Diet tips issue #3: 7 Secrets of Permanent Fat Loss and Fitness (Part 9)

SECRET #6

Get a Coach or a Mentor

The 6th secret to permanent fat loss and fitness is: Get a coach or a mentor. Now I know what you’re thinking…”I don’t need a coach or mentor, I can do it by myself”. While that may be true, as I did it myself for the most part, it is always easier and faster when someone shows you the way. I like to compare this with the process of traveling a long distance. Let me explain.

If you wanted to go from New York City to Los Angeles by car, you wouldn’t just get in the car and start driving would you? In essence, that is what many people are doing in their quest for fitness. They are just getting in the car and driving, with a goal in mind, but not much idea on how to get there.

Now, some people go ahead and actually grab a map and follow that. This will certainly help you get there, giving you various roads and avenues to take. But you’ll probably run into a few dead ends along the way. And the journey will take longer than you’d probably like. But what if someone came to you with detailed
instructions on the exact roads to take and what traffic or construction delays to avoid. You most certainly would get there sooner and with less effort.

Finding the right coach or mentor in your quest for permanent fat loss and fitness can be like getting a “Google Maps” to your dream body. And before you go ahead and think you don’t need one of these people in your life, did you know that world champion golfer Tiger Woods has a coach?

The man with the greatest golf swing in the world and on his way to being the greatest golfer in history (if not already) relies on a coach to help him. And surprise surprise, most every successful or famous person has had a mentor or coach at one time or still uses them today. You think Oprah, arguably the most successful business woman in the last 100 years, does it all by herself. What about Warren Buffet, Donald Trump, etc.? All of these people got help and continue to get help to stay at the top of their game.

So think about it, if Tiger Woods and other super successful people need a coach or coaches to excel and reach their goals, shouldn’t you consider having one too? I didn’t invent the principles I teach in my Fat Burning Furnace eBook without first studying under some mentors that laid the groundwork before me. The great news is that it should be a lot easier achieving your life long fat loss and fitness goals then becoming the world’s greatest golfer, so just imagine how much positive impact a coach can bring to you.

Now, this coach or mentor could be a personal trainer who is also emotionally supportive, or it could be a combination of a friend, a relative, or motivational expert. It could also even be someone who supplies you with that system for success like mentioned earlier. Whoever it is, make sure they are accessible to you and will be there to offer the support and encouragement you need. And don’t look for what I call a “softy”. A softy is someone who is too comfortable with you and will let you off easy. These people make terrible coaches. You need some one who can be supportive, but is also there to keep you in line and give you a kick in the pants ever so often if you need it.

There’s no substitute for experience, so you’ll also want to make sure your coach or mentor has been there and done that…not one of these talking heads that has no real experience. You want someone that has either gone through what you’re going through or helped others in similar situations.

You can’t do it alone…at least not as quick or as easy. So go ahead and get yourself a coach…a mentor that you can look to for guidance, support, and encouragement (and that periodic kick in the pants) as you move through to getting the lean, strong, and healthy lifestyle you deserve.

Diet tips issue #3: 7 Secrets of Permanent Fat Loss and Fitness (Part 8)

SECRET #5

Surround Yourself With Positive People

The 5th secret to permanent fat loss and fitness is: surround yourself with positive people. Ok this one is extremely important. Surround yourself with positive people. I can’t stress this enough…and this might hurt your feelings a bit, but your friends and family may be making you fat.

Think about that for a minute. Your mindset, whether you like it or not, is shaped (and often times greatly so) by your outside influencers, the people you choose to associate with, namely your friends and family.

If you’ve got a host of people telling you that you’ll never succeed at your fitness goals, you’ll have a tougher time. Even if you have developed extraordinary mental toughness, the slightest hint of doubt can cloud your mind and let loose all sorts of nasty negative thoughts. And don’t think that these people will be obvious to spot either.

I don’t mean to scare you, but you’ve probably got all sorts of negative people around you right now. Spotting them isn’t always easy, so here are a few of the types of naysayers that I’m talking about:

The Grinch

The Grinch is transparently obvious. They’re the ones that will laugh at your goals and tell you to your face that you’ll never achieve them. These people are usually this way because their own goals have been crushed in the past, don’t know how to get past this, and have just given up on them at this point. They’ve decided to be miserable and you won’t be changing their minds anytime soon.

The Model

Then you’ve got these people that have a superiority complex. I call these the Models. Models find achieving their fitness goals relatively easy, mostly due to genetic or situational factors, and similar to the outright negative people, will laugh off your aspirations. They won’t take you seriously and are more concerned with themselves then supporting your goals too.

The Baby

You’ve also got those that have given up, are fat and out of shape, would rather feel sorry for themselves and want you to be that way too. I call these people the Babies. Babies don’t want you to succeed with your plans because they’ve had so many past failures in their own fat loss goals that they’ve given up. So many times they sabotage your plans, whether they do so knowingly or just by behaving as they normally would. This is basically an unhealthy negative and needy person sucking you into their lifestyle so they have some company. So there you have it…The Grinch, The Model & The Baby. Now you know who to
watch out for.

OK, just as I asked you to evaluate your current lifestyle earlier go ahead and take a look at the people you spend most of your time with. Write their names down on one piece of paper. Are they helping or hurting your efforts for life long fitness and health? Why? If they’re not helping, go ahead and have a discussion with them. Let them know you’re serious about changing for the better and that you don’t have time for negative influences or people anymore. And if they don’t budge, stop associating with them, or greatly reduce your
contact.

Now I realize you may have some longstanding relationships with these types of people, and this is not an easy thing to do in some cases. But it’s a choice you should really consider making if you’re serious about living your life in the healthy and lean body you want to.

Where do you want to be in 5 years? Would you rather be in a new lean, strong, and sexy body or still deciding whether or not to rid yourself of communicating with people who are holding you down. You must make decision, or you will be in exactly the same shape (or worse) as you are today.

This reminds me of my favorite quote of all time: If you think you can’t, you can’t, and you won’t. If you think you can, you can, and you will. It’s that simple. If others around you think you can’t, they’ll let you know one way or another, and then it is up to you to shield yourself from this. Or, you can just work on surrounding yourself with positive people, thereby making it much easier on yourself.

Diet tips issue #3: 7 Secrets of Permanent Fat Loss and Fitness (Part 7)

SECRET #4

KNOW THE NUMBERS

The 4th secret to permanent fat loss and fitness is: know the numbers. If you don’t know the numbers, you have little chance of success in fat loss and fitness. Let me explain. Just like anything else in life, if you’re not tracking what works and what doesn’t work, you’ll be using a shotgun approach that will take much longer and not work as well as an approach that includes tracking. This is especially important in relation to your exercise and fat loss and fitness progress. Let’s look at the business world again for a moment. In any business, at the end of the day, results are measured by revenue, or the money that was made. If the business owner doesn’t know the numbers, they won’t know if they’ve made any money. And thus they have no business. Pretty simple, but the most powerful metric a business owner can track.

I’m a big NBA basketball fan, but do you think I’d enjoy watching my favorite team if they didn’t keep score? Of course not! If they don’t keep score, we don’t know who’s winning, and thus there is no “game” to win or lose. They have to know their numbers to know who wins and who loses.

Again, strikingly simple, but the fact is that most people don’t track their exercise routines at all. How do they know if they’re winning or losing the fat loss game? In fat loss and fitness it’s all about progression. When using a progressive based form of exercise like properly conducted intense resistance training, your fat loss and muscle, strength, and endurance gain is mirrored by how much stronger you’re getting each workout. And as such, you should base your progress primarily by monitoring your strength gains from workout to workout.

If you don’t know if you’re getting stronger, or how much stronger, you’ll have a tough time advancing through the workouts and creating that fat burning environment inside of your body.

This is because the speed of your progress is related to a combination of the intensity you’re using, along with the volume and frequency of your exercise. By monitoring your progress with a particular combination of these variables, you’ll be able to adjust if necessary for optimal results.

Next, you’ll want track your body fat percentage. Forget about what the scale says or what your “ideal weight” should be. Forget about Body Mass Index charts. These are all measures of weight loss, not FAT LOSS. We don’t want to lose weight, we want to lose fat.

It should then become obvious that tracking the percentage of our bodies that is fat, and watching that number drop, is the other key factor in determining our wins or losses in the fat loss game. (You can do that quickly with the Private Body Fat Analysis web link you received along with this eBooklet at: http://www.fatburningfurnace.com/body-fat-analyzer-comp.php).

So you see, recording your progress is key to getting that lean and fit body you desire and everyone else envies…and if you’re not doing it, you’re using the shotgun approach: just spraying bullets and hoping you hit something. And this always results in the wasting of your most valuable asset…your time.

By doing this you’ll not only be able to watch the inches melt off, but you’ll also be able to use these records as a motivational tool, spurring you on to even further progress…and even inspiring others you care about to do the same. So, bottom line, make sure to keep accurate records of your workouts and your progress. Just like in any business or in sports, you won’t know if you’re winning if you don’t keep score.

Diet tips issue #3: 7 Secrets of Permanent Fat Loss and Fitness (Part 6)

The big issue: Too Many Calories

Whether you like it or not, the big problem people have is simply eating too many calories…there is too much going in and the only place the excess is going is to your fat stores. So what I’ve found is that instead of restricting yourself of entire food groups (like carbohydrates), it’s far easier and better from a fat loss and health standpoint to concentrate on eating foods loaded in nutrients. Why? Because our hunger is driven by nutrient consumption. Not just the macronutrients (protein, carbs, fats), but even more so by the micronutrients…the vitamins, minerals, etc. that are found in certain foods and not so much in others. In fact most people don’t even think about this, instead focusing on how many carbs or how much fat or protein they eat.

And the mainstream diets are this way too. When you analyze it, most diets are just variations of either low calorie, low fat, or low carb. They’re all focused on the macronutrients with little regard for choosing food based on the micronutrients….which really satisfy your body and your hunger.

When you focus on these foods, many of the details take care of themselves. Think about it, these are the foods your body craves naturally…why? Because they’re loaded with nutrients…your body craves nutrients. I’m talking about unrefined whole grains, beans, legumes, vegetables, fruits, nuts and seeds. If you give your body what it craves, it’s very unlikely you’ll have overeating problems. Period.

This one fact could save so many people from so many health problems it’s not even funny. And most issues with fat gain simply disappear when eating this way even 80-90% of the time. And on top of this, you’re automatically lowering your chance for various diseases and ailments that plague the person on the typical oversized and protein heavy American or western diet.

Now, focusing on nutrient rich foods is the foundation, but there are other factors we can manipulate to get the desired fat burning effect while supporting the muscle growth we are stimulating with our proper exercise application as I talked about in the last secret. These include eating smaller meals more frequently, managing your calorie intake without actually counting calories, and more. Perhaps just as important as what foods you are eating is what you are drinking.

The habit of drinking loads of water each day should be one you want to develop right now. While water is essential for almost every bodily process we go through, it is absolutely vital to fat burning. If you don’t get your water, you can forget about maximum fat burning.

The reason for this has to do with what happens to your body when it is dehydrated. It basically stores fat at an accelerated rate, and the sooner you get hydrated, to sooner your body will be able to metabolize your body fat stores for energy.

So make sure you’re eating foods that are rich in nutrients and make sure you’re getting more than your fair share of water. Give the body what it craves…and it will reward you.

Diet tips issue #3: 7 Secrets of Permanent Fat Loss and Fitness (Part 5)

SECRET #3

Focus on the Right Foods, Nutrient Rich

The 3rd secret to permanent fat loss and fitness is: focus on the right foods, nutrient rich. We’ve all seen the fad diet books and plans out there that promise all sorts of fabulous weight loss with very little effort. What we typically find out though, after going on one of these diets, is that they’re unusual. They require you follow a very unusual way of eating compared to what common sense and Mother Nature would tell you.

We also find out that once we go off of these diets we gain the weight back faster than we lost it, and usually add a few more pounds on top of it (often due to loss of muscle mass in the process). This is obviously not the way to go, yet so many people are still duped into following these wacky diets…again and again and again.

The big secret I’ve found in eating is that instead of focusing on what you can’t eat or what you shouldn’t eat, we should be concentrating on the types of foods that create an ideal environment for satisfying hunger. This is true because when it comes down to it, we have to create a calorie deficit if we want to lose fat.

That is, we have to burn more calories than we consume. The exercise principles I described in secret #2 will help to create a deficit without changing your eating habits at all. But if you want fast success, and lasting success, you must employ proper eating strategies as well.

Diet tips issue #3: 7 Secrets of Permanent Fat Loss and Fitness (Part 4)

A Big Discovery in Faster Fat Loss

The big secret I’ve found is that combining high intensity cardio with high intensity strength training into one workout is the absolute fastest way to burning fat, building muscle, strength and endurance…all at the same time. It awakens and unlocks the fat burning furnace inside of your body 24 hours a day, 7 days a
week.

It must be performed correctly however, not like you see the typical person using weight training…but when performed correctly as I teach readers of my Fat Burning Furnace eBook, this type of exercise will outperform anything else I’ve seen, and will only take an average of 20 minutes per session, and only needs to
be performed twice or three times per week.

Perhaps the best part is, as you progress, you’ll have to perform even less exercise…that’s right, even less exercise (this is an amazing but true fact of how the body’s ability to tolerate intense exercise actually decrease the stronger and leaner you get.)

To experience the benefits for yourself, let’s take the Squat exercise as an example. The Squat is one of the top 2 exercises for burning fat and building a strong and shapely body. But sadly most people spend too much time with the exercise but not nearly enough intensity. Here’s how to change that:

Instead of performing a set or two of warm ups followed by 3-5 “work sets” as most people would do, try this. Cut the amount of weight you use in half. SLOW the movement down to about 5-10 seconds per repetition (concentrate on a slow lifting, pausing at the top, and a slower lowering of the weight), right from the very first one. Keep doing this until you cannot complete another repetition in at this speed despite your greatest, and I mean greatest effort.

Now, 99% of people working out today have never experienced what you will experience after performing only 1 set of the Squat exercise in this fashion. If you did this right, your heart will be racing…your lungs gasping for air…your thighs, butt, hips, and calves will feel like jello. And it probably took you only about 60
seconds to stimulate your body this way.

You can even try this without any equipment and just do a bodyweight Squat. You’ll want to slow this down even further, depending on your strength level in the movement, but you’ll still feel the amazing difference.

This is a window into the kind of exercise that I and my students have been using to simultaneously burn stubborn body fat, build strong sexy muscle, strength, and endurance, all in just minutes per week. And it can keep the fat off permanently. Compared to what’s typically recommended these days, it’s almost
magical.

Diet tips issue #3: 7 Secrets of Permanent Fat Loss and Fitness (Part 3)

SECRET #2

Exercise Less, But with more intensity

The 2nd secret to permanent fat loss and fitness is: Exercise less, but with more intensity. Now, not many people have probably told you to exercise less, right? Well, what I’m getting at here is that most people are exercising far too much, but with not enough intensity.

You see, while some of the top minds in fitness are starting to realize that intensity is the fastest ticket to fat loss and lifelong health and fitness, most are still recommending long, boring cardio workouts as the primary form of exercise for burning fat. And this is really sad because while this type of exercise certainly can burn fat, it is far from the most effective of methods available.

There are a few reasons for this, but mainly it has to do with the fact that this type of exercise primarily burns fat while you’re exercising…while this may sound good at first, it’s actually bad news. This can cause your body to start saving a reserve amount of fat to have available for your next long cardio session. You see, when you exercise like this exclusively, your body wants to hold on to your fat just so it can be burned during the next time you exercise. So if you want to burn more fat, you’ll have to do more and more of it.

Even if this type of exercise worked really well, anyone who has experienced week after week of hour long cardio sessions done 4 or more times per week knows that this is far from exciting or enjoyable. Yeah, there are exercise addicts out there who like spending their whole week in the gym, but I know most do not. The fact of the matter is that there are more rewarding things in life like spending time with our families, so my goal has always been to find the most efficient route to health and fitness. So, the way we get the results we want is by increasing our intensity. Intensity is the name of the game in productive results-producing exercise. It’s just the way the body responds to a stimulus. The greater the stimulus, the greater the response from the body, provided you give it time to rest and recover.

The basic principle here is, you can work hard, or you can work long, but you can’t do both effectively. If you’re working hard enough, you literally won’t be able to work very long or often…you’ll be challenging your body to improve, and you’ll need to extra rest to extract maximum benefit from your exercise. It is a simple concept but the #1 reason why people’s exercise programs fail them. They are giving their body no reason to change or improve when attempting something they’re already capable of.

And when you are working with sufficient intensity, your body switches to primarily burning calories from the carbohydrates in your muscles instead of body fat. And after your intensity based workout is over, you body then begins to burn existing body fat and calories to fuel the growth and repair processes that occurs (which is a massive combination of complex chemical reactions). The best part is, you body can continue to burn body fat like this for up to 48 hours after this workout is over! Now you’re working smart instead of long. Now if we simply applied this intensity principle to aerobic workouts, we instantly make our exercise more effective. But even when doing this, I still found the results not to be up to my expectations. Why? Because I also had to engage in resistance training or weight training on top of this to build fat burning muscle mass and develop a stronger body. Having to perform two different forms of exercise each week still kept me in the gym for at least an hour 4 or more times per week. Better, but I wanted it to be even easier and less time consuming.

Now, you may already know that adding lean muscle mass to your body is one of the big secrets to burning fat all day long, even when you’re not working out. The reasons for this are two-fold:

First, a pound of lean muscle requires about 40-50 calories per day to keep alive, and when you add several pounds of muscle, you can create a calorie deficit in your body which melts off even more fat. On top of that, the growth and repair process mentioned above that occurs after intense strength training can burn huge amounts of calories and body fat for up to two days later. And the health benefits are tremendous…properly applied resistance training can increase your heart and lung’s capacity for work, with helps reduce risk of
cardiovascular disease.

Diet tips issue #3: 7 Secrets of Permanent Fat Loss and Fitness (Part 2)

SECRET #1

Create a lifestyle change with systems.

The 1st secret to permanent fat loss and fitness is: create a lifestyle change with systems. Now, what am I talking about here…well, for starters, if you’re not thinking in terms of a lifestyle change, you’re in trouble. If you’re idea of fitness is going on a diet for a little while and taking a few aerobics classes, you’re not going to succeed. Period. If you want to live your life in your own lean, healthy, and strong body, you need to take the steps necessary to literally change your lifestyle.

Now, a lot of people have heard this before, but it’s not the fact that you have to make it a lifestyle that’s the secret…the secret part of it is how to do this effectively. And that starts with something most people completely miss: identifying what your lifestyle is today.

The first step is to think about your eating and exercise habits as they are now and WRITE THEM DOWN on a piece of paper. What do you eat on a typical day and throughout the week? How much are you eating? How often are you working out? What kind of workouts are you doing? You also need to examine your stress level and what are primary forces behind your stress. You also should take a look at your rest and sleep schedule. And lastly take a look at your mindset and your thoughts on how you see yourself and your lifestyle. These questions and topics will give you a snapshot of your current lifestyle…all on 1 sheet of paper for you to see and review.

After spending a few minutes jotting this data down and reviewing it once or twice, you can probably start to see just how big this whole fat loss and fitness thing really is, and why making a small temporary change here or there (as most diets or exercise plans give you) might win a battle or two, but not the WAR you’re fighting.

There are just too many variables to try and control by using the bandage approach. And what I mean by that is, most people try to fix their health and fitness problem like someone would fix a cut or scrape with a band-aid. Your health and fitness is not a simple cut or a scrape, and it needs more than a temporary fix. So a lifestyle change is what is needed for a long term solution to fat loss and fitness. That is essential. Now, once you’ve established a snapshot of your current lifestyle, you need to move on to the second step…changing your lifestyle through systems. Here’s what I mean by that:

Ask any successful business person what is at the heart of his or her success and most of them will mention a system of some type. If you have a proven and successful system, you will be successful at whatever you’re trying to accomplish. If you don’t, you’ll be lost. I spent years of my own life searching the fitness wasteland for methods that I could use to burn fat, build muscle, and get healthy with little time commitment. At some point I realized that I was creating my own system for fitness success.

Once I realized that, I was able to recommend this same system to my friends and family members interested in lifelong health and fitness. And guess what, it worked for those who applied. It was a proven and successful system. All I did was apply it to another person. Just like in business, if you have a successful and proven system, you can essentially apply the system over and over again to create new businesses. They’re all based on the same successful and proven model or system.

Again, without a system, you may get to find what you’re looking for, but it could take years or more, and a lot of frustration to be sure…I’m sure if you think back to a time in your life when you were investigating a particular topic or discipline, you’ll realize you spent a lot of time and effort in doing so. If you had a system on how to find those answers, it would have been a lot easier and more successful. You would have made far fewer errors and saved yourself a load of time.

As I said earlier, I didn’t have a system early on in my fat loss struggles, and as a result I was trying to plug the holes in my lifestyle with diets, miracle pills, and exercise gizmos.

So analyze your current lifestyle (be brutally honest), decide what needs to change and then get to work on getting a proven and successful system that will create a new lifestyle for you. ..one that you can lead for the rest of your lean and healthy life.

Diet tips issue #3: 7 Secrets of Permanent Fat Loss and Fitness (Introduction, Part 1)

Exercise and Diets Today: A Sad State of Affairs!

Now, we’re just about to get into the first secret, but let me talk for a minute about why I believe so strongly that the methods I recommend are among the best choices compared to the other various methods out there today:

• Popular and mainstream methods of losing fat call for going on a strange fad or crash type diet. Well, these diets can work in the short term, but fail every time because they are based in a short term mindset and are too restrictive. They’re unrealistic and your body knows it. While they may cause weight loss initially, a good deal of this weight loss is water weight and metabolically active muscle tissue. If you lose muscle tissue you’re making it harder to lose fat because you’re lowering the amount of calories it takes to sustain your bodyweight. I don’t have to tell you that once you go off these diets you’ll end up fatter and more de-motivated than ever! That is not healthy.

• Popular and mainstream methods also call for the heavy reliance on aerobic exercise as the primary and often only method of exercise for fat burning. Aerobic exercise must be performed too long and too frequently for most people with a life, and let’s face it, most aerobic machines end up as coat hangers, because for most people spending 2-4 hours or more a week doing aerobics is flat out boring. Heavy reliance on aerobic exercise can also bring about a host of other issues, including muscle loss, and overuse injuries and muscle imbalances. What’s worse, long duration aerobic exercise can actually reduce the capacity of your heart and lungs to perform work…which can be terrible for long term health, increasing your risk for heart attack. Now, I’m not saying you should sit on your couch all day to avoid cardiovascular exercise. What I am saying is that there is a much more efficient way of literally transforming your body than spending hours a week running to nowhere (and it only takes 15-26 mintues, 2-3 times per week!). The bottom line is if you focus on making a solid lifestyle change with techniques that you can realistically implement and follow for the rest of your life, the problems with the typically recommended methods described above will be eliminated entirely. So considering all that, let’s take a look at a hypothetical example of two people and their fat loss and fitness options. Let’s say both people are about 30 years old and want to lose about 20 pounds of fat. They also want to add improve their physical appearance and their overall level of fitness, getting stronger and gaining endurance so that they increase their energy in everyday physical activity. They also have an eye on health and want to reduce their risk factors for heart disease, cancers, and other far too common diseases.

PERSON A: DAVE

Let’s say person A (we’ll call him Dave) follows the typically recommended diet and exercise methods available today. Dave goes on a variety of diets periodically, because each time he loses weight on one, it starts to come back once he goes off of the diet, so he hops onto the next one that floats his boat. He also start exercising performing 30 minutes of moderately paced aerobic or cardio sessions three times per week to burn calories and fat. After a few weeks, he doesn’t see the progress he’d like to, so Dave bumps it up to 45 minutes, 4 times per week. Still, though, progress is not satisfactory, and he might start to notice some aches and pains in his knees, hips, or ankles. Dave then starts to think it might be his diet that isn’t working (after all he’s “putting in the work” in the gym), so he eats even less food or cuts his carbs out almost entirely. Meanwhile, depriving himself of various essential foods has left. Dave on the edge of a mental breakdown and a major pig out (I’ve been there before too!). A few more weeks pass and Dave is growing increasingly de-motivated as he is getting very little results for all of the effort he’s putting forth. By now he’s probably lost a few pounds but doesn’t look much different in the mirror. So he decides to add in some resistance training, because he read it is good to have more muscle mass on your body for fat loss and other health benefits. So now he’s in the gym 5 or 6 days a week, for up to 2 hours per session! Dave’s close friends and family wonder where he is all of the time. At this point he may be having trouble sleeping at night from being overworked, may end up getting a cold or flu from too much stress imposed on his body from the exercise frequency and lack of results, and all but give up on his weight loss and fitness goals for a while. But you know the craziest part? The worst part of this story? Dave will probably return to some form of the above recommendations in a few months, when the next fad diet, miracle weight loss pill, or exercise gimmick strikes his fancy. So at the end of this period, he will probably have made a little fat loss progress if any, and little or no muscle or strength gain. Now what’s really unfortunate is that Dave’s story happens time after time after time with, dare I say, 99% of people trying to lose fat around the globe. Let’s take a look at what person B is doing instead:

PERSON B: JULIE

Now let’s assume person B (we’ll call her Julie) chooses another path, the road less traveled, that most people are completely oblivious to (like I was a few years back). Julie starts out the right way with her diet adjustments and makes sensible choices and understands that starving herself or limiting certain wholesome foods like complex carbohydrates is not the long term answer. She focuses on foods that are rich in nutrients, and drinks plenty of water throughout the day. She’s naturally satisfied when she eats, and she’s not holding back an urge to shove the next fat laden sugar loaded thing she sees down her throat. As a result she’ll most likely start seeing fat come off relatively quickly and it will have seemed fairly easy, almost natural. Julie also uses resistance exercise properly two or three times each week, for 15 to 25 minute sessions. She’s in and out of the gym, quickly, getting her workout done and back home to allow her life to continue on her terms. She’s rapidly increasing her strength, endurance, and adding shapely and sexy lean muscle to her body. She starts to take notice of the differences in the mirror in just a few weeks, and so do her friends, which spurs her on to even further progress. She tracks her improvements from workout to workout, which is very self-motivating. After a few more weeks, her friends really take notice and ask Julie what her big secret is and when she starts to reveal some of her strategies, their friends laugh it off…”Twice a week in the gym, that’s it?”, “You’re eating carbs too? Oh, I can’ t do that, it wouldn’t work for me…” they might say. Meanwhile her body continues to evolve into a fat burning machine and she’s able to maintain permanent fat loss and fitness for the rest of her healthy life, while severely reducing their risks for disease, and all with little time
commitment. Now, that’s just a hypothetical example, but it is entirely possible if you use the right approach along with the techniques I’m going to share with you. If you take the steps to change your lifestyle correctly, you have the potential to literally change not only your body fat percentage, but all aspects of your life. When you are truly happy with what you see in the mirror every morning you feel empowered to conquer anything. Charles Atlas, one of the pioneers of health and fitness from the 1950’s, once said that he didn’t care if everyone in the room was smarter than he was, because he knew that he could KICK EVERY ONE OF
THEIR BUTTS! I love this statement, because it speaks to the truth that when you are confident about your body, you feel incredibly strong and powerful in everything else you do. Any investment you make today to improve your knowledge on how to take the steps like Julie did in our example can truly make the difference in your long term fat loss, health and fitness. It can be like flipping on a light switch in a pitch black room…it can be that drastic, as it was for me and thousands of people who have learned the material you’re about to.
A LEAN, STRONG AND SEXY BODY AWAITS… Now that you have this eBooklet, you’ll be able to start reaping these rewards too. What kind of benefits am I specifically talking about?

• No longer will you have to be a slave to the gym, spending countless monotonous hours each week on a treadmill, elliptical machine, or something similar.

• No longer will you have to rush to be on time for an aerobics class. No longer will you have to be in the gym for 4, 5, or 6 days per week, performing various different forms of exercise to get all of the benefits you
seek.

• No longer will you have to follow some wacky fad or crash diet plan calling for the elimination or severe reduction of carbs or something similar.

• No longer will you have to maniacally watch your diet every second of the day, wondering if that cookie you had will require another 45 minute aerobic session.

• No longer will you have to feel bad about yourself for not being able to live up to all of these popular recommendations and more.

• And most importantly, no longer will you be a slave to the multi-billion dollar fitness industry that is keeping you from reaching your goals. Imagine having the confidence in knowing that the little time and effort you’re spending each week is creating a healthy environment inside your body that is simultaneously burning fat and building muscle, strength, and endurance 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Imagine knowing that you must eat carbohydrates every day as a major part of your food intake, and not having to worry about it all going to your belly, hips, or thighs. Imagine knowing that you’re greatly reducing your risk of disease and other physical and health problems as you age, and looking and feeling years younger than you actually are.
Imagine impressing almost everyone you know with your new body and self confidence, how that will transfer over to more success in all other aspects of your life, and how everyone will want to know your secrets. And imagine having the extra time to enjoy your hobbies and interests, and what really matters in life…your family and closest friends. Now stop imagining, because this really is all within your grasp…and it all starts with the principles I reveal in this manuscript. So get excited…the best is within you!

technorato token: 9UQ8YB4Q7K89

Diet tips issue #2: 177 Ways To Reduce And Burn Calories (Part 8, Last part)

(First parts can be seen from previous posts)

176. Here is a quick way to tone up your buttocks while standing. Squeeze muscles in both cheeks tightly, hold the contraction for two seconds. Relax for two seconds then repeat eight to 12 times.

177. Need to strengthen your calves? Stand on a telephone book, a block of wood, a step or a curb. Face toes in the direction of the spine. Hang heels over the edge opposite the spine. For better balance while trying this outdoors, hold a railing or a signpost on at curb. Keeping your back straight, push up onto the balls of your feet while counting for two seconds, hold for another two seconds, then count for four seconds as you lower yourself back down. Tighten up your abdominals and buttocks to help stay balanced.

YOUR DESTINATION

I’d like to leave you with a few thoughts that may help you on your weight loss journey. At the beginning of this report, we discussed how the words we speak are very powerful and how those words create an attitude.

How often have you used the term, “my weight?” You may have made the comments like these:

“when I lose my weight. . . .”

“My weight doesn’t let me. . .”

“I can’t. . . .because of my weight”

Do see a common thread throughout these statements? Can you make an educated guess at how many times you have said one of them or something similar?

From our earlier discussion, you probably already noticed the “negative” affirmations. . .when. . .doesn’t. . .can’t. . . Read them again more carefully. Do you see the other critical factor in each statement?

Each of those statements re-affirm that you “own” your weight. Therefore, each time you make that comment not only are you re-affirming your current weight, you are pronouncing to the world that you are not willing to let go.

Using a personal pronoun is powerful stuff in and of itself because not only are you claiming ownership, you are training your subconscious mind to believe that you can’t let go.

Starting today. . .right now. . .this very minute, make a conscious decision that you no longer accept ownership of excess weight. You are not what you weigh. You are a unique human being and entitled to all the gifts that this life has to offer.

Now pull out pen and paper and begin your affirmations.

(To be continued)

Diet tips issue #2: 177 Ways To Reduce And Burn Calories (Part 8)

(First parts can be seen from previous posts)

151. If you just have a cold or the flue, wait until all symptoms such as fever, have been gone for two days before you exercise again.

152. Walking is the aerobic exercise of preference if you are over 60. This is because when you walk, the pressure on your joints never rises about 1.5 times your body weight. Jogging, dance or step aerobics can put as much as four times your weight or more on your bones. This is wonderful for younger people, but can put too much strain on the more brittle bones of the elderly.

153. Start your walking exercise by timing yourself. You don’t want to become too tried to make it back home. Check your watch when you begin, and walk around one block over and over until you get a little tired. Check your watch to see how long you have walked. That’s the length that your walks should be for the first week or two. If you get tired on the way home, stop, rest then walk some more.

154. Maintain the same level of exertion for your entire walk. You will be asking your heart to work hard (but not too hard) for your entire session. Your hearts gets the biggest benefit from a sustained workout. If you come to a hill, slow your pace to maintain the same level of exertion that you had on ground level.

155. If the temperature is hot or humid your workout will seem harder. Adjust the speed and intensity so that you stay at the appropriate exertion level.

156. If the temperature soars over 95°F with 80% humidity, limit outside exercise to no more than 30 to 45 minutes.

157. Establish a rhythm to your exercise routine. Using music can help you to do this. The rhythm helps you perform each repetition within a set with the same gusto!

158. Be kind to your feet. Exercise in shoes that were designed for the job or you are giving an open invitation to aches, pains and even stress fractures in your feet and legs.

159. Pick the right kind of shoe. Walking or running shoes absorb the shock of your stride. This is thanks to a slightly elevated heel that also helps to prevent injuries to the leg muscles and tendons.
160. Tennis and other types of athletic shoes absorb the impact of sideways movement and quick turns.

161. Women who typically wear high heels should avoid flat tennis type shoes because the sudden shift in foot position could cause strain.

162. Buy new shoes often. They may last for years, but looks are deceiving. They will lose their shock absorption within just a few months. If you walk fewer than 25 miles a week a new pair is in order every four to six months. If you walk more than 25 miles a week, they should be replaced every two to three months.

163. Examine the patterns in your existing shoes and/or take them along when shopping for new ones. Your wear patterns might help the salesperson pick out the best pair for your feet.

164. To get the best fit wear or bring along the same kind of socks that you will be exercising in. Shop in the afternoon in case your feet swell during the day.

165. After your warm up, exercise for more than 30 minutes per session if you want to lose weight. Otherwise, three 10 minutes sessions per day will protect against disease and a healthier lifestyle.

166. Wear loose fitting clothing that breathes well. You can use layers of clothing to stay warm and dispel perspiration and heat.

167. Avoid drinking coffee, alcohol or other diuretics before or while you exercise.

168. If you are a morning person, exercise after you have been up and about for at least 10 minutes. While sleeping, sometimes fluids can pool throughout your body even in disks in the spinal column, ligaments and muscles. If you get up and immediately begin to exercise, the accumulated fluids can cause major injury such as a herniated disk.

169. Avoid exercise right after eating. Both your intestinal tract and your muscles will need extra blood to function. The conflicting needs of each system may leave you with cramps or a feeling of nausea or faintness. Give you body two hours to complete its digestive duties.

170. If you have diabetes, avoid injecting insulin into a muscle that will soon be used for exercise. Working muscles process insulin differently than nonworking muscles.

171. Learn how much activity is required per hour to burn calories. For instance, one hour of bicycling at 6 miles per hour burns 240 calories; at 12 miles per hour, you will burn 410 calories. Jogging at 5.5 miles per hours burns 740 calories but at just 2 miles per hour more at 7 miles per hour you will burn 920 calories.

172. Walking at just 2 mph, burns 240 calories; increase it to 3 mph and you are burning 320 calories and at 4.5 mph you are burning a whopping 440 calories! *Note that this is based on a healthy 150 pound woman. A lighter person burns fewer calories and a heavier person burns more.

173. Walking need not be a chore. Visit your local museums and art galleries spending time browsing the exhibits. Not only will you add additional exercise with the walk, you’ll improve your mind!

174. Eating a handful of raisins (about 1 ounce) approximately 15 minutes before your workout can significantly lower free radical and the damage they cause. Raisins are rich in antioxidants.

175. In addition to your daily workout here is a simple exercise to do while sitting at your desk, driving or watching television. While seated with back straight, pull your abdominal muscles inward, and lift your chest and rib cage as you exhale. Hold that position four to six seconds then release slowly as you inhale. Repeat eight to 12 times. Try doing this while driving. Change rearview mirror so that it can only be seen when you are sitting straight. Doing this can help you to remember to sit up straight in any chair.

(To be continued)

Diet tips issue #2: 177 Ways To Reduce And Burn Calories (Part 7)

(First parts can be seen from previous posts)

126. Clean your house (changing bedding is great exercise!).

127. Take a brisk ten minute walk each morning, afternoon and evening.

128. Plant a vegetable garden. You’ll have all that terrific food to eat and exercise in the process!

129. Learn how to snorkel.

130. Learn a new dance.

131. Join a gym.

132. Join a lunch hour aerobic class.

133. When exercising, use a multi-purpose squat to improve strength in the lower body. This will strengthen all of the major muscles of the lower body including hamstrings, quadriceps, calves and gluteals.

134. Use balance training exercises to help in performing daily living and activities. Try a one-legged balance exercise by standing on one leg for 10 to 15 seconds, switching legs and repeating the process for three to five sets.

135. Jump in place with feet together. Alternate between touching the left and right heel in between jumps with both feet.

136. Target the triceps with a bench dip. Seated on a bench, grasp the front edge with your hands shoulder-width apart. With your heels on the floor, extend your legs straight out from your body. Move forward until your hips are off the bench. Lower the hips slowly toward the floor then press up to a full extension of your arm without locking your elbows.

137. Try a bent over row to target the latissimus dorsi, teres major, posterior deltoid, trapezius, rhomboids and biceps. While standing, begin with your feet should width apart. Bend the knee and flex forward at the hips. Tilting the pelvis slightly forward, engage the abdominals and extend the upper spine to add additional support. Hold a weight or bar beneath the shoulders with your hands approximately should width apart. Flex your elbows and lift your hands toward the sides of your body. Pause and slowly lower your hand back to the starting position. Be sure to keep your shoulders stationary.

138. A simple shoulder shrug can help to strengthen your back. Stand erect with dumbbells or other weight in each hand. Lift your shoulders toward your head by elevating your shoulders and slightly retract and roll them back. Pause for a moment then return to the starting position. Make certain that you do not rock or use your legs and keep your knees slightly bent. A variation on this exercise is to do one shoulder at a time.

139. Another exercise to strengthen the back is a scapular retraction. Begin with your feet shoulder width apart and your pelvis tilted and slightly forward. Engage your abdominals so you can maintain neutral spine. Flex forward and hold dumbbells extended down and away from the body. Flex the shoulder blades together, pausing then slowly returning to the start position. Avoid bending your elbows and vary the exercise by using a single arm at a time.

140. Remember to keep it slow. Perform all exercises slowly. Spend two to five seconds in the lifting phase of an exercise and four to six seconds in the lowering part. If you move too quickly, you won’t get the muscle strengthening benefit of the exercise and you could hurt yourself.

141. Work up to the point where you can do three sets of each exercise, with five to 15 repetitions of the exercise in each set. Don’t rest within the sets, you can rest briefly between each set. As the work becomes easier ad weights or increase the number of repetitions you do.

142. Bicycling gives a great whole body exercise. Begin with short jaunts around your neighborhood. Each day widen your travels until you are able to bicycle for at least a mile.

143. Exercise should give you additional energy. If you are excessively exhausted after exercising you have overdone it.

144. Again, listen to your body. If you experience a feeling of nausea or faintness, your efforts may be too intense for your body or you aren’t spending enough time on your cool down process.

145. Your rate of breathing will increase while exercising but you should still be able to carry on a conversation. If you can’t talk and walk or talk and lift at the same time, your pace is probably too intense. Cut back and lighten your weight load.

146. While you may experience some next day soreness when you begin, exercise isn’t supposed to hurt or leave you feeling stiff. Devote more time to warm up and cool down exercises as your body adjusts.

147. Being overweight, your knees may not be strong enough to support you. If you experience pain, then shorten (or eliminate) your walks, jogs or bicycling and concentrate on strength building sessions to build up your muscles and tendons.

148. If you have been sedentary, you may experience lower back pain when you first begin to exercise. This is because your hamstring muscles have shortened. When you walk or exercise the shortened hamstrings pull on the buttock muscles, which in turn will grab your lower back muscles. If your abdominal muscles are not strong enough to assist in supporting your lower back, you will definitely feel it. To get rid of the pain, include abdominal strengthening exercises with your warm up and cool down.

149. If you get a headache, cramps or heart palpitations, or feel dizzy, faint or cool while exercising, consult your physician.

150. If you have an infection such as bronchitis, put off exercise until all is normal again.

(To be continued)