How do you Stay Positive 100% of the time? | Q&A Friday - #AskTyrone

Hey guys, what's up? And welcome to yet another Q&A Friday. Of course, this week, um, just like most weeks really, we're going to be talking health and fat loss. Um, but also today with some of the questions we've had come in, we're going to be digging into some more mindset because of course mindset is essential when we're trying to move towards our goals. And I say this all the time, but that's regardless of the goal that we're trying to achieve. Doesn't matter if it's in our business or our ability to make money and so on. It could be in our actual life goals, it could be our relationship goals, or of course it could be in our health and body transformation goals. Now, so far we've just had 4 questions come in, so today's session will likely be a little bit shorter than it has been the last couple of weeks, unless of course you guys, anyone that happens to be watching us live, has questions. And then of course if you post those in the comments, I will see them pop up on my screen, and then of course I will get them answered for you before I leave this this session. Let me just double-check the thread as well now because I did put out an announcement. I'll also keep an eye on the, the Ask Tyrone thread. If any other questions come through on there, of course I'll add them to the list. But so far, as I say, we've just got 4 which have come in through my DMs over the past week or so. Let's get into it, save wasting any of your time. Our first question is, Um, where am I? So how do you bounce back from low points and not lose motivation? Cool. So this is quite a good one. Um, the first thing is that I understand and accept the fact that I will lose motivation, like all of us will, regardless of whether there is a low point or not. As you've mentioned, we will lose motivation because unfortunately motivation just by nature is only temporary. So what we ideally want to do in place of motivation is, of course, use motivation to get us started, but then replace that with momentum. And momentum is often built through results. Now, that's regardless of whether they're outcome-based results or habit-based results, but it's results that we need to kind of find in order to maintain momentum, which then negates the need for motivation. But when it comes to, well, how do you bounce back from low points? So with the low points, it's funny because they can, they can sometimes be like a— it's a low point for a few hours or a low point for a few days, and then suddenly you're back on it and it's all good. And then other times we tend to have these periods where we get stuck in this low point. We still want to do all the things and achieve all the things that we did prior to the low point. The problem is, for whatever reason, we have no motivation to do it at all. It's like I would rather do pretty much anything rather than the things I know I need to do to achieve these goals. And it's funny because deep down, the desire for the outcome doesn't necessarily change or lessen, but we go through a period where we feel less able, less capable, and less confident in our ability to go get it. So what we tend to do is end up stuck in this low point, which we actually refer to as the pit. It's almost like your goal that you've got to achieve is the peak, like that's the peak of the mountain that you're trying to get to, but you're stuck in this pit, in this valley where it just at this point in time seems impossible to climb out of. And for myself, I actually use a process which I've spoken to you guys about before, a process called stacking, which essentially is like a form of structured journaling. And journaling is just as useful. You can use journaling as well. It's just the structured format of a stack. It works almost like a conversation. We call them conversations with self. And it's almost like you're having a text chat back and forth, but it has specific questions, et cetera, that are designed to kind of dig into why you're stuck where you are right now. Like, what was the trigger? What made you feel this way? And then of course, well, It's one thing to feel that way, but what led to it? What are the facts that led to it? And do those facts marry up with what you've convinced yourself, like the story that you told yourself about how you got there? And then it's a case of, okay, well, regardless of the facts, regardless of how you got there and how you feel, what the fuck do you actually want? And then once you can establish, oh well, here's what happened, here's what— this was the trigger, this is what led me to here, this is how I feel about it, and you can actually process and release those emotions, we can now then confidently and clearly choose the outcomes that we want. Oh, actually, rather than this particular thing and be stuck in this pit, I want this, this, and this. Once we have those two points, it makes it much easier for us to identify the strategic action or habit that we need to develop in order to bring us out of that pit, which will enable us basically to climb our ass out of the pit and begin reascending to, to the peak. Now, the catch is what we have to understand is life is full of peaks and troughs. So we're constantly going to be going into the pit and then we have to fight our way out, climb all the way back up to the peak. Yes, I've reached that peak. And then, as one of my coaches says, new becomes normal and normal becomes boring. So another way he says it is great becomes good and good becomes normal. So the catch is we might achieve a thing, an amazing outcome, and in the moment it's fucking amazing. Wow, it's the best thing ever. And then over time, because you've now attained that thing, you've got it, it just becomes normal. It no longer stimulates you or picks you up or gives you a buzz. So because of that, it just feels totally normal. It feels the same as it did when you were back in the original pit prior to achieving that thing, almost. So that new peak that you reach— that you had reached, sorry— becomes your next pit because there's always something beyond it that we tend to want to achieve. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. That's just an innate desire for continued growth that's often fueling that. But, and I say that it can also sometimes be consistent and unimproving feelings of inadequacy. So sometimes it's like no matter what I have, it's not enough. So we do need to be careful of the energy with which these desires come from. Is it from a case of actually I want to grow, I feel like I should be expanding, and the purpose of life is to give myself a purpose in life, so therefore I'm constantly moving towards greater things and a greater life? Or is it a case of I'm never content, never happy with what I have, so therefore I need more, more, more? So we do need to be careful with the energy, but we also at the same time have to understand that unfortunately there will be low points, but they're just part of the game. They're part of the process. Often those low points are what give us the opportunity to grow into the person that we need to be to basically dominate or ascend to the next stage in life or the next thing that we want to, to achieve so that we can maintain it. Because quite often, if we were given that outcome, whether it's the weight loss or the, or the money or relationships and so on. Often if we would just grunt at that thing as a gift, then we find it impossible to maintain because we're not yet the person who can hold and sustain that thing. It's a bit like when you see, um, people win the lottery and then within a few years they're completely broke again. It's because you've given somebody with a poor man's mentality all this monetary wealth and they just, they don't know how to manage it. They don't know how to not be the current version of themselves because they didn't go through years of grind and hard work, etc., to build that. Instead, it was like, bing, here's your gift of $10 million, off you go, now act like a millionaire. And the catch is often people, people are unable to do that. So hope that helps. Understands there will be low points. Oh, sorry, so how do you bounce? I use stacking. So for yourself, what I would say is, um, as you don't necessarily have a stack format, you would journal it. So you've got to sit down with yourself. Now, this can be done in your head, but it's often not as effective. It's often better to use writing, so a pen and a pad or a notebook or something. And you'll want to write because often the time it takes you to write gives you time to create and time to discover deeper insights and revelations around what it is you're thinking, what it is you're feeling, and what it is you're going to do about it. So I recommend you journal, particularly if it's a recurring low point, like it seems to be the same thing, the same trigger that pulls you in all the time. Identify what that is. What is this thing? Or if you can't identify this particular trigger, then actually journal the pit. So it's like, I can't help but consistently feel this particular way, or every time I try to do X, Y, or Z, I end up stuck in this place, this low point, or this pit. Why? So then we want to investigate it. So, okay, well, what's actually going on? Why is it you feel, or how do you feel? What are the, the current feelings that you have? And what do you feel has led you to that feeling state? Then it's a case of, well, identifying the specific things. So what are the facts about what led you to this feeling state? What was going on? What were the specific step-by-step things that took place that led you there? Because often we either find that the things that we feel led us there actually have nothing, not nothing to do. They weren't actually the specific trigger. It was instead how we interpreted the experience. So it's like this, this, and this happened, and now I feel like this. But then when we look at this, this, and this, we find that actually there's no reason why I should have felt the way I do. It's just I chose to give that particular experience this meaning, which made me feel bad. Sometimes that's accidental. Sometimes it's subconscious and deliberate where we sort of feel we deserve to be stuck in these pits and so on. And then once we've identified how we got there and whether we were correct in being here, you know, whether we've kind of just sabotaged ourselves, essentially, we can then identify, okay, well, what is it I actually want on the other side of this? What do I want instead of keep experiencing this recurring trigger or problem or feeling state? What do I want instead? Then once we've identified what we want instead, we can look at, well, okay, cool, well, what do I need to do now in order to bring about that particular change or outcome that I need? Cool. So hope that helps. I know it was quite a long answer, but when we get these points, it's often a little deeper than we think because often our first answers or our surface-level answers aren't deep enough for us to identify the true trigger. Okay, question number 2, um, how do you stay positive 100% of the time? Uh, you tend to be quite, um, upbeat and high in energy on your, on your videos and lives, etc. How do you stay positive like that? Okay, um, I think I spoke about this a few weeks back. Somebody else mentioned how, um, how I'm positive, and I am, but at the same time, just like anyone else who may be watching this, I, I also have periods where I'm not so positive and I'm negative biased and so on. I do because of the stacking and the journaling I've done, learning, because essentially what you're doing when you stack or you journal is you're, you're getting to know self. You're trying to understand how you tick and how you operate, what things set you off. And when you do get set off, is it relevant? Is it justified? Is that the reaction you want, need, or should have? And so on. So all you're really trying to do is get to know self. And by getting to know self, you actually come to understand pretty much everybody else. Of course, everybody has their individual tweaks and nuances, but you understand that ultimately we're all kind of the same underneath the surface. So I don't stay positive 100% of the time, but what I am very good at is putting things into perspective. So even though there may be bad things going on outside of me, bad things going on around me and in my environment and in my world, and things that may even be influencing or affecting my day-to-day world, I am very good at putting myself in perspective to this thing and not allowing it to dictate or control me emotionally in particular. So sometimes even though something will happen and it will say, for example, it will screw up my schedule for the rest of the day or something like that, rather than get triggered and completely pissed off and be angry for the rest of the day, because of the stacking in that journaling process where I go through and reframe things and reframe stories and narratives that I have and triggers that I have, I've gotten pretty good at doing that on the fly. So someone can come to me with negative news and so on, but I'm very good at not descending into the pit in the moment. I give myself that moment between hearing the news or experiencing the thing and my reaction, because then I can actually choose how I respond to this thing rather than just be a victim of my sort of instinctive reaction or my learned and trained reaction. It's a bit like, you probably know with yourself, like maybe when you're driving and someone accidentally cuts you up and rather than just be like, oh, he didn't fucking see me, instead we're like, you motherfucker, blah, blah, blah, pull over, pull over, and we get arsey and we like, are you fucking blind, mate? Did you get your license from the council? And we get pissed off and we use anger as our tool to basically fight them, put them back in their place, to justify their mistake and so on, and essentially justify to ourselves how we were so hard done by in that moment. But the catch is they may have not even seen you, so it might have been a complete accident, which doesn't really warrant you getting stressed, pissed off, angry. So quite often what we find is actually it's we just wanted to be angry. We've already got this anger bubbling underneath and we were looking for an outlet, not even on a conscious level. Subconsciously, we're looking for some way to vent and let this out, and this is the perfect opportunity. So when this person pulls out on us and cuts us up, bang, we can now go let out and release all that anger, and they get the brunt of it. But really, it's something that's probably been going on in the back of our mind or in the back of our heart for a long period of time, been building up and so on, and then we just let it all out in that moment. So what I've gotten good at, right, I don't actually stay positive 100% of the time. I'm just very good at not getting drawn into things emotionally. So I've, I've gotten through practice good at staying level. So I have obviously moments of excitement and moments of anger and this and that, like we all do. Sometimes it just happens. But as a general rule, I'm very good now at not going too extreme, particularly into the pits. I'll try to, to allow myself to experience the happiness, the fun, the excitement and stuff, because obviously they're more positive energies and vibrations that we, that we should experience. But many of the negative ones just hold us back in life. So those ones, as I say, I've gotten good at not allowing them to dictate and control me, and instead, where possible, use them strategically or let them go. And when I say let them go, I don't mean suppress them or subconsciously repress them. It's a case of actually trying to allow them to come up, process them, actually experience them, these emotions and these feelings and so on, but then let them sort of go. So we, we do it, we go through a process of essentially mentally and emotionally and even spiritually digesting them so that they don't just get held up and locked in the body and cause muscular dysfunctions, organ dysfunctions, energetic dysfunctions, and so on in the body, which a lot of our emotions do when we hold on to them. People with tight shoulders, tight hips, tight abs, tight diaphragm, and so on. And all of that stuff over time leads to continued dysfunction, pain, and inability for the body to function optimally. So, yeah, a bit like we were saying before, expect that those low points will happen, but understand that we do have tools that we can use and turn to to get out of those low points. Same with the positive thing. I don't believe that it's possible or even reasonable to assume that we can be positive or that we should be positive 100% of the time. Again, understand that there are going to be negative times, but what we need to do is get better and better at dealing with them so that essentially our emotional pendulum isn't swung so far each time. It's just, oh, there was a little shift rather than something happens, it triggers and the whole fucking world blows up. And one of the things that helps me to, to keep that in mind and in perspective is— I, you probably heard this saying yourself, but I'm very much a believer in the world happens for us and not to us. And then that way, I am not a victim of what's going on in the world. Instead, I get to choose and dictate how I respond to what's going on in the world. That's why, for example, I won't go into all of it. But that's why, for example, during COVID I didn't get drawn in and wrapped up in the numbers and all the rest of it that they were pumping out on the media. Because instead, I chose to actually go, well, what numbers are you actually showing me? What's the official data if I look it up online? And go through each of the stats and so on, and then we compare. So if I hadn't have done that, I would have gone, oh my God, oh my God, everybody's dying, everyone's dying, there's this mega pandemic that's going to kill everybody, I need to go and get the jab. But instead, I was able to sit back and put things into perspective. It's like, okay, cool. So there is potentially a virus out there that's potentially killing people at an alarming rate. But let's have a look at this. Oh, the average patient is 84 years or above with 2 to 3 comorbidities plus on multiple medications. Well, that's not me. Then it's a case of when we look at the stats and the numbers in terms of population, there's only 0.03% of people actually dying from it. Cool. Well, I'll take my chances. And that's the stance I came from. So rather than get wrapped up in the numbers that were being reported on mainstream, I was able to sit back and go, hold on a moment, does this make sense? Does this add up? And that's what this is about. Like, the positivity thing is just having that ability to see what's happening in the moment, whether good or bad, and then decide, do I need to reframe the way I'm experiencing or I'm perceiving this in order to have a better outcome for myself. And that's all it is. And as I say, a lot of that comes from my practice through the conversations with self or the stacking process, which can also be done through standard journaling, um, as long as you allow yourself to let go. It took me a long time. I resisted journaling for a long time because, let's face it, fucking women write diaries, men don't, is the mindset I had. That was the story and the narrative I had around things like journaling and and so on. It was this girly thing. Men don't do that. So I resisted it for a long time. But the moment I did let go and give in to that, and obviously one of the things that I actually journaled was, why is journaling such a problem? And then you realize, oh, it's just you have attached this particular story or meaning to this particular task. But there's actually no fact in that. There's no truth or fact behind the story I'd created. It was just an idea that I attached to this thing. Which didn't help or serve me at all. But then when I let go of that and I now do it, I find I've had major, major growth within myself, um, since doing so. So it's something I definitely highly recommend, especially, um, for things like if you, if you are a, um, a yo-yo dieter, or you, you keep trying to get yourself back in shape, or you have particular goals that you keep going for and you fall off and you start again and you fall off and like journaling or stacking is a great way to understand why that keeps happening. What's the emotional trigger that keeps preventing me from following through even though I say I'm going to do it? Cool. So I hope that helps on question 2. Question 3: What supplements should I use when trying to burn fat? Okay, um, so I'm very much neutral when it comes to supplements. Um, and when I say neutral, I mean they're neither really good nor bad. They're neither necessary nor unnecessary, if you know what I mean. Like, they're a good tool to use, but they are not essential. So in reality, you can burn fat without a single supplement at all. However, if you are somebody that's going to use them, then I suppose there would only be maybe 3 that I would recommend to use in alignment with your weight loss, um, because you've asked about it in terms of burning fat. There are others that I would use for different goals— health and so on and, and things like that— like if the specific goal was health, um, but if we're talking purely fat loss, I would use probably a high-quality, grass-fed, um, cold-processed whey protein. If you can't tolerate whey, of course you can just get a high quality plant or pea protein, something like that. But yes, I would use a protein powder, but as I say, a high quality one. It needs to ideally be organic, grass-fed, cold processed, undenatured, and then that way you're going to get the highest quality of protein. And I also recommend you use a protein concentrate, not isolate. Yes, we can argue all day about, well, an isolate has more protein per per gram and so on. Yes, it does, but it also is a protein in an isolated form, and your body has to kind of rebuild the protein complex before it can make use of it. So it's almost like you take this thing in, this resource in, that then takes resources from you in order to make use of it. So that's not to say that everybody has problems, and if you use it, you're going to suddenly end up worse off in your health. But generally speaking, most people can process, digest, and make use of or assimilate um, whey protein concentrate much easier. It's a more complete food source, has vitamins and things in as well, which are going to be more beneficial for your overall health. So a protein shake is one. Another thing you could use, particularly if you are using strength training as your main, um, training modality to achieve your weight loss— so when I say strength training, I basically just mean resistance training. Whether it's weights, whether it's body weight, whether it's kettlebells, medicine balls, and so on. If you are doing resistance training, then you could use a BCAA supplement. So a branched-chain amino acid supplement, that could help as well. Just make sure you get one with a ratio of at least 2:1:1, and probably even better to get a 4:1:1. You can get 8:1:1 and so on. And what that means is the ratio of the amino acids that are in there— amino acids are essentially the building blocks of proteins. The ratio in those is better suited for muscle protein synthesis and so on. So basically the, the maintenance and rebuilding of muscle. So a BCAA is another good option. And then would I take any more? If my goal was burning fat but also again maintaining muscle, getting stronger, and I'm using weight training, I would possibly recommend, um, a creatine supplement. So you want a creatine monohydrate, um, you don't need to do the loading phase like there used to be reported. So you'd go on this sort of high doses for 5 to 7 days and then gradually taper down. That's been shown to not really make much difference at all, um, so you can just start taking your 5 grams a day and that will be adequate to get the same, um, physiological responses as you would get if you did the loading phase, generally speaking. So creatine is another one. And in reality, that's about it. If you know that perhaps your diet isn't the best, you know, or you're still working on getting it better and cleaning it up, you could take a whole food multivitamin and multivitamin. Something like Dr. Mercola is a, is a good brand to use. Not essential again if you're getting lots of high quality whole foods. You know, in their natural state. But if, if you're not and you think maybe I should take something just to kind of buffer things a little bit, then a good high-quality whole food multivitamin and multi-mineral. Some people, instead of doing capsules, would do like a greens juice. You can do that if you prefer. Good brands would be like Athletic Greens or what's the other one I have downstairs? Organifi. Is another one that's good. So there are lots of options, but that's about it. I wouldn't go much further than that with supplements, and I'm not saying you need all 4 of those either. In reality, if you're doing a protein shake, you probably don't need an amino acid, and the creatine again is optional. Most people, 99% of people, don't need that. But if you're going to use it, these are kind of the main supplements that have been shown to have a positive effect. And it's not just a case of, you know, purely wasting money. But where possible, I would say, of course, don't rely on supplements. They are simply there to supplement, and trying to use them in place of real food will never get you the long-term results that you want. So just bear that in mind. Now, question 4, which I believe is going to be our last one, because if I just check here on my feed. I don't think any new questions have come in. They have not, which is good, so it means I won't hold you guys up too much longer. So our final question, um, you've mentioned before about not chasing weight loss and instead chasing fat loss. What's the best way to do this? Okay, yes, this is something I talk about a lot. Then, you know, we use the phrase weight loss, but in reality, when— if I use the phrase weight loss, I'm talking fat loss. Because as I always say to you guys, where possible, we want to maintain as much muscle mass, bone density, etc., as possible. Our lean mass we want to keep high whilst we reduce our, um, our fat mass. And then that way, again, it's going to keep metabolism high, it's going to keep muscle high, it's going to keep us strong, feeling fit, and, um, and athletic and so on, rather than losing muscle mass at the same time as our body fat, because all we're checking is weight loss. So we, we do have to, to be careful of that and just keep that in mind. So how would we do it? So one of the easiest ways is, um, as you guys know, I don't recommend using calorie deficits and all the rest of it. That's very rarely needed. So what we would do instead is eat at maintenance. So we eat at a level where we're not specifically looking for weight loss on the scale or fat loss. We are in terms of the actions that we're going to take and the way we're going to eat, but in terms of calories, we're not looking to put ourselves in a deficit. So we just eat at maintenance, and then what we do is make sure that much of that is made up of high-quality protein. As I always mention to you guys, it is of most importance. It's literally what the word translates to. So we need protein to stay adequate good high-quality protein, because that's going to help us maintain the muscle mass, it's going to help us maintain satiety, and it costs more energy to run protein from mouth to anus. So already metabolism is higher. Now, another way we want to keep metabolism high is to expose our body to stress through resistance training. So the reason for that is that's going to stimulate the need or the requirement for the body to maintain and or even build new muscle. We want to keep the muscle as much as we can, and if possible, we want to even build new muscle. Because again, by doing so, that's going to keep metabolism high, which is going to help us burn more fat at rest. So that saves us needing to do tons and tons of cardio or go on calorie deficits and so on, because much of our deficit that we're going to, to use is going to come from our, our physical activity, our training, on our calorie expenditure, rather than by a calorie reduction coming in. Because we're looking to maintain as much lean mass as possible so that we don't just experience weight loss, we experience fat loss, which accompanies— or sorry, is accompanied by weight loss in, in most cases, particularly obviously if we're starting off pretty big with a lot of weight to lose. Often weight comes off pretty easily, but the catch is we want to maintain muscle mass. So, so aim for the fat loss where possible. You will check your body composition, either just to get a rough guide, you would use scales that do body composition monitoring, such as Tanita is a good brand that does that. Or if you know how to do it, you could use skinfold calipers where you basically measure certain pinches of skin. You take a pinch of skin and measure the thickness of that in millimeters. So you could do the back of the arm, for example, you do the pec, you do the abdominal region by the belly button, you do your love handles and so on. So we do various different places around the body and you measure those particular skinfolds to check and make sure that they are decreasing over time. That way it doesn't matter what the scale weight says, as long as those particular readings are going down, we know that we're burning and losing body fat and therefore essentially moving towards our goal. That's how we achieve our weight loss without ending up what we call skinny fat, which is where we've lost muscle and lost fat. And yes, we're now slimmer, but essentially we've still got quite a high body fat percentage relative to the amount of muscle that we have or the amount of lean mass that we have. So we want to keep that high. And then that way we actually look a lot better in our, in our body as well as feel and function better because we've maintained muscle mass, maintained strength. Maintain full function of our, of our system and our body because we haven't stuck ourselves into a crisis situation through overly restricting calories coming in and then overly expending calories going out. So they're the two main things. Make sure protein stays high. And when I say high, I don't mean literally go on a high protein diet. I just mean keep good quality protein coming in. You want an average of around 2 palm-sized portions per main meal. So that's the size and the thickness of your palm per main meal. That tends to work pretty well for most people. So breakfast, lunch, dinner, 2 palms of protein, and then make sure you are doing plenty of resistance training. And then the final thing is you want to get plenty of good quality sleep. Now, if it's not good quality yet, then just make sure you're getting plenty of sleep. So again, we're aiming for that 7 to 9 hours of sleep where possible. Because that's going to give our body the adequate time that it needs to recover from the workouts. And believe it or not, getting good quality restorative sleep helps to keep our metabolism high, which means if metabolism is high, we're burning more calories at rest, therefore essentially burning more fat at rest, because when we're resting, it is our, our fat stores that are the body's preferred fuel source. Cool. So I hope that helps. They're the 3 main things: protein content, strength training, and good quality sleep and recovery. Um, funnily enough, sounds just like my metabolic matrix, doesn't it? Um, but that's what we want. So metabolic meals, metabolic movement, metabolic melatonin, and of course we keep our head in the game through metabolic mindset. So that looks like that is it for today, guys. I'm just going to do one last check on Facebook here on the official feed to see if any questions have come in, and they have not. So in that case, a nice short one today, 32 minutes. So I suppose it could have been shorter if I'd given you shorter answers, but as you guys know, that's not how I work these days. So that's it for today, guys. As always, thank you for watching. Thank you for being here. Thank you for giving me your time. And of course, thank you for those of you who have submitted your questions. If you yourself watching this, if you have any questions, whether we're talking now live or you're on a replay, post them in the comments below, or of course post them in the Ask Tyrone thread in my free Facebook group. You're more than welcome to join that. It's called Stronger Than Life Coaching Group. Um, yes, Stronger Than Life Coaching Group on Facebook. So that's facebook.com/groups/strongerthanlife, and you're more than welcome to request to join the group. We'll let you in, and you can post any questions, etc., that you have in there. And of course, every Friday I will be live here getting them all answered for you so that you can move forward with confidence and clarity and essentially smash your fucking goals. As I say, people, any questions, let me know. And if not, hope you all have an awesome weekend. Obviously it's Saturday tomorrow. Have a fantastic time, and I look forward to chatting with you all in my next video.