Foster Kid to Ultra Athlete with Pollyann Keller


 

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The odd outcome

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Last Saturday (09/19) I attended the first IBJJF tournament since COVID outbreak. I trained really hard during the pandemic, and I dropped from 222 lbs to 204 lbs with the help of my nutricionist Greg McCoy. The intention was to also get back to bodybuilding stage by end of 2020. But before, I wanted to compete in BJJ again, since my last competition was in March, at the IBJJF Houston Open, where I won.  Coincidentally , my opponent in Austin was the same that I competed in Houston, but although the opponent was the same, I never underestimated that the outcome could be different, I just didn't realize it would be so drastic.  We bow to each other, wrist bump and started the fight. It felt deja-vu, since we went to exactly same grips and same initial movements. Some attempts to grab my leg, just like in the initial fight, and some attempts from my side to break his balance and go for tai otoshi. After 1 minute and 36 seconds, I was trying to attack in a tai otoshi position, but my
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Get comfortable being uncomfortable

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Today we are starting another Destination Challenge , and again I will hit the same key tip: your mind is going to play the biggest role in this game of change. You usually don’t get really physically tired, because your mind will give up first, and your body will just obey what your mind tells him to do. The book “ How Bad Do You Want ”, brings a lot of scientifically examples that your mind is in control of your physical performance. Even athletes that are in a better physical shape, can be defeated for the ones that are in a much better mental state to support the pressure. Here one important paragraph from this book : “The British neuroscientist Vincent Walsh has even suggested that sports competition is the single most challenging thing the human brain ever does—more challenging even than “purely” mental tasks like solving differential equations and also more challenging to the brain than it is to the body.” If you want to get a bit inspiration this week, watch 4 minute
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Always take full responsibility for your actions

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I still remember in 2003 when I moved to US and a friend in Brazil told me: man, now you will get really fat, because everything there is big, and you will only eat burgers . I heard, but I didn’t really process the information since deep inside of me I knew that I will only eat what I wanted, nobody could really force me to eat. However, he was right, I jumped from 220 lbs to 280 lbs from 2003 to 2010. If this was muscle gain I would be happy, but it was pure fat….36% body fat in 2011. Although he was right, I was also right, because even on my deepest days of “fat boy” eating fast food and thinking about my past shape as soccer player in Brazil, I was like: why am I’m damaging myself?! In between thoughts I asked for more French fries…it was a black hole! But the fact that I never tried to find someone or something to blame (other than me) also helped me to be more determined to change, because I knew I was the one in control. If I could damage myself so much in 7 years, what c
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