to keep track of the 8-seconds-on, 12-seconds-off format.

I suggest staging the workout on an exercise bike, for cyclists, or at a track, for runners—and using a traditional stopwatch or an interval-training timer app that can be programmed to provide stop and start alerts.

Or if you’re not technologically minded, you could always just count off the seconds in your head.

2.) Once you’ve got all that sorted, perform an easy warm-up for 3 minutes.

3.) Go hard at intensity 6 for 8 seconds.

4.) Rest for 12 seconds.

5.) Repeat as many times as possible to a maximum of 60 times, or 20 minutes of intervals.

6.) Perform an easy cool-down of 2 minutes.

Keep your exercise simple.

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1 Action Step

Commit to lifting weights 3 days a week for the next 30 days. Track and record your results. Review your progress after 1 month and see how far you’ve come.

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Client of the Week

Want to look good this summer?

Or feel confident leading your family by example?

Julie is a busy senior accountant.

She’s also a mother to her 11 year old daughter and wife.

Before we started working together, she was really struggling to prioritize herself and she wanted to lose 10 to 15 pounds to get her energy levels back up.

Our strategy: We focused first on systemizing her workouts and nutrition. Since she hadn’t been working on consistently lifting weights or tracking her meals, we started there.

1. 3 days of weight lifting (we later increased this to 4 days as she got stronger and leaner)
2. 5 days of tracking her meals within 80% accuracy while hitting her at least ½ of her bodyweight in ounces for water intake each day
3. Focused on her sleep and aimed to hit 7.5 hours of quality sleep per night since she had trouble sleeping before we worked together
4. Increase her lean protein intake using strategic plant protein snacks

Here’s her experience:

“Over the past few months, I’ve had several wins. On the numbers side I have lost 10 pounds and several inches off my body. However, the non scale victories have far surpassed any tactical numbers.

My energy levels have increased, my overall mood is better - just ask my kiddo and I’m actually sleeping well again. In prioritizing myself, my family has really stepped up to pick up the slack… who knew Gabriel could indirectly improve family dynamics, too?!

One of the best things about working with Gabriel has been the sustainability of the changes we’ve implemented. Simple, measurable changes that will continue to compound over time.

I finally feel like I'm able to show up in life as the person I’ve been too tired to be in the past. Without sounding cliche, the experience thus far has been truly life changing.”

If you're a busy vegan, plant-based human, or plant-curious and want to get in the best shape of your life while leading by example, apply here to get lean, strong, and healthy in 2024. ​

(2-week waiting list and capped at 5 new spots per month)

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One Quote To Finish Your Week Strong

Family time is great.

But this heat can drain you.

Stay hydrated this summer. 🙂

- Gabriel

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Whenever you're ready, there are three ways I can help you:

#1 Join our free high-performance fitness FB group to get access to dozens of live trainings recorded along with a tight-knit group of leaders who want to get healthy, lean, and strong.

#2 Are you a high achiever who wants to be lean, strong, and lead by example? Apply for private 1:1 coaching and get in the best shape of your life (2-week waiting list).

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