یادگیری انگلیسی و انگیزه

Learn English And Motivation - Mark Sisson

Speaker 1: Welcome to the Effortless English Show with the World’s number one English teacher, AJ Hoge. Where AJ’s more than 40 million students worldwide, finally learn English once and for all, without the boring textbooks, classrooms and grammar drills. Here’s AJ with a quick piece to help you learn to speak fluent English effortlessly.

AJ Hoge: Hello, and welcome to the Effortless English Show. I’m AJ Hoge. Today’s show, we’ll talk about Mark [Sisson 00:00:31]. A health and fitness coach, Mark Sisson. Once again, we’re talking about energy. Energy, energy, energy. You need energy for life.

To study English, you need energy. A lot of students, a lot of learners, complain that, “Oh, I’m tired. My motivation’s low. How do I get more energy for learning English, for studying English?”

Well, today, a little bit more about that topic. Now in fact, Mark Sisson is in this month’s VIP lesson. I have a whole lesson about Mark Sisson. I have a section from one of his books. I teach a lot of vocabulary from that section and talk about Mark Sisson’s general philosophy of health and fitness. It’s coming soon.

Now, my VIP program is really my advanced program. That’s for people who are, I would say, kind of high-intermediate level. High-intermediate level, who want to become advanced English speakers. They want to become very, very fluent. The other thing about my VIP program, it’s really for people who want to use English in the real world for some life improvement. Some people just like to study languages. They just enjoy it. It’s like a hobby. They like learning more vocabulary and all that. That’s fine. It’s great, but my VIP program is really for people who want to use English, possibly for study, possibly for learning, possibly for business and career.

We have a lot of very, very motivated people in the VIP program, which is great because in the the VIP program I certainly teach you English and help you to become a fluent, advanced speaker. Even more than that, I teach you success techniques for your life, so that you can make more money, get better jobs, a better career, be healthier, be stronger, have more energy in you life, better control of your emotions, your motivation, travel the world, study abroad, and all of these things. I’m teaching you powerful techniques and ideas in every VIP lesson.

Go to EffortlessEnglishClub.com. Try my VIP program for just 1.00 dollars It’s a monthly membership program, but you can try it for 10 days, just for 1.00 dollars.

Back to Mark Sisson, today’s topic. Got a little audio from Mark, an interview, where he’s talking about the idea of low carb. Now here, when he’s talking about low carb, it means carbohydrates. It’s what’s called a macro-nutrient. We have carbohydrates, proteins, and fats. Those are the three big nutrients, or nutrition types of our food. Mark’s talking about why lower carb … Not zero carb, but lower carb, is healthy in his opinion. Let’s listen to this, and then I’ll explain what he said and discuss this idea.

Mark Sisson: … I become more and more convinced, that we are obligate fat burners, that we are supposed to be burning fat for most of our existence. The less glucose that we burn in a lifetime, probably the better off we are. I still adhere to my … I created a little graph, a chart, years ago, the Primal Blueprint Carbohydrate Curve, which is basically 0-150 grams a day. I still contend that pretty much nobody, but very hardworking day laborers and elite athletes, need much more than 150 grams of carbs in a day, to not only survive, but to thrive. Yeah, there are people who will survive and do well on 200 grams or 300 grams a day. For the most part, when you look at the population of the United States, and now around the rest of the World, you see that when the daily intake of carbs, in general, tends to exceed 250 grams a day we start to see a collection of metabolic problems. I’m still convinced that reducing our carbohydrate load is a good thing.

AJ Hoge: Okay, so in the beginning he says, “I believe that human beings are designed to be fat burners.” What does that mean? Well, what he’s saying is that, he believes that the human body is designed to mostly burn fat for energy. See, our bodies can burn fat for energy. Our bodies can also burn sugar, different types of sugar. Glucose, carbohydrate; these are different types of sugars. This is very general. The actual specific science is more detailed than this, but this is a very, very general way of looking at it.

He’s saying that, in general, he feels that we are designed to be fat burners, mostly.

That’s what makes us most healthy. In his opinion, based on all the research he has read, seen and studied, we should eat less than 150 grams of carbohydrates per day. What are carbohydrates? For example, white rice. That’s a carbohydrate.

Certainly any kind of sugar is a carbohydrate. Fruit, that would be a carbohydrate.

Veggies have carbohydrates. All of these things. Now, veggies have few carbohydrates and few calories, so you can eat all the vegetables you want.

What he’s really talking about are kinds of sugars; bread, rice, and then anything with sugar added. He’s saying, in general, if you add up all that stuff, 150 grams or less is best. You see the problem is … What we see is that in people, or in groups of people, that eat a lot more than that, 200 grams or more, 250 grams, we start to see a lot of health problems, such as: diabetes, heart disease, obesity is probably the first one we see, fatness and people getting fat.

Now, Mark’s an American. America’s really probably the worst in the World, in terms of health and fitness. I’m an American, but I have to say, I find the health situation in the United States, is so sad. It’s just a disaster. It is a disaster. Horrible.

Okay, so I’m in Japan. I’m living in Japan and I walk around. Just walking around the towns, the cities, and looking at people. Almost everybody’s thin. Right? Everybody looks pretty healthy, almost everybody, not just most. I mean, like 95% of people are thin and healthy looking. Even the people in Japan who are overweight, a little fat, compared to America it’s just a little bit.

Then, if I fly to America to visit. Immediately, it’s a shock. I look around and it’s just fat people everywhere. You see people who are huge, super fat. It’s such an obvious shock. It’s so obviously unhealthy. Coming from Asia, to go to America is …

Wow, something’s wrong. What is wrong? See, Americans just don’t realize it.

They’re just around it all the time. They accept it as normal because everybody else is fat. It’s not normal, in terms of human history. It’s not normal. It’s absolutely not healthy.

Mark Sisson is saying that carbs and sugars are the problem. That is really the big problem, and I agree with him. I agree with him. Americans are carbohydrate addicts, sugar addicts. They use so much sugar. The sad thing is, as he mentioned a little there, is that this super unhealthy way of eating and the super unhealthy types of foods that are high carb, are going out and becoming popular in other parts of the world, everywhere in the world. Certainly, in the United Kingdom, Britain. They have a big problem. Literally, a big problem. Lots of overweight people. Lots of unhealthy people. It’s getting worse in Europe. Europe is better than the United States, Continental Europe is, but it’s getting worse. You can see it around the world, more and more of this sugary, junky food becoming more common. When that happens, people get heavier and heavier.

How is this connected to English learning, you ask? Here’s the problem. Forget the fat part. Fat, being unhealthy, and getting sick certainly is really bad. The worst part about too much carbs and sugar … We need some carbs, for sure, but too many carbs, too much sugar … The problem is that it actually destroys your energy in the long term. This is why, especially sugars, are so dangerous. They’re like a drug.

Sugar’s a drug. Sugar is heroin. It’s addictive. You become addicted to sugar.

How do I know? I was a sugar addict. I swear that I was a sugar addict, and I am so sorry. I was a sugar addict. Growing up, I ate a lot of sugary stuff. Through most of my life, I struggled. I had to fight, fight, fight against this desire to eat sugar. This is what happens, you eat sugar. You eat something very sugary, high carb, and high sugar. What happens is, your energy goes up suddenly. Right? Your blood sugar levels goes up. That gives you a feeling of energy, which feels good. Right? Your energy goes up. High energy, you’re feeling good. That’s why people like sugar.

That’s why people eat it.

What’s the problem? The problem is that your body burns that sugar quickly. That’s the main problem. It also turns it into fat, which is another big problem. In terms of energy, your body burns that sugar quickly and adjusts, so that it brings your sugar level suddenly down. Your sugar level goes up, energy’s high. Whoa, you feel good for 20 or 30 minutes. Then, it crashes. Your blood sugar level will suddenly drop because it’s too high. Your body reacts too much. Then, it drops too much and it goes low. Then, you feel bad. Then, you have low energy and low motivation. This happens quite quickly. You feel good for a little bit, 30 minutes or so maybe. Then, you crash and you feel bad.

When you feel bad and you crash, what do you want? Then, you want more sugar again. You get this desire. We call it a craving. You get a desire. You want sugar again, so you go eat something sugary again. You go up. You feel good, 30 minutes or so. Then, boom, you crash again. You crash. You go down. Your energy drops.

What do you want again? Sugar, this is the addiction. Then, it’s just all day long.

You’re constantly wanting sugary stuff. Your energy goes up, and then down, up and then down, up and then down.

Now, for awhile, maybe for years … Especially if you are young, for awhile, you can do this. Your body can handle this. You’ll go up and down, up and down, up and down. You’re body will be okay, no big serious problems, especially if you’re young.

You’re like a teenager, even in your 20’s, you can handle it. As you get older, this high blood sugar followed by big crashes, starts to have serious long-term effects, long-term problems. What happens is, your body gets tired. Your body gets exhausted. Your body can’t adjust as well. When that happens, then you start feeling more and more tired all the time. You just start feeling tired. Even when you eat sugar, you don’t really feel a lot better. You feel a bit better, but not for very long. Then, you crash again. You’re feeling kind of tired, almost all the time. Your motivation’s low. Your energy’s kind of low. You don’t want to do anything. You don’t want to learn English. You don’t want to study. You don’t want to exercise.

It’s just like a drug. It’s just like taking a drug, because then you need more and more to get the same effect. Now, you’ve got to eat even more sugar to feel good.

Right? Just a little doesn’t help anymore. Now, you need more, and more, and more. Eventually this exhausts … It makes your body super, super tired. It starts to cause serious health problems. This is why people get diabetes. Diabetes means your body cannot handle the sugar anymore. Something’s wrong with your body.

It’s a very serious problem. Even before diabetes, you just lose your energy. This is happening with younger and younger people now. The sugar’s so high, so much, that younger and younger people are like, “Oh, I feel tired.”

I remember, I was teaching my last job in San Francisco, my last teaching job before Effortless English. Teaching in San Francisco, my students were in their 20’s. These were people … Most of them recently got out of college. They were wanting to go to grad school in America. They were like 23, 24, 25 and 26 years old. What surprised me, what shocked me, was that most of them were kind of tired and lazy all the time. Not just about English. Okay, I understand about English. Yeah, okay, maybe they were bored with English, but even just walking around.

Sometimes we would take trips in San Francisco, just a fun trip. Let’s go see something interesting in the city. We’ll go see some famous place in the city. During these field trips, I’d say, “Okay, let’s go. We’re going to walk up the hill. We’re going to go to the top of Nob Hill. There’s a nice, famous church up there. It’s got a great viewpoint. It’s kind of a famous spot in San Francisco. Let’s go, come on.” We’d walk out the door. I’d walk with my class, maybe about 10 or 15 students, and take them on a walk. We’d walk about 10 minutes, to the bottom of the hill. Then, we would walk up the hill, which is maybe another 10 minutes.

Oh my god, they all were whining, “No, I’m tired. Oh my god, this hill is so big.”

They were so slow, tired, and lazy. I was 38 or 39 years old at that time. I was thinking, “What is wrong with you?” In fact, I said it. I said, “What’s wrong with you? I’m much older than you. This is no problem. You should be able to do this.

This is only a 20 minute walk. It’s not that bad.” They were just so wimpy, tired, and low energy. It’s two things really. It’s the food, all the sugary, unhealthy food. The other thing is a lazy lifestyle, just not moving, not challenging their body.

Everything’s too comfortable, too easy. It’s both of those things.

You ask, what can you do to get more energy? Just as we discussed last week, in that show with Elliot [Hulse 00:19:42]. The physical is the mental. If your mental energy is low, “Oh, I’m tired. I don’t want to study. My motivation, my energy, is low.” That means, your physical energy is also low. One, perhaps the best, way to increase your mental energy, your mental motivation for studying, for learning, for anything, is to increase your physical energy. There are two ways to do that. One is exercise, and all of that. Of course, we’ve talked about that. The other one is eating healthy, energetic food. Food that will give you long term energy, all day long, not up and down, up and down, up and down. Food that will give you energy for your whole life; weeks, months, years, and decades. Your body won’t suddenly break.

That is what Mark Sisson is talking about, to eat less sugar. This is the number one thing you can do. It trains your body … It will teach your body, eventually, to burn fat instead of sugar. Why is that better? Fat has a different effect. Fat gives you constant, steady energy. Right? Sugar’s up and down, up and down, up and down.

When your body’s burning fat mostly for energy, you just get this nice high level of energy. It doesn’t go up a lot. It doesn’t go down a lot. It’s steady. It’s consistent. It just keeps going, and going, and going, and going. You just have this great energy all day long; when you wake up, and then continuing through the whole day, right until you go to bed.

I’m speaking from experience, because I finally got very serious about my sugar addiction recently, in the last five or six weeks. I’ve fought it. At different times, I’ve done a good job. Other times I break, but I’ve done really well. I’m eating low carb, for about five or six weeks now. Maybe five weeks. I feel fantastic. I feel so good.

The main thing is my energy level. That’s why, suddenly, I’m doing an Effortless English Show everyday. Why? My physical energy is so much better. Because my physical energy’s better, now I have a lot more mental energy and a motivation.

Because of that, now I want to do a show everyday. My mind is awake, alive, and energized. I’m excited to do a new show everyday. I’m excited to record new VIP lessons.

I did it by changing the body, physically. You should do this too. If you feel tired, “Oh, I’m too tired. I don’t want to. My motivation’s low.” You should seriously look at your eating. Are you eating a lot of carbs and sugar? Are you eating a lot of stuff, like bread? I don’t eat bread. I don’t eat bread at all. I cut it out. No bread for me.

No pasta for me. I eat some carbs. I eat some rice. I eat some potatoes, sweet potatoes, and things like that, but not a lot. I’m probably getting 100-150 grams of carbs per day, or something like that. I cut out all artificial sugar, no artificial sugar.

I don’t add sugar to anything. I don’t eat anything that has sugar added to it, nothing from boxes or cans that has sugar added.

You should look at this. Look at your diet if your motivation’s low, if you’re energy’s low. If you feel great, then fine, just continue to do what you’re doing. If your energy’s low most days, and you’re struggling and fighting, “Oh, I gotta study English, but my energy … My motivation’s so low.” Maybe the problem isn’t English. Maybe the problem is not the method. Maybe the problem is not the lessons. Maybe the problem is that you’re just tired. You’ve got low energy. You need to get that energy back. You need to change what you’re eating. You maybe need to go out and start exercising more also. Get that physical energy high, high, high, to a really high level. You might find that you have a lot more motivation for studying English everyday. Try it. Try it.

Let’s go to Twitter, for a question on Twitter. My Twitter is my name, AJ Hoge. If you want to ask me a question, or give me a comment, that is the best place to do it. Twitter.com/AJHoge. The question is from [Havaniel 00:25:08]. Havaniel asks, “Hello AJ Hoge. What are the first steps, for those who are beginners, and do not understand anything?” We’re talking about zero-level English. That’s a good question. I’m not sure if he’s asking as a teacher, or as a learner. Obviously, he is not zero-level. His Tweet is using English. It’s good English, good grammar, and everything. He’s not a low beginner. He’s asking for someone else. I don’t know if he’s teaching, or if he just has a general question. Let me tell you first as a teacher, and then for students.

For teachers teaching zero-level, I recommend using the technique of total physical response as the main thing. I talked about this in my recent show for teaching children. Right? Well, it’s the same. If you’re teaching adults who are zero-level, you use basically the same exact techniques that I talked about in that show. It’s not different with adults. Right? Adults learn English the same way children learn English. It’s the same brain. The difference is, the children are more open, more flexible, and therefore better learners, typically, but adults have advantages too.

Use those physical actions, and everything, to start building that vocabulary. You can also use pictures, use items, narrating, telling simple stories, and picture books.

All of those things are great for zero-level.

What do you do? What if you are a learner? You’re an independent learner. You’re at home. Maybe you have a brother, sister, niece, nephew, a child even, or just a friend who’s an adult. They’re at home. They want to learn English. They want to learn independently at home. They have an internet connection, but they don’t have a teacher. What should they do? How can they teach themselves? How can they learn English alone if they are zero-level?

It’s actually not so difficult. I would recommend getting an easy course. Something like my original course, for example, starts off fairly easy. It becomes difficult later, but it starts off quite easy. Then, number two, they should get or use a basic, simple translation dictionary for zero-level, if you were alone. If you have a teacher you don’t need translation, but a good teacher. If you’re learning alone, translations are helpful. You get a translation dictionary.

Let’s say you use a mini-story. I would say, focus on the mini-stories when you’re very low level. You look at the first mini-story lesson. You won’t understand anything. All of the vocabulary will be new. Even this simple, basic mini-story will seem quite difficult. That’s okay. What you do is, you use the text, and with your translation dictionary, translate the meaning of all the words. Write the meaning above each word on the paper. Print it out and write it.

Now, you know the basic meaning of what all the words mean. Next, what you want to do is listen to the mini-story. You listen to it. Now, the first time, it will seem super fast. It will just seem incredibly fast, even though it’s actually not. It’s probably quite slow. Those beginning ones are fairly slow, but for a total beginner everything seems super, super fast.

Again, they have to just relax. It takes your brain a few weeks just to get use to the sounds. You listen to that mini-story, and you do it many times a day. Several, several, several times a day, for one hour a day. Just repeating that same exact mini story again, and again, and again. On day two, the same one again, and again, and again, and again. You do this for a couple weeks at least. You can read along with the text at the same time. You can pause to look at your notes for the meaning, because you probably will forget sometimes. This is very deep, slow learning in the beginning.

What happens is, in those first couple weeks your brain will get use to the sounds of English, gradually. Eventually, because you are using that same audio every time, you will begin to hear all of those individual words. Your listening comprehension, your listening ability, will make a big improvement in just a couple weeks. Again, because you’re using the same exact story again and again, the vocabulary … You will learn it. You’ll master it. Even in the first mini-story, there are a lot of common words like the verbs “is”, “are”, and “to be.” There are going to be a lot of very common words. It’s going to start giving you the foundation, the beginnings, of English.

Next, you can add in a point-of-view story, if there is one. Not all units have them.

In the beginning, maybe not, but eventually you will. You’ll get that first unit. You learn it very deeply, and you actually make a lot of changes. Then, you go to the next unit, the next mini-story. Once again, it will feel super difficult. You repeat the same process. Translate all the words. Listen, listen, listen, and tons of repetition. It will still feel difficult, but a little less difficult.

After maybe a couple weeks, you go to unit three. Now, it will seem definitely a bit easier. Difficult in the beginning, but you’ll learn it much faster. Maybe you won’t need two weeks. Maybe only one week this time. Your listening will be faster.

Everything will seem a bit easier. That’s how you do it. You’re just slowly building like that over the different weeks. After about three months let’s say, then you will really start getting up to that high-beginner, low-intermediate level. Everything will feel much easier. You still have a lot to learn, but it will seem much, much, much easier. That’s how a zero-level learner can still teach themselves English, without any help, with nobody. This is the great thing about the internet. You have so much available to you.

You can go to EffortlessEnglishClub.com. If you’re low level. Again, I recommend the original course to begin with. You get audio. You get text, and all of this. It’s not expensive. It’s great. You don’t have to go to some school, pay a lot of money every month, and it’s not effective. You can just do it at home, with an inexpensive course, going your own speed, learning very deeply, and in three months times you will be far, far, far ahead of anyone in a language school. In six months, you won’t believe how much better. You should try this. If you don’t believe me … Some people don’t believe me, “AJ, I don’t believe you. How do I know?” Well, you never know unless you try it.

You can listen to me. Maybe you trust me, you believe me. Maybe you don’t. Either way, you don’t really know. Just listening to me, you don’t know. There’s only one way. This is not only me, but anybody who tells you something. Right? Any expert, any coach, any teacher who tells you something, how do you know if it’s true?

Well, you really don’t unless you try it. You must take action and try it in your own life. Then, you know. Then you prove it, yes or no.

If you know someone who’s low, low level, teach them this method. Tell them what I just said. Tell them to get my original course. Even if you’re a high-beginner or low-intermediate, the original course is great. You can go faster with it. A low, low beginner will have to go very slow in the beginning. A low-intermediate person, with the original course, can go more quickly. Either way, what you do is go and start that course. Do everything I just said.

At the same time, see if you can find someone in an English class. You could even join. You could register for an English class in your town. You’ll be about the same level as everyone in the class, but they will just be doing the English class. You will be doing my original course. You can even skip the class mostly. Do it for three months or six months. Six months is even better. You’ve got to pay money, because you’re paying for that course for six months for the school, but if you really want to know, do that for six months. You’re doing exactly as I say with my original course.

Then, the other people in the class are just following the class.

At the end of that six months, compare your level to all the other students.

Compare your speaking ability, in English, to the people at the school. Then, you’ll know. I promise you, if you use my course how I tell you, if you follow this plan, your speaking will be so much better than the other students in that class, in that course, and in that school. Then, you’ll know for sure. Then, you’ll know that I’m telling you the truth.

If you’re a beginner or low-intermediate, get my original course at EffortlessEnglishClub.com. If you’re middle-intermediate, Power English is the right course for you. If you’re high-intermediate or advance, then you want my VIP program. You can do the pronunciation course. You can add that to anything. That’s all. All those courses are available at EffortlessEnglishClub.com. That’s EffortlessEnglishClub.com. Also, free text transcript of this show is on the blog at EffortlessEnglishClub.com. That’s all for today. Be strong. Raise your energy. Raise your motivation. Master English. See you next time, bye for now.