Motivation

12MA Reader Story: How Miranda Went From Zero to Five Pull Ups

If you’re convinced you’ll never be able to do a pull up, you’re not alone.

Miranda Hamilton, a 41-year-old lawyer, mom, and former college athlete living in Edinburgh, Scotland, felt the exact same way.

Recently, she wrote us an email about her experience with pull ups:

“Until about a year ago I assumed I couldn’t, and would never be able to, do a pull-up. I wouldn’t even try one as I was too convinced I’d look like an idiot.”

Yet she took a chance, and these days, with the help of Pull Up Mastery, hard work, and consistent training, Miranda can now regularly rock four to five pull ups in a row.

Now that’s what I call progress!

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How to Make Healthy Living Easier

Too many people see working out and eating well as just some things they have to do in order to be healthy and fit.

It’s sad because living a healthy life and exercising can–and should be–much more than that. It really should be fun and enjoyable!

For someone fairly new to a healthier lifestyle, being active and eating better food on a regular basis may sound like a terrible punishment. When you’re first starting out, it may seem like there’s no way it could ever be something you actually enjoy.

And it’s actually not hard to see where people with this point of view are coming from. Here are a few misconceptions that make us think that healthy living is so difficult:

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12MA Reader Story: 12 Minute Athlete Kuntal on Top of Mt. Everest

We absolutely love hearing your guys’ stories on how you’ve conquered a big goal in life or changed your view on health and fitness in a big or meaningful way.

Which is why I was so blown away when a few weeks ago, Kuntal’s email landed in my inbox:

“My name is Kuntal Joisher, and I am a 12 Minute Athlete 🙂

Earlier this year, in May 2016, I stood on the very top of the world – summit of Mt. Everest, and became the first Vegan in the world to do so (as far as I can tell). 

This was my 3rd attempt. My previous two attempt in 2014, and 2015, weren’t really attempts as both had to be abandoned due to earthquakes and avalanches that killed over 40 people and injured more than 100.

Thank you for creating such a wonderful app that helped me create a Top of the World Body and Mind!”

Kuntal is a 36-year old vegan, mountaineer, adventure photographer, and when he’s not climbing or shooting in the Himalayas, writes software living in Mumbai, India.

He has an incredible story, and has learned some powerful lessons along the way—lessons that apply to any goals in life, even if it’s not your biggest dream to climb Mt. Everest. Here’s more about Kuntal’s story, I hope you find it as inspiring as I did:

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9 Health & Fitness Habits To Stop Now

As much as we like to talk about habits and strategies to help you get healthy and fit for life, sometimes it’s the habits that you ditch that make the biggest difference in the long run.

Ditching unhelpful habits gives you space for new, more helpful ones. It may be tough to give them up at first, but the more you work at it, the more you’ll realize how most of these habits are holding you back from your goals—rather than helping you get there.

Here are 9 health and fitness habits that everyone striving to be healthy and fit should try to eliminate:

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How Being Fit And Healthy Helped Me Recover From a Car Crash

A little over two months ago, I got in a really bad car crash.

I didn’t talk about it much publicly at the time because I mostly just wanted to be around family and didn’t want (or need) an outpouring of public support. It’s still hard for me to talk about, and I still get flashbacks at times thinking about what we all went through. But it’s been long enough now that I feel it’s the right time to share what happened, since it forever changed my outlook on staying fit and healthy.

First, you should know exactly what happened.

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Why You Should Learn to Do Pistol Squats

Do you press the “Next” button on your 12 Minute Athlete workouts app every time the workout calls for pistol squats? If so, it’s time to change that and learn to do pistols!

If you’ve been reading 12 Minute Athlete for a while now, you know that in addition to super quick and sweaty HIIT workouts we also love more advanced bodyweight and skill exercises. For example, last September, we did a 30-day pistol squat challenge and earlier this year, a 6-week handstand challenge.

But today, let’s talk about pistols.

Anyone Can Do Pistols–But It Takes Work

Pretty much anyone can do a quick 12 minute workout, which is why we absolutely love HIIT training. But tougher strength and skill exercises like pistol squats are not super easy to do right away.

I remember when I first got interested in pistols and tried to do a few—they were so terrible that I was absolutely sure I would never be able to do them. I wasn’t even close. I have long limbs and it’s there’s no question that pistols are harder for tall people.

But although I made being tall my excuse for a while, I soon realized that there are tons of tall people out there who can do pistol squats. Since I don’t like excuses, I quickly became determined and decided that I would be able to do them one day.

The bigger the challenge, the greater the reward. 

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5 Ways to Get Through a Tough Workout

Hey athletes! I was asked to participate in the #WorkForIt #EASPartner campaign, sponsored by EAS Sports Nutrition at Walgreens. Although I have been compensated, all opinions are my own.

There’s no question about it, the workouts we do on 12 Minute Athlete are tough.

It’s much easier to make up excuses to skip a workout and sit in the couch instead—and that’s what a lot of people do.

But not us. We are athletes, and we push through it, no matter what.

We sweat. We struggle. We work hard.

But that doesn’t mean we always look forward to our workouts. Sometimes, even we want to join the couch potatoes and do anything but train hard.

On days like those, we all need a little extra motivation. In partnership with the #WorkForIt #EASPartner campaign, here are 5 ways to get through a tough workout:

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From Running to HIIT and Strength Training: Kersten’s Story

Kersten

Hey athletes,

I asked 12MA team member Kersten if she would share a little about her fitness background with you guys today because I found it super inspiring and thought it would resonate with a lot of you.

If you haven’t seen her around, she’s been writing some awesome and super helpful posts around here and she’s also the super awesome and supportive moderator in the 12MA Facebook group. You can find more of her on her site Urbanjane.co.

Let’s hear her story:

Five years ago, I would’ve never thought that there will ever be a week when I run less than 10 miles. In my eyes, running was the only form of exercise and the only way to stay in shape. 

But things have changed and now my workouts last about 20-30 minutes. About a half of my workouts are done with bodyweight and half with weights, like kettlebells, sandbags etc. Running is still part of my HIIT workouts, but I no longer spend hours on the pavement.

Today I want to share how that happened and how my life has changed because of that.

But first, I want it to be clear that the goal of this post is not to say that nobody should ever run because it sucks so bad. In fact, I really don’t like how beating up running seems to be some strength coaches’ main goal.

I think that we should all do what we like best and what makes us happy, and if that’s running for you, then go for it. But know that running is not the only form of exercise and you don’t have to do it if you don’t like it. You may also re-think your running if you’re doing it for wrong reasons, like I did for several years.

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How Not to Gorge Yourself at Night

I’ve talked before about how I used to really struggle with binge eating, often devouring entire bags of popcorn, candy, cookies, and more in one sitting until I felt sick and terrible about myself.

Thankfully, due to a much healthier outlook on food and treating food as fuel rather than as the enemy, I’ve pretty much stopped any form of binging. Instead I focus on fueling my body with nutritious whole foods, in filling, yet reasonable amounts.

In fact, during the day, I eat fairly intuitively, giving my body what it craves (usually vegetables, some protein, and healthy carbs) in the right amounts based on my activity level for that day. I rarely even have cravings for sweets during the daytime, and feel the most energized and focused when I eat smaller, nutrient-packed meals every three hours or so.

But at night, it’s a whole different story.

I usually eat dinner at 6 or 7pm, what most people think should be the last meal of the day. But what inevitably happens is that even after I’m finished with dinner, I’m not quite satisfied.

Sometimes it starts immediately after dinner, where I need something sweet right away. And sometimes it’s more like a couple of hours later, where all of a sudden it’s 8 or 9pm and I’m absolutely famished.

So what happens when I don’t act smart when these moments hit? I snack. And snack. And snack. Until I inevitably feel overfull, bloated, and slightly sick from too much (usually not-so-healthy) food.

Sound familiar at all?

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Why You Should Stop Comparing Yourself to Others

We often compare ourselves to people we admire and want to be like. But instead of making us better athletes, comparing ourselves to others may slow our progress down.

“What’s holding you back from getting into the best shape of your life?”

We ask this question from all the people who join the 12 Minute Athlete community. We want to help you to truly unlock your potential, so knowing what your biggest obstacles are is important.

Unsurprisingly, the most common answer we get is time. But that problem should be easy to fix now that you know that 12 minutes a day is all you need to get into awesome shape.

But there’s another, very important thing that keeps many people from getting fit, strong, and healthy. It’s comparing themselves to others.

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