A disciplined and focused mind can achieve anything. This is no secret, even in the bodybuilding world. In fact, some of the greatest bodybuilders ever, such as 6x Mr Olympia Dorian Yates and ‘bodybuilding yogi’ Ben Pakulski, have compared training to meditation, and emphasised the importance of mind training to improve physical training too. Moreover, more and more athletes have been experimenting with visualisation and some of them have even attributed their success to their constant visualisation practice (e.g. 2x Ms Figure Olympia Erin Stern). Lastly, the motivational benefits of self-talk in sports have been exhaustively explored and reviewed (see Hardy 2006). But how does this translate into your everyday’s workout?
I’ve always regarded my workout as MY moment, in which nothing else is allowed but training-related movements and thoughts. There is no room for stress or preoccupation, nor is there any space for looking at my mirror reflection and analysing my physique. When I lift, I just lift, rest, sip some water and lift again. I might listen to some music or greet a friend, as long as these ‘distractions’ don’t affect my workout. When I train, I want to be present in the moment, I want to train mindfully. As any other routine, you want to perform every single act in the same way, as a sacred ritual, however, you want to do so intentionally and purposefully. And, I can say, when you train this way, your physical strength, mass and technique will also improve. On top of it, you’ll feel less stressed out and more relaxed. Below are a brief description of what a mindful workout should look like, and some quick strategies to make your workout mindful.
Mindful Workout Structure
In order for your workout to be mindful, there are 3 points to concentrate on:
Feel muscles activating. When you focus on the ‘here and now’ in the weight room, it translates into shifting your attention from the surroundings to your own muscle contraction, trying to feel your muscle fibres shortening and lengthening as much as you can. Don’t worry if you can’t feel your muscle contraction very deeply initially, it will improve over time, as long as you keep your practice consistent.
Control muscle activation. This step comes immediately after feeling your muscles activating and enables you to become aware of your ability to control your muscles, and to feel such ability. Again, your skills will improve over time.
Isolate exercise execution from gym environment and noises. This is the hardest part of a mindful workout, as it means that you should be able to isolate yourself from the gym environment and not let distractions interfere with your training. For advanced mindful athletes, this also means being able to not let inner distractions, such as thoughts or emotions, interfere with their workout. As a beginner, trying not to look at the person using the machine next to yours for the entire exercise duration is enough.
Strategies to Make your Workout Mindful
Here’re some strategies to practice mindful fitness. Some are meant to help you get into a mindful state, others are to be used during your workout, some others are general tricks or tools which you can implement in your everyday life to help your workout become mindful:
Scan your body before warmup. Individuate stiffness, pain or aches, or areas that need to be focused on when training.
Focus on stiff areas during warmup and try to loosen them up (you can also use a foam-roller or a lacrosse ball).
Focus on muscle contraction and relaxation during each rep and try to control muscle activation. You can literally visualise your muscles shortening and lengthening, as well as your brain pulling your tendons through your nervous system, as if it was a puppeteer pulling the threads.
Make sure you breathe deeply throughout, and don’t let your increased heart rate make your breath too shallow (you want to bring in as much oxygen as you can and you want to feel in control of your breath all the time). Needless to say, this doesn’t apply to intense cardio (I’m mostly referring to weight training).
Keep a training journal in which you record parameters such as ‘ability to feel the muscles’, ‘ability to control the muscles’, ‘ability to concentrate on exercise in a busy environment’.
Always start your workout from those exercises in which you feel you struggle to control or activate your muscles and see how they improve over time (again, a journal is the most helpful way to do so).
How Long for?
I encourage you to keep a mindfulness journal for at least 4 weeks, and to review your progress both at the end of each week and at the end of the full programme. If you need some more advice, or if you’d like to use my Mindful Fitness Journal, schedule a FREE session today.
Apply here to work with me:
I hope you’ve found this article helpful. If so, feel free to read more of my posts and articles.
After quitting veganism in April 2019, I started experimenting with a ketogenic diet, to see if I could: 1) fix my digestion, 2) improve my performance at the gym, 3) burn some body fat more easily. I was also curious to understand what kind of impact it might have on my energy levels and overall focus. I officially began my experiment the last week on May, and concluded it at the end of November.
My Protocol
As I was expecting (based on the literature I had read and the video I had watched), the first couple of weeks were the toughest ones. The principle of ketosis is that, instead of using glucose from carbs as your primary source of energy, your liver produces ketone bodies from short-chain fatty acids (SCFA) which travel across your body and supply energy to organs and tissues (thus sparing glucose supplies for your brain — as it can’t work without). Shifting from carbs to fats can take some time and can cause brain fog, lack of energy, headache (the so-called ‘keto flu’). So, as you can imagine, the first couple of weeks can be very painful. To reach ketosis and stay in it, all you need to do is:
Fast until you’ve depleted all of your glycogen stores
Consume a diet high in fats (60-75% of your calories), moderate in proteins (20-30% of your calories), and very low in carbs (5-10% of your calories, usually coming from low GI vegetables and fruit, such as cruciferous veggies, green beans, lettuce, peppers, tomatoes, berries etc.)
Avoid high GI foods (starch, grains, most fruit, sugar, syrup, honey, etc.)
Limit your daily meals to 2-3, as you don’t want your insuline to spike, or it’ll prevent lipolysis (the process of fatty acids being released from the adipose cells to be used for energy).
As I work out everyday, and as I like to keep my workouts’ volume quite high, I adjusted my macros so that my carbs would never go below 50g a day, to be split between pre- and post-workout meals (what is commonly called a ‘modified or targeted ketogenic diet’). So my typical day looked like this:
4-6:30 am. Breakfast: water and lemon, coffee, peppermint tea
2-3pm. Pre-workout shake: whey isolate 97% protein powder, 1 small green banana or 1 cup of grapes
6pm. Dinner: salmon/lamb mince/beef mince/steak/liver/kidneys/lamb heart cooked in butter or coconut oil, steamed or baked vegetables (courgettes, aubergines, tomatoes, bell peppers, spinach, green beans), coconut yoghurt with frozen berries, 100% dark chocolate.
My Results
As I’ve anticipated, the first 2 weeks were really tough and my performance at the gym suffered quite a bit. Due to the lack of glycogen in my muscles, I couldn’t cope with high volume training, so I decided to lower my rep range and increase the weight (this way I could solely rely on the phosphocreatine energy system, in which ATP is more efficiently replenished than in the lactic acid energy system). Once in ketosis and fully adapted to using fats, however, I was able go back to my usual workout routine for most exercises. As the body becomes more efficient at using fats, indeed, the process of gluconeogenesis (namely the production of glucose out of fats and amino acids) also becomes smoother and glycogen can be stored in muscles just as easily as when running on carbs. However, I never managed to go back to my usual range of reps in exercises such as hack squats and pull-ups, in which the demand for glycogen is too great for the tiny amount produced by my liver and kidneys from other macronutrients. According to some studies on rats (Fournier et al. 2002) and on humans (Fournier et al. 2004), glycogen can be replenished even in the absence of food. However, it also depends on genetic predisposition, and, at this point, I think my body is not as genetically efficient at producing glycogen as someone else’s.
The other aspect I wanted to scrutinise was my digestion. Although I was on a lowFODMAP version of a ketogenic diet, the high amount of fats would occasionally get me bloated and slightly constipated. However, my energy levels were always high (after the first couple of weeks), and my appetite significantly decreased (as I wasn’t relying on insulin anymore). This subsequently improved my focus and my sense of balance and stability.
Surprisingly, although most people go keto because it is one of the most effective ways to lose weight, I must admit that the aesthetic effects of the diet is the only aspect of my experiment that has disappointed me. Regardless of what the literature says, my muscles never seemed to be fully replenished with glycogen and would appear flat most of the time (as I said, it might be that my genetics is not really efficient at producing glycogen). Moreover, even though staying in ketosis can be an excellent way to lose fat, it makes it really hard to gain weight. When I started my usual bulking after summer, I found it really difficult to put on weight beyond my maintenance. For this reason, at the end of November, I decided to go back to my typical 5-6 meals a day, increasing my carbs and lowering my fats until next spring (at least).
My Advice for You
Overall, I’ve become more efficient at using fats and much less sensitive to blood sugar fluctuations. Moreover, increasing the amount of fats also increases the amount of fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E, K) that can be absorbed and can be beneficial for your health. For both these reasons, I would encourage everyone to try. Here’re my tips and strategies if you’re interested in trying:
Set a realistic timeframe for results to occur (at least 8-12 weeks) and be mentally prepared for the first 2-3 weeks being extremely tough
Plan your meals and shopping list in advance: although most keto recipes are very easy to make, you might not be used to cooking with butter and eating fatty cuts of meat or fish, or, in the initial phase, you might have some sugar cravings that you might want to satisfy the ‘sugar-free way’ (there’re plenty of keto-friendly dessert recipes online and many require just a few ingredients). The further you go with your diet, however, the less cravings you’ll have
Make sure you eat enough calories (i.e. make sure you replace the calories you’re taking away from carbs with the same amount coming from fats). The rule of thumb is this: 1g of fat has slightly more than twice the amount of calories of 1g of carb. Therefore 50g of pasta or rice can be easily replaced with 20-25g of butter or hard cheese, to give an example
Make sure you keep your diet varied and never boring. Try to learn 1 new recipe every week using 1 different low GI vegetable and 1 different fatty cut of meat or fish. You’ll be surprised by how delicious such recipes can be!
Enjoy the process and don’t be too hard on yourself if you cheat from time to time. Remember to embrace the growth and the wisdom that experimenting with a new lifestyle will bring you but keep it fun, easy and realistic!
If you’ve liked this post, stay tune because I’m planning to share some ‘guilt-free’ keto recipes for delicious cakes or desserts. 🙂
References
Fournier PA, Bräu L, Ferreira LD, Fairchild T, Raja G, James A, Palmer TN. 2002. ‘Glycogen resynthesis in the absence of food ingestion during recovery from moderate or high intensity physical activity: novel insights from rat and human studies’. Comparative biochemistry and physiology. Part A, Molecular & integrative physiology (Nov)133(3):755-63 (DOI: 10.1016/s1095-6433(02)00254-4).
Fournier PA, Fairchild TJ, Ferreira LD, Bräu L. 2004. ‘Post-exercise muscle glycogen repletion in the extreme: effect of food absence and active recovery’. Journal of sports science & medicine (Sep)1;3(3):139-46.
In the Nietzsche Haus in Sils Maria (Engadin) is a collection of gadgets and various merchandising inspired by Nietzsche: among these, some energy bars stand out, upon which a stylised superman [Übermensch] is sketched out. There is a common tendency to implicitly connect Nietzscheʼs Übermensch with athleticism. Other concepts of Nietzscheʼs have been sometimes applied to the sports or other forms of physical activity –– for example, Nietzscheʼs idea of the ʻfree spiritʼ has been recently compared to football player Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Portier 2014). Moreover, Nietzscheʼs relationship to dance has been exhaustively analysed over the years (Müller 1995; Reschke 2000; Röller 2001). However, albeit widely acknowledged, Nietzscheʼs actual impact on fitness and bodybuilding is still to be explored.
In the essay ʻOrchids and Musclesʼ, Alphonso Lingis portrays bodybuilding very critically, in what could be arguably described as a negative way. This is his opinion on bodybuilding:
In the absence of a public cause before them and before us, the public mind can only rummage around for psychological causes producing these cases […]. One sees them narcissistically pumping themselves into ostentatious sex symbols –– but symbols that sexually liberated public recognizes as the obsolete figure of virile protector, who was also phallocrat and wife-beater. When the mind finds itself seduced to look where there is no cause inscribed, it turns away in resentment (Lingis 1988: 103).
At the very end, Lingis describes bodybuilding ʻas the monstrous excrescence of maternity in the virile figure of powerʼ, and relates it to Nietzscheʼs idea of ʻpowerʼ, as well as to narcissism (ibid: 115). Although I quite disagree with the author’s view on bodybuilding as an expression of narcissism, I sure agree on pointing out some Nietzschean elements too, but I want to extend the concept of ʻpowerʼ to its two manifestations as: self-overcoming and self-becoming.
Power and Self-Overcoming
What is Nietzscheʼs understanding of ʻpowerʼ?
Beside the popular book which Nietzsche had never agreed to publish but was nonetheless released posthumously by his sister and Peter Gast, based on one of Nietzscheʼs private publication plans, the idea of ʻwill to powerʼ appears in Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883-1885) and Beyond Good and Evil (1886).
In both works, Nietzscheʼs understandings of ʻpowerʼ and ʻwill to powerʼ are to be read in terms of interpretation. So he writes in Zarathustra: ʻWhat urges you on, and arouses your ardor, you wisest of men, do you call it “will to truth”? Will to conceivability of all being: That is what I call your will. […] That is your entire will, you wisest men; it is a will to power, and that is so even when you talk of good and evil and of the assessment of valuesʼ (Za II, ʻOf Self-Overcomingʼ, KSA 4: 146). According to Nietzscheʼs understanding, ʻwill to powerʼ means nothing but life itself, that is to say, no individualism or social implications are implied in the conception, given that such concepts are created by life in its own evaluation process and are given merely as a result. So Nietzsche carries on, through Zarathustraʼs mouth: ʻWhere I found a living creature, there I found will to power; and even in the will of the servant I found the will to be master. […] The living creatures value many things higher than life itself; yet out of this evaluation itself speaks –– the will to powerʼ (ibid, KSA 4: 147-49). In Beyond Good and Evil, the same meaning is expressed through the famous sentence, at the end of aphorism 22, with which Nietzsche anticipates a response to possible criticisms to his notion of ʻwill to powerʼ: ʻSupposing that this also is only an interpretation –– and you will be eager enough to raise that objection? –– well, so much the betterʼ (JGB I, 22, KSA 5: 37). So long as everything is subject to interpretation, in fact, the concept of interpretation itself stops making sense, when understood in terms of ʻtruthʼ.
In this sense, this concept goes also hand in hand with that of self-overcoming: there must be no ego, life must be allowed to transcend and constantly overcome itself. Such an idea is elsewhere defined by Nietzsche as ʻAmor Fatiʼ, a latin phrase for ʻlove for fateʼ, representing the condition of someone who has learnt not only to accept their own impotency towards their own destiny, but also to love and embrace such unfathomable, inescapable, destiny. The concept appeared for the first time in a fragment from Autumn 1881 (15[20]), was re-elaborated in another note a couple of months later (16[22]) and also in a letter to Nietzscheʼs life-time friend Franz Overbeck (5 June 1882). It was then officially introduced for the first time in the Gay Science (1882/1887, § 276), and then re-elaborated again in a few private notes (NF 1884, 25[500]; NF 1888, 16[32]; NF 1888 25[7]), to be finally redelivered to his readers in Nietzsche Contra Wagner [1888] (1889, ʻEpilogueʼ, § 1) and Ecce Homo [1888] (1889, ʻWhy I Am So Cleverʼ, § 10; ʻThe Case Wagnerʼ, § 4).
Self-Overcoming and Bodybuilding
How does this all relate to bodybuilding? As I will show in this section, there are several aspects of Nietzscheʼs idea of ʻself-overcomingʼ that can be easily related to bodybuilding –– the most obvious one being the constant hitting and breaking PR: every time you hit a new record, you’ve automatically overcome your old self –– to put it in a more Nietzschean way, life (the ʻwill to powerʼ) has overcome itself through your hitting a new pr. Likewise, your constant improving your strength, your physique, your endurance, etc., can all be thought of as examples of self-overcoming.
Even more than this, however, one should point out the egoless element of a real bodybuilding journey. First of all, a true bodybuilder dissolves him or herself in the workout; they put concentration before anything else, and their egos ultimately undergo a dissolution: when training, a bodybuilder becomes humble, they start from a low weight and then slowly, religiously, increase it, improving their strength over time.
Finally, and this is the most important aspect, like Nietzsche, as a bodybuilder, you acknowledge that your progress is not really yours but belongs to something greater, of which you’re just a part (e.g. constant training, proper diet, genetics, motivational environment, etc.).
You might raise the objection that this kind of discourse applies to other philosophies too on the one hand, and to any other sport or discipline too on the other hand. And that’s sure the case, after all this is precisely why Nietzsche considers everything as an expression of the ʻwill to powerʼ. However, if we proceed further with our analysis, we shall see how another corollary of Nietzsche’s understanding of ʻpowerʼ resonates with bodybuilding even more, namely, the idea of ʻself-Becomingʼ.
Self-Becoming
What does it mean to become who one is?
In Ecce Homo (1888), Nietzsche dwells upon the concept of self-becoming extensively, although without explaining what he means by that. He just talks about how he has become who he is. And this means that there’s no one-size-fits-all rule when it comes down to self-becoming. However, Nietzsche gives us some advice to become who we are –– the most important one being to reconnect with our instincts. Interestingly, knowing one’s own ideal diet and exercise is one of the key elements of self-becoming.
Indeed, Nietzsche used to self-prescribe diets and exercises to fight his painful migraines; he was into hiking, ice-skating, swimming, and found the typical German diet totally unhealthy. As he writes in EH, ʻWhy I Am So Cleverʼ, §1, Nietzsche seems to perceive a correlation between not only diet and overall health, but also between diet and individual, as well as collective, morals:
Indeed, I can say, that up to a very mature age, my food wasentirely bad—expressed morally, it was “impersonal”, “selfless”, “altruistic”, to the glory of cooks and all other fellow-Christians. It was through the cooking in vogue at Leipzig, for instance, together with my first study of Schopenhauer (1865), that I earnestly renounced my “Will to Live”. To spoil one’s stomach by absorbing insufficient nourishment—this problem seemed to my mind solved with admirable felicity by the above-mentioned cookery. (It is said that in the year 1866 changes were introduced into this department.) But as to German cookery in general—what has it not got on its conscience! Soup beforethe meal (still called alla tedesca in the Venetian cookery books of the sixteenth century); meat boiled to shreds, vegetables cooked with fat and flour; the degeneration of pastries into paper-weights! And, if you add there to the absolutely bestial post-prandial drinking habits of the ancients, and not alone of the ancient Germans, you will understand where German intellect took its origin—that is to say, in sadly disordered intestines…. German intellect is indigestion; it can assimilate nothing. But even English diet, which in comparison with German, and indeed with French alimentation, seems to me to constitute a “return to Nature,”—that is to say, to cannibalism,—is profoundly opposed to my own instincts. It seems to me to give the intellect heavy feet, in fact, Englishwomen’s feet…. The best cooking is that of Piedmont. Alcoholic drinks do not agree with me; a single glass of wine or beer a day is amply sufficient to turn life into a valley of tears for me;—in Munich live my antipodes. Although I admit that this knowledge came to me somewhat late, it already formed part of my experience even as a child. As a boy I believed that the drinking of wine and the smoking of tobacco were at first but the vanities of youths, and later merely bad habits. Maybe the poor wine of Naumburg was partly responsible for this poor opinion of wine in general. In order to believe that wine was exhilarating, I should have had to be a Christian—in other words, I should have had to believe in what, to my mind, is an absurdity. Strange to say, whereas small quantities of alcohol, taken with plenty of water, succeed in making me feel out of sorts, large quantities turn me almost into a rollicking tar. Even as a boy I showed my bravado in this respect […]. Later on, towards the middle of my life, I grew more and more opposed to alcoholic drinks: I, an opponent of vegetarianism, who have experienced what vegetarianism is,—just as Wagner, who converted me back to meat, experienced it,—cannot with sufficient earnestness advise all more spiritual natures to abstain absolutely from alcohol (translation by Anthony M. Ludovici. 1911. Edinburgh and London: T. N. Foulis: 30-32).
The first thing we learn from the above passage is the necessity of a diet being: personal, individually designed, egoistic (in the sense of being perfectly adapted to individual needs). Indeed, he blames his youth diet (a typical German diet) for being ʻimpersonalʼ, ʻselflessʼ, ʻaltruisticʼ and therefore Christian –– which according to his mature understanding means opposed to life and instincts (as he explains inThe Anti-Christ; [1888], 1889). So Nietzsche advocates a reconnection with one’s own, individual, ʻinstinctsʼ, for both optimal physical health (he speaks about ʻdigestionʼ) and best intellectual activity. In his specific case, one can deduce that Nietzsche prefers to avoid: excessive ʻfat and flourʼ; heavy cooking (ʻthe degeneration of pastries into paper-weightʼ); excessive alcohol. Interestingly, we also learn that Nietzsche had tried a vegetarian diet on himself at the time of his fascination for Schopenhauer and Wagner, and been dissuaded from this type of diet by this latter himself (later in his life, Nietzsche will notoriously discourage young students of his from attempting vegetarianism by using Wagner’s own argument indeed).
Then he makes his point of what a balance diet should look like:
A heavy meal is digested more easily than an inadequate one. The first principle of a good digestion is that the stomach should become active as a whole. A man ought, therefore, to know the size of his stomach. For the same reasons all those interminable meals, which I call interrupted sacrificial feasts, and which are to be had at any table d’hôte, are strongly to be deprecated. Nothing should be eaten between meals, coffee should be given up—coffee makes one gloomy. Tea is beneficial only in the morning. It should be taken in small quantities, but very strong. It may be very harmful, and indispose you for the whole day, if it be taken the least bit too weak. Everybody has his own standard in this matter, often between the narrowest and most delicate limits. In an enervating climate tea is not a good beverage with which to start the day: an hour before taking it an excellent thing is to drink a cup of thick cocoa, freed from oil [entölten]. Remain seated as little as possible, put no trust in any thought that is not born in the open, to the accompaniment of free bodily motion—nor in one in which even the muscles do not celebrate a feast. All prejudices take their origin in the intestines. A sedentary life, as I have already said elsewhere, is the real sin against the Holy Spirit (ibid).
The first condition for optimal digestion is simplicity (ʻa heavy meal is digested more easily than an inadequate one. […] the stomach should become active as a wholeʼ). The other conditions can be translated as: avoiding snacks between meals; avoiding coffee; drinking tea sparingly and in the morning solely –– however tea should always be strong––; drinking fat free, thick hot chocolate one hour prior to morning tea in ʻenervatingʼ climates; being as active as possible and mostly outdoor(ʻRemain seated as little as possible, put no trust in any thought that is not born in the open, to the accompaniment of free bodily motion—nor in one in which even the muscles do not celebrate a feast. All prejudices take their origin in the intestines. A sedentary life, as I have already said elsewhere, is the real sin against the Holy Spiritʼ). So, later in § 10:
these trivial matters—diet, locality, climate, and one’s mode of recreation, the whole casuistry of selfishness; self-love—are inconceivably more important than, all that which has hitherto been held in high esteem! It is precisely in this quarter that we must begin to learn afresh. All those things which mankind has valued with such earnestness heretofore are not even real; they are mere creations of fancy, or, more strictly speaking, lies born of the evil instincts of diseased and, in the deepest sense, noxious natures—all the concepts, “God”, “soul”, “virtue”, “sin”, “Beyond”, “truth”, “eternal life”. … But the greatness of human nature, its “divinity”, was sought for in them…. (ibid: 52).
Therefore, a return to what was traditionally perceived as ʻtrivial mattersʼ, such as ʻdietʼ itself is key, according to Nietzsche, to accomplishing the ʻdivinityʼ of ʻhuman natureʼ, its ʻgreatnessʼ.
In his Letters From Turin (1889), Nietzsche explains what a usual meal of his at the restaurant looks like: ʻminestra or risotto, a good portion of meat, vegetable and bread—all good … I eat here with the serenest disposition of soul and stomachʼ; in other words, carbs, protein and just a little bit of fat, the typical bodybuilder diet (let’s forget about the bread for one moment). One of his favourite carb sources has always been risotto, as we learn from a few letters, whose prep technique Nietzsche was taught by his housekeeper in Genoa (very interestingly, I found a reproduction of his recipe on this website: https://paperandsalt.org/2014/03/31/friedrich-nietzsche-lemon-risotto-with-asparagus-and-mint/). Ultimately, in a letter to his mother and sister written in Genoa (Italy) on 6 April 1881, Nietzsche claims that his diet is ʻso changeable […], depending on the place or the climateʼ –– as mentioned above, Nietzsche was very sensitive to his somewhat poor health, in particular concerning his migraine and digestive issues.
Although, on a general level, there are certain principles which most individuals should benefit from (such as consuming simple meals and being outdoor as much as possible), in Nietzsche’s overall idea of ʻself-becomingʼ, individuality is key. Such individuality, however, manifests itself through one’s own diet in the first place. Understanding how important and unique one’s own nature and instincts are is the only way for a man or woman to become who they really are; however, it also means that the first thing they have to learn is to abandon their egoistic prejudice (Nietzsche dwells upon the ego delusion in the first part of Beyond Good and Evil extensively), and embrace the uncontrollable chain of inner instincts and surrounding events that has built their individuality over time, and that will continue to do so. This is why I like to think of Nietzsche’s idea of ʻSelf-Becomingʼ as a ʻcorollaryʼ of his ideas of ʻwill to powerʼ and ʻamor fatiʼ. In Nietzsche’s view, connecting with one’s own instincts and individual needs is the best way to become who one is. As we shall see, this has much to do with bodybuilding too.
What Does ʻSelf-Becomingʼ Mean in Bodybuilding?
The aforementioned individuality that is so important in Nietzsche’s idea of ʻbecoming who one isʼ finds its equivalent meaning in the bodybuilding idea of fulfilling one’s own genetic potential. First of all, in bodybuilding, understanding and mastering concepts such as ʻbody typeʼ, ʻmetabolic rateʼ, ʻindividual dieting and trainingʼ is the basis for success. Every good bodybuilder knows whether their body type is ʻectomorphicʼ, ʻmesomorphicʼ or ʻendomorphicʼ, and designs their workouts and diets accordingly. Secondly, knowing how a bodybuilder’s body reacts to certain foods, beverages, stress and certain exercises is paramount to tailoring the best workout programme and meal plan a bodybuilder can benefit from. For instance, some individuals do well on high carbs and low fats, as opposed to others who perform at their best on a high-fat diet; some people (especially women) have genetically strong legs and weaker upper bodies, some others are stronger in their back and chest and not so in their legs; certain people respond well to steady cardio, versus others who prefer HIIT; some individuals need to consume more or less calories than others to achieve the same results, etc. Thirdly, this discourse applies to the division choice: to give you the most obvious example, typically, a Bikini competitor can hardly do well in a Women’s Physique or Bodybuilding contest, and vice versa; whereas a Figure competitor can potentially move up or down her division, but will have to work really hard to achieve her goal physique. One could even argue that:
bodybuilding is the constant pursuit of the ideal body, based on acknowledging one’s individual strengths and weaknesses, and striving to realise the full potential of the former, while working hard to compensate for, and minimise, the latter.
Another element from Nietzsche’s idea of ʻSelf-Becomingʼ deserving attention is his emphasising the role of one’s diet in their ʻbecoming who they areʼ. Diet is obviously as important as workouts in bodybuilding. As everyone knows, one needs to eat in a caloric surplus, if they want to build muscle, however ʻabs are made in the kitchenʼ, meaning that one has to eat clean and below their maintenance caloric intake, if they want their hard-built muscle to finally stand out. Even closer to Nietzsche’s idea, however, is the fact that bodybuilders don’t eat for personal enjoyment, but consider food as fuel, constantly calculating macros and adjusting their ratio based on their personal needs (bulking, maintenance, cutting). As it was for Nietzsche, here simplicity plays again a pivotal role: meals should be simple, effective and easily digestible. Moreover, it is important to point out the role of certain foods and drinks (such as carbs, salt and water) during peak week and on show day: often time, restricting carbs and manipulating sodium and water intake during the week leading to the show, and then carb-loading on show day, can really determine a competitor’s placement in their competition. Lastly, timing is also imperative, if one wants to succeed as a bodybuilder: whether you intermittent fast or not, consuming small meals in a certain time window, possibly the same everyday, is common practice among successful bodybuilders. Similar to Nietzsche’s advice, bodybuilders want to stick to the same amount of meals everyday, and not to snack in between.
The Übermensch at Mr Olympia
Self-Sculpting and Self-Experimentation
What is accounted in Ecce Homo represents Nietzsche’s own, personal and unique, self-becoming. If one wanted to find a more generalised ideal of self-becoming, the figures of the Übermensch and of the ʻhigher manʼ described in Zarathustra and Beyond Good and Evil, respectively, are to be looked at. Both types of men are depicted as something that has yet to come; they appear far away from the men of the crowd, able to incorporate their instincts in their personality, without rejecting them or being driven by them. They are the only ones that can bear the ʻdeath of Godʼ without falling prey of the so-called ʻshadows of Godʼ (see The Gay Science, §§ 208-209). These ideal men are brave enough to reject pre-established values and belief systems, and to experiment on theirselves until they find their own belief systems.
As Paul Bishop has recently observed, Nietzsche’s representation of the Übermensch can arguably be considered a form of ʻself-Sculptingʼ, belonging to a wide tradition that can be traced back to late Antiquity (Bishop 2017). The ideas of constant self-experimentation and self-sculpting are naturally predominant characteristics of bodybuilding too; so is the strive to return to a certain Greek ideal of perfection (as I’ve previously suggested; see Schwarzenegger 1985; Fair 2015).
Nietzsche’s Idea of the Athletes
On top of that, Nietzsche makes use of sport metaphors in his published texts. For example, in The Genealogy of Morals (1887), Nietzsche compares the ʻphilosophersʼ fighting ʻa war […] against [a] lack of enthusiasmʼ to ʻsportsmen of “holiness”ʼ [sportsmen der “Heiligkeit”], who have ʻin fact found a real release from what they were fighting against with such a rigorous training [training]ʼ. In the same section, references to the impact of a diet on ʻoneʼs physical well beingʼ –– and to physiology more broadly –– recur throughout. In fact, Nietzsche tries to address religious, psychological and moral categories as responses to ʻa feeling of physiological inhibitionʼ which cannot ʻenter peopleʼs explanations, due to their ʻlack of knowledge about physiologyʼ (GM III, § 17).
Conclusion
If Alphonso Lingis righteously guessed a little bit of Nietzsche in bodybuilding, his reducing such little bit of Nietzsche to the social implications of his representation ofʻpowerʼ does not suffice. So writes Lingis: ʻevery great epoch of culture, Nietzsche wrote, is not only an epoch of humankind’s cultivating of nature –– transforming of nature’s resources in accordance with its own idea –– it is also an epoch in the history of humankind’s cultivation of its own nature –– transforming its own nature in accordance with its ideal. Every great culture, marked by distinctive intellectual, artistic and moral productions, has also set up a distinctive icon of bodily perfectionʼ (Lingis 1988: 101).
As I’ve argued throughout this post, in my opinion, Nietzsche’s strive for self-overcoming, self-becoming, self-experimenting and self-sculpting are the real elements to be emphasised, when one wants to compare Nietzsche’s philosophy with bodybuilding. Moreover, Nietzsche’s stress on body and ʻphysiologyʼ over morals and metaphysics, as well as his emphasising the importance of rigour and discipline (not to be forgotten, Nietzsche was first of all a philologist), his comparing philosophers to ʻsportsmenʼ are all signs of his will to attribute a certain value to the body that goes beyond its separation from the mind. Lingis is right to point out Nietzsche’s idea of humankind’s ʻtransforming its own nature in accordance with its idealʼ, but he is wrong in identifying such an ideal with mere narcissism, forgetting the strive to self-becoming that underpins bodybuilding. It is not just about building a body; it is also about building a better version of oneself –– hence self-becoming ––, through constant self-experimentation and self-overcoming. The idea of self-sculpting is no merely an aesthetic one; it is the idea of working on oneself (getting rid of what does not suit one’s own nature and sticking with what really works for oneself), towards the full realisation of one’s ultimate self.
Bishop, Paul.2017. On The Blissful Island With Nietzsche And Jung: In The Shadow Of The Superman. Oxon and New York: Routledge.
Fair, John D. 2015. Mr. America: The Tragic History of a Bodybuilding Icon. Austin: University Of TexasPress.
Lingis, Alphonso. 1988. ʻOrchids and Musclesʼ.InDavid Farrell Krell, and David Wood (eds). Exceedingly Nietzsche: Aspects of Contemporary Nietzsche Interpretation.London and New York: Routledge: 97-115.
Müller, Farguell Roger W. 1995.Tanz-Figuren: zur metaphorischen Konstitution von Bewegung in Texten: Schiller, Kleist, Heine, Nietzsche. Munich: W. Fink.
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. 1967 ––. Kritische Gesamtausgabe der Werke Nietzsches. Edited by Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari. Berlin / New York: De Gruyter.
––. [1888]. Ecce Homo. Translated by Anthony M. Ludovici. Edinburgh and London: T. N. Foulis, 1911.
––. 1887. On The Genealogy of Morals. A Polemical Tract. Translated by Ian Johnston. Arlington: Richer Resources Publications, 2009.
––. 2009 ––. Digital Critical Edition(edited by P. DʼIorio).
Portier, Sylvain. 2014. Zlatan Ibrahimovic ou comment retrouver le sérieux que l’on mettait dans ses jouets, étant enfant Friedrich Nietzsche. – [Vallet] : Éditions M-editer, 2014. – 44 S. : Ill. – (Livre’L).
Reschke, Renate. 2000.ʻDie andere Perspektive: Ein Gott, der zu tanzen verstündeʼ.In: Volker Gerhardt (ed.). Friedrich Nietzsche, Also sprach Zarathustra. Berlin: Akademie Verlag: 257-284
Röller, Gisela. 2001. Tanz als Form des Denkens: Friedrich Nietzsche, Denen jenseits von Schluß und Dialektik. Jansen, Lüneburg: Jansen.
Schwarzenegger, Arnold. 1985. The New Encyclopaedia of Modern Bodybuilding. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1998 (2nd edition).
Yes, it seems like every ex vegan is coming out right now, and I happen to be one of them indeed. Although this phenomenon might appear as a propagandistic tendency, it has in fact much deeper roots, which very easily translate into: veganism is not a sustainable diet. The reason why everyone is quitting veganism at the same time is because we all nearly started at the same time, and are now experiencing its effects on our health. My main reason for quitting it, however, is an ethical one, to which a psychological component is to be added too. I’m briefly breaking down my argument in the following paragraphs, but you can also watch my latest video, in which I not only discuss it extensively, but also share some rare footage of me trying beef for the first time after 15 years.
My Main Reasons
Ethics
As you might remember, a few month ago, I wrote a post about Veganism and the Paradox of Living an Ethical Life, in which shared my many doubts on the ethics of a plant-based diet, versus eating grass-fed beef. My reflection on the subject had become so intense and overwhelming, that I could no longer look at my plate of quinoa without thinking of those poor ladies in South America consuming their hands and starving themselves just to produce my “cruelty free” meal. A similar discourse applies to cotton (check out what’s going on in Mexico because of cotton production), avocados and legumes. On top of it, I couldn’t stop thinking about all those poor rabbits, birds, insects and lizards that get unjustly killed every time a crop field is created. As I wrote in my previous post, if you compare the figures, you’ll find exponentially less cruelty in a grass-fed ox liver than in a plate of lentils. It’s impossible to grow grains and vegetable without killing thousands of lives in the process.
As I educated myself on meat and dairy industries when I went vegan, so I decided to educate myself on crop production. The first thing I found out about is the figures. The most shocking discovery is this: other than in the US, cereal and soy (!!!) crop production is for HUMAN consumption. There’s only a small percentage (around 20%, if I’m not mistaken), which isn’t fit for human consumption and is therefore used to feed livestock which are, however, mostly grass fed. This means that the horrific deforestations that are taking place worldwide have nothing to do with the meat industry and could potentially be aggravated if everyone went vegan (as the crop demand would significantly increase). Moreover, CO2 cow emissions are not as dangerous for the planet as some vegan propaganda is trying to advocate: bovines have always been around and in pretty much the same amount (we have definitely more cows now, but how about those poor bisons that are slowly extinguishing?). How can one even think that their natural CO2 emissions might cause harm to the planet, more than the aircrafts used to transport tempeh, avocados and quinoa across the globe? Lastly, did you know that farms actually protect lots of animals which would never survive otherwise, by providing them with food, shelter and good care? Most of the bovines and chickens out there would never make it to 2 years of life, as they would fall prey of bigger predators.
Factory farming is surely evil. But so is the crop field industry. If one really wants to be ethical, the best thing to do is to buy from local farms. Fair enough, but are animal products really necessary? Can’t one just thrive on self-grown or locally-sourced fruit and vegetables? The answers are: yes, animal products are necessary (if you want to perform at your best), and no, one can’t thrive on self-grown or locally-sourced fruit and vegetables solely. But this leads us to the next point.
Health
As you might know, when I first went raw vegan, back in 2014, my IBS improved a lot, but when I started incorporating cooked foods in my diet (because a raw-vegan diet could no longer sustain my workouts), my symptoms got worse and worse. In 2018, I went low FODMAP and my IBS symptoms improved dramatically. However, that restricted my diet even more, and because my protein demand was pretty high, I was forced to consume unbelievably great amount of soy products, such as tofu and tempeh. In the aforementioned old post of mine, I had already expressed my concern about soy consumption, and the truth is that, because there’s no substantial scientific evidence to support theories in favour or against soy phytoestrogens, it was hard to make up my mind once and for all. So I decided to stay in the safe zone of 100g tempeh and 150g tofu a day, and to supplement the rest of my protein intake with: pea and rice protein powders, quinoa, buckwheat, nutritional yeast, tahini, nuts, some lentils and beans here and there. Phytoestrogens aside, however, bioavailability is another unescapable truth to be considered.
In my first 4 years of veganism, I felt great most of the time (beside my IBS, of course): I felt energised, light, focused and kind of happy. That’s essentially due to 2 reasons: 1) I was bulking (meaning I was eating extra calories everyday, and, because of that, my body had plenty of energy sources available in my body); 2) when I started my vegan journey, I was in great need for detoxification, and a vegan diet is one of the most effective ways to detox your body. However, when I did my first vegan cut, in Spring 2018, my energy levels suddenly dropped, and I began to feel fatigued, dizzy, lethargic and sluggish out of the blue (I must say that my cut had just started, so my calories were still pretty close to maintenance level, so you can’t blame it on their being too low). I got my blood tested and everything was within the range. Around the same time, I also started craving high protein foods, such as tempeh, intensively. On top of that, I developed depression, anxiety, paranoia and a constant feeling of emptiness, not in its metaphysical, existential meaning, but in the sense of physical hollowness, like a lack of grounding. Exactly the same happened early this year, during my second cut. In both occasions, my daily protein intake would never go below 140-120g, so it wasn’t a matter of not meeting my requirement. All of my macros and micros have always been religiously accounted for, so l wasn’t theoretically lacking anything.
My constant tiredness was due to the bioavailability of the nutrients I was intaking everyday: plants have anti-nutrients to protect themselves, making it hard for humans to assimilate the nutrients. Hence, when you consume 140g plant-based protein, you actually assimilate something around 70-80g of those (the same applies to other macros, as well as to micros, such as vitamins and minerals). When you’re on a bulk, you exceed your daily macro and micro need, so you assimilate enough nutrients to feel good (reason n.1); when you’re cutting, though, you suddenly deprive your body of too many nutrients. Could eating more have helped me out when cutting? Probably yes, if I had increased my protein consumption, but, as I’ve already said, my proteins were mainly coming from soy products, and I’ve already expressed my concern about them.
Detoxing is an excellent practice and all cultures and religions incorporate fasting in their practices. However, it doesn’t have to be carried on for too long. Veganism is a fasting-mimicking diet, which works wonders for your body, when practiced for a few months, or even a few years. When your body gets rid of all the toxins in excess, however, and gets ready for its normal tasks, you no longer need to detox it (just as a side note, this discourse is entirely wrong, as your body naturally detoxes itself everyday, and what we mean by “detoxing” is just supporting it in the process by not overloading it too much). So, if you don’t provide it with the right amount of nutrients it needs, it’ll start to slowly decay, leaving you tired, sluggish, fatigued and empty (reason n.2). Finally, only animal fats are able to balance our hormones out effectively, making you feel grounded, focused and happy. And, again, this is because of their bioavailability: as a species, humans have evolved consuming fresh organs and other easily available meats, our bodies are perfectly designed to assimilate animal nutrients faster and more effectively than plant based nutrients (as I said, we can thrive on plants too, but only for short periods of time), or even lab-synthesised surrogates.
Psychology
As everyone knows, a 100% plant-based diet is not complete. You need to make sure you get enough B12, omega 3 (and in a good ratio with your omega 6), and the list goes on and on… Vegans typically turn into nutrition scientists, constantly calculating their macros and micros, knowing which foods should be combined with which for best results, always carrying supplements and protein powders in their bags. I had enough of it all.
Although I believe in meal plans and strict schedules, when it comes down to food, I also believe in simplicity. The simpler your meals, the more digestible and effective. On a vegan diet, I found that I had to constantly combine my foods to meet my requirements, not to mention the supplements I had to take. Moreover, most of my food was also highly processed. Finally, I was eating the same foods over and over again, same meals throughout the day and throughout the year, it had become so unnatural and counterintuitive that was really clashing with my ethics and belief system. I could only imagine spending the rest of my life that way. I felt totally disconnected.
What My Diet Looks Like Right Now
Since I went back to animal products, I’ve been trying to be more ethical than I was as a vegan. My rule of thumb is this simple: harming as few lives as possible; impacting the environment as little as possible; feeling one with nature as much as I can.
Most of my food comes from wild-caught fish (mostly salmon, mackerel, sardines, tuna, haddock), duck eggs, grass-fed beef (whose taste I don’t even enjoy that much) and lamb. I also have some organic, locally sourced Skyr yoghurt, grass-fed butter, goat butter, and Feta or Halloumi cheese. As to my carbs, I still consume plenty of (low FODMAP) vegetables, potatoes, swedes, turnips and parsnips, which I buy from my local farmers market (alongside the meat). Sparingly, I still consume organic oats, bananas, berries, basmati rice and buckwheat (I’m not ready to cut them completely to reduce my environmental footprint, and I also believe in balance — I’ve experienced the effects of a restrictive diet on myself to the point where I really understand the importance of balance and happiness in one’s overall well-being). In terms of meat, I buy a lot of organs, such as livers, kidneys and hearts, for 2 reasons. First of all, people don’t generally want them, and I don’t want animals to die in vain; second, because those are probably the most nutritious foods in the world: they contain most of the essential vitamins and minerals which are also extremely bioavailable — our bodies are just designed to eat organs because this is how we’ve evolved. For both reasons, I believe that consuming organs is the most ethical way you can eat.
How Do I Feel?
I feel good. Not only do I feel more balanced, grounded, energised, focused and overall happier, my bloat has gone away, my digestion has improved a lot, I’m still dieting but don’t feel exhausted anymore (in fact I don’t even feel that hungry in between meals — although my macros and micros have stayed exactly the same as when I was vegan).
The most impressive improvements concern my performance in the gym: my recovery is much faster and my muscle appearance is much better (on my rest days, my muscles used to look a bit flat, when I was vegan; now they always look full).
The most important change, however, is that I finally feel connected and spiritually balanced. On top of it, I’m sharing meals with my husband for the first time in 14 years, and that’s an indescribable feeling, which most people probably take for granted, but which I was risking not to experience ever in my life. Just for that, I’m so glad I made that decision.
My Gratitude
I’m grateful to veganism for making me aware of what’s going on in the meat in dairy industries. I’m also grateful to it, for opening my eyes and helping me understand that compassion is real. However, as a scholar of Friedrich W. Nietzsche, I cannot but transvalue my own values, the first one being veganism indeed. In the path towards my self-becoming, in my seek for self-realisation, I need to go beyond veganism itself and ground my own ethics; I need to incorporate what complies with my own belief system, and to reject what doesn’t. Compassion does comply with it, exploitation doesn’t; for this reason, I decide to go back to eating locally-farmed meat and wild-caught fish, rather than pretending to be “cruelty free”, when in fact supporting the unjustified killing of thousands of insects, lizards, birds, rabbits, as well as the exploitation of poor countries and people.
My last thought of gratitude goes to Bobby Risto from Bobby’s Perspective (go and check him out, if you haven’t yet), for speaking out for those vegans and ex vegans in struggle with their diets and ethics. Bobby is currently working on a documentary to denounce the truth behind crop fields, and I honestly look so much forward to it!
Don’t forget to watch my video, if you haven’t yet! 😉
As I mentioned in my previous post, me and my best friend took on a 3-month challenge as part on our NY resolutions. Both our personal challenges were physique-orientated, however, whereas I had committed to gaining at least 1 cm in my upper back and — possibly — in my arms, my bestie’s challenge was to lose 8 Kg. I can proudly anticipate that we both did really well.
I have to say, however, that I didn’t do extremely well in the first month and was quite worried I’d never make it through. Although I did gain some mm, it didn’t seem to happen consistently. However, with a strict diet and high-volume workouts I not only met my expectations but even exceeded it, in that I managed to gain 2.5 cm in my upper back. Unfortunately, I didn’t gain any cm in my arms, but their composition changed (I can confidently say so, because my strength has improved a lot over these past 3 months), so I’m happy with my result. Weight-wise, I gained 2 Kg and my body fat percentage increased by 2%. Doing the maths, I estimated those 2 Kg coming down to roughly 1 kg body fat and 1 kg lean muscle (both are less than 1 kg, though, considering some water weight).
My starting point
My new back… I did lose some definition, but I visibly increased my size too (compare the ratio upper back-waist in the two pics — for the 2.5 cm I gained on my upper back, I only gained 1 cm on my waist)
I’m still far away from my objective, but I’m definitely proud of my achievement. I’ve just started a mini cut now, to see how much of those 2.5 cm I can keep on my upper back, while bringing my bf percentage back to its maintenance level (16-17%) or even a bit below (summer is coming!). Being naturally extremely lean in my upper back and shoulders, it seems like a doable process to me. To do this, I created a new meal plan to slightly reduce my calorie intake (which is still fairly high, though) and introduced a second workout to incorporate some brisk walks, yoga and acrobatics in my daily routine. I’m planning to then re-introduce sprints on the treadmill and steady bike x3 a week, while I’m not going to make to major adjustments to my diet.
As to my bestie, well, she started way better than me: in the first 6 weeks, she managed to lose 4 Kg and I was sure she would win and I would lose. However, she caught a flue, stopped her diet and plateaued on that weight. I’m still super proud of her because she hasn’t gained any kg back so far, and will start dieting again, once she’s fully recovered. 4 kg in 6 weeks is such a remarkable achievement, that I consider her to have won her challenge too. 😉
Strength Improvements and New PR
My NY resolutions didn’t solely concern my physical appearance though, as should never be the case (we want to become better human beings, not prettier Barbies, after all). I wanted to increase my upper back’s strength too, and the exercise that works best for me it’s rack pulls . Although this exercise can be thought of as a deadlift variation — and, similar to deadlifts, it does work your lower back and hamstrings –, it’s in fact one of the best ways to improve your upper back. If you’ve never tried them, you’ll be surprised with how beneficial rack pulls can be for your trapezius, your rhomboids and even your lats (if you squeeze them enough). In the last month of my challenge, I focused on strength training, and achieved new PRs in almost every exercise — the one I’m mostly proud of being rack pulls (of course). If you’re a natural athlete, incorporating strength programmes in your routine will definitely help you with hypertrophy too, as strength training will break plateaus and prepare your muscles for heavier loads, hence for more tension, hence for hypertrophy.
My new PR @ Rack Pulls: 3×5 @ 105 Kg (231.5 lbs). I’m aiming at 120 Kg by the summer (let’s see).
Conclusion
Life is a journey whose final destination is for you to become the best version of yourself (namely, to become who you are). I like to break down my ultimate self-realisation into smaller, achievable goals, each of them being accountable year by year, and I like to keep track of them on a monthly basis, to make sure I follow the right path. I’m happy with how my journey towards this year’s goal is going so far, and I’m proud of myself, for not feeling discouraged by the monstrosity of the ultimate goal, being able to focus upon the small steps that will lead me there instead. You should also find a good reason to be proud of yourself. Stick with it, and let it become your personal mantra for your darkest days!
