No More B.S...

4 ideas to help you on your fitness journey...

1. Create support internally. You can tolerate any "how" with a "why." Identify all the reasons you want to start a fitness plan. Write them all down to make them tangible. Post them everywhere you can so they stay at top of mind (I don't mean put post it notes everywhere). Create a dream board. Meditate on your desires and the reasons for your desires first thing in the morning and before bed. Motivation is always best maintained intrinsically (internally). Unleash it!

2. Failure is your success. Failure is an event. Many look at failure as validation for deep insecurities. Failure if looked at wrong can erode self-esteem, create depression, and really mess with confidence. Failure is an entry point of learning and is necessary for growth. It is all a matter of perspective.

3. Schedule your workouts like clockwork. It is easy to settle into a comfort zone (relationships, TV, internet). When this happens it is easy to skip out on taking care of your needs. Take time to take care of you. You can never help the needy of you are one of them. Try exercising at lunch or before work. You can also put a home gym together for under $500, but keep in mind there is nothing quite like the energy in bootcamp.

4. Goals should be attainable and easily definable. You can gauge and monitor your progress if you can track it. If you can track it you can improve it. Set backs are part of the process and are good feedback that you are "in the process." Expect setbacks. Learn from them and keep moving towards your goals.

Getting Up From Screw Ups…

1. You had a marathon TV pig-fest. Never starve yourself the next day. This slows down metabolism, the opposite of what we want for you. Try a high-fiber, low glycemic breakfast. This will keep you feeling full longer and help keep you from splurging at lunch. Cut 500 total calories off the daily total (the average person needs about 2,000-2400 calories a day, will vary). This will help increase your energy.

2. You went boozing with friends. Drink lots of water. Alcohol dehydrates the body (impairing energy capacity and endurance). Drink 60-120 ounces of water (filtered) everyday. Eat fruits high in water content to help get the water in. This will help restore fluid balance and improve fat-burning. For the day, go for grilled poultry, plain nuts, and raw vegetables every 2-3 hours (no more than 4) to help combat swings in blood sugar and speed recovery.

 3. You had a more than lazy business trip. Try high intensity workouts to get you back on track. The intensity of the workout is more important than the duration (30 minutes is ideal including warm up). Shorten the time between sets, increase your reps, or add sets to your workout to help maintain high intensity. Eat clean and be "hyper-ware" of your diet. Base your meals around fruits, vegetables, and select whole-grains. Stick to lean, healthy proteins and limit added sugars and high-fat snacks.

How To Lock And Load This Year...

How has your year been so far? Was it everything you expected and more? How is your fitness drive? We all need motivation now and then. 

Here are some tips to help you lock and load this year…

1. Draft a commitment contract. Intrinsic motivation is crucial for long term success. External incentives can give a boost though. This idea is grounded in behavioral economics but can apply to anything you put your mind to. Try creating penalties for missing a sweat session (cash works great).

Try this...

Register your goal and credit card at www.stickk.com. If you miss your preset workout schedule then a charity of your choice gets a payday! Need an added incentive? Set it up for charity you dislike. Are you a hard core conservative? Set it up for a pay option to a liberal organization and vice versa. That will make yah sweat till yah bleed!

Another option...

Make friendly wagers among  co-workers! Everyone throws in $50 (or even more for added value). Whoever logs the most workouts in 3 months wins the pot! Group size should be 5-10 people (or more) for maximum effectiveness.

Each of these methods involves some level of a commitment contract.

2. Line Up Reinforcements. Pride affects your drive to workout. 80% of people are more likely to stick to a fitness plan if they have a partner (24 Hour Fitness study). Shared enthusiasm also makes you want to be more invested in that process. Sharing fitness success cements the idea that it is part of your core identity which will keep you on path! Find your burn buddies!

3. Make It Personal. To "each their own" is really at work here. Use can scare tactics to keep you on path if you have to but do keep your positive vision clear in your sight. Try many different fitness related activities until you find your baseline set point of fitness (you will want to continue cross training even after you get back into a rhythm). Find out what you enjoy and do it but mix it up too to break the monotony! When you like your workouts it makes it that much easier to invest in them.

Make it a great year!

Book to read this year: Carrots and Sticks: Unlock the Power of Incentives to Get Things Done (Ayres)

10 Tips For A Successful Life…

A wise man told me recently: "when your output exceeds your input, your upkeep will be your downfall." My life changed that day and I realized that I cannot help the needy if I am one of them. We often put our own health and life goals on the back burner and sell out strictly for gain in other areas. We end up out of balance when balance is exactly what we need.

  

Hear me out. It is a tough economy out there and there are many reasons why, but please avoid the victim trap and get your head on straight. You have control over your life.

  

Use these tips to make this year your best year yet:

  

1. You Are Responsible For All Of Your Life.

Take a moment to look truthfully at your results in every area of your life-money, relationships, business, health, intimacy, etc. Take 100 percent responsibility for everything in your life and everything missing in your life then you leave no one else to blame and can begin creating the life of your dreams. You deliberately create all that is your reality and attract only what you deliberately create.

2. Create A Strong "Why" With Clarity.

Make your "why" big enough and important enough so you will never get consumed and stopped by "how" to achieve a goal (success). Your why must be bigger than every obstacle you will encounter on the road to success. Your why must always be bigger than the how. Your why must be developed with a passionate energy.

3. Focus Most of Your Energy On What You Want.

Focus 80% of your energy on what you want. Having clarity is a powerful part of the process. Take time, as much as needed, to get crystal clear on exactly what you want in your life and focus on it. Be bold. Most people never get what they want because they never know exactly what they want. There is power in clarity.

4. Surround Yourself With Like-Minded, Positive People.

The old saying is "you are known by the company you keep." This is very true. Some say we are the average of the 5 people we hang out with the most. Take inventory of all the positive influences in your life and dump all the negative ones. Attend personal development events, listen into mastermind calls and read/listen to positive materials. Invest in yourself and your growth. Your income and quality of life will never exceed your personal development. Remember that no thought ever lives in your head rent free.

5. Take Massive Action.

This is the single most important step in achieving success. For every action there is a result and it will either take you closer to success or move you further away. Notice your results. Take inventory as needed on your path to success and make slight adjustments before getting immediately back into action.

6. Take More Action.

Never be stopped by the feelings of doubt or uncertainty. You are simply expanding past your current comfort zone. Every master was once a disaster. It's a normal pathway to success. To master anything you are going to have to practice in spite of any uncertainty or doubt and the more you practice the quicker you will achieve success. Practice never makes perfect, perfect practice makes perfect.

7. Keep Moving Towards Your Goals With Unshakeable Focus.

Many people slow down at the first signs of success. They simply slow down too soon and stop taking the actions that got them there. How many people are you going to share your life's mission with? As long as you live, right?

8. Set Goals. Achieve. Celebrate.

Write down goals that are achievable and stretch you, then take consistent action to achieve them. If your goal is on paper it is tangible and subject to modification without confusion. Include your spouse and children when setting goals so that they understand and support you. Support is huge. Once you achieve a goal go celebrate! Go on a trip together and enjoy the fruits of your hard work. It's then time to set a new goal that stretches you all over again.

9. Latch On To A Greater Vision. Leave A Legacy.

In my opinion all people want to leave a legacy, want to contribute, and want to feel that they have left the world a better place. On your road to success find ways to serve others. The more people you help the more value you will place on your success and the more success you will attract. When you "become," you then attract more and more of what it is your heart desires. When you "become" you are living with purpose. 

10. Have Fun.
Change your definition of fun. Commit to having health, wealth, and to having the most fun.  

With Unshakeable Focus, Become Unstoppable...

Successful people all share similar human qualities: passion, heart, determination, focus, coach-ability and belief in the end result. None of them (successful people) are consumed by the "How To." They simply stay focused on the attainment of their dreams ("the why") and on taking consistent and persistent daily action to achieve those dreams.

We are creature of habit. For the most part our habits are subconscious. "Psycho Cybernetic Mechanism" (the psycho) gives off a chemical reaction every time it senses physical or emotional danger, which then triggers feelings of doubt, apprehension, uncertainty, fear and a general feeling to retreat. You must act in opposition to negative feelings and self-talk in your head.

 

Sadly, for most of us, we learn how to merely survive and not thrive in this world of endless possibility. Consider that by the time you are age 17 you have heard the word "no" 150,000 times and the word "yes" only 5,000 times. I can't then becomes a program, a "habit of thought."

You can become unstoppable with unshakable focus and a conscious awareness of how the mind works in forming habits. 

Things to think about...

  

"Convergence is the sweet spot where people discover how to give themselves 100% to the calling of there lives-the call to use their gifts, live there passion and make a mass difference in the lives of others." -Dr. Lance Wallnau

"Your true happiness comes from within, and then is enhanced by those around you. You attract everything into your life and deliberately create your reality. It starts with inner peace, is ignited by your energy and passion for life and abundant living, and further fueled by the attractive happiness of others, creating synergy: a purposeful and deliberate reality." -RR

"There is no such thing as a rich victim. Take back your power and realize that you create everything that is in your life and everything that is not in it. You create your wealth, your non-wealth, and everything in between." -T Harv Eker, Secrets of the Millionaire Mind

"Change has a considerable impact on the human mind. To the fearful it is threatening because it means that things may get worse. To the hopeful it is encouraging because things may get better. To the confident it is inspiring because the challenge exists to make things better." -King Whitney, Jr.

 

Now Year: Start Asking Yourself The Right Questions...

You've got two choices as far as fitness goes this year...

Choice 1: Known as the warrior method: be sensible about what you eat, make it to your workouts, and ride the momentum through the year.

Choice 2: Also known as the "screw it all" method and entails using the time between all the holidays and WEAKends to establish a new personal best for increased sluggishness and body fat (on average people put on around 10 lbs between November and December, yikes!).

For about 3 weeks in January, "choice 2" people flood gyms across the country wearing new gear with fancy new Ipods (with the best playlists) thinking it will motivate them into sticking with their program for the long-term (funny). Then they limp out to the parking lot in their new wacky toe shoes and join the witness protection program. I see this all the time.

There is no blanket solution...

You can however figure out the answers on your own if you ask yourself the right questions. If you are on the fence about sticking or starting with your fitness plan, think about why you want to do it and make a conscious decision about whether those reasons outweigh ANY excuses.

If you have completely fallen off the horse, devise a comeback plan that starts you off at a level where you can maintain some consistency. Nobody cares how much you could squat or bench or how far you could run this time last year and neither should you. Having a sense of humility when you are planning/preparing your workouts will go a long way toward avoiding injuries (which is also a good motivator to keep you on your plan).

Skip turning to a fitness trainer for motivation to get you to show up. If you need to pay someone to talk to you into working out, you need to seriously reconsider your priorities. You need more than a cheerleader. You need to start asking yourself the right questions. That's all it takes.

Fitness Tips:

Create specific deadlines. Goals are dreams with deadlines. Parkinson's Law states that the perceived complexity of a task expands to fill the time you allot it. This means that if you set hard time limits, you are going to be forced to be productive if you want desired results. Estimate how long it should take to achieve a goal and force yourself to finish it in that time frame. Do keep in mind you should be somewhat flexible on your timelines (none of us can control everything out there). Read The Tortoise and The Hare.

Get the hard stuff done first. Everything else will seem easier if you do the hard stuff first. People tend to start the week (or workout) strong with exercises they like and fizzle at the end when, say they get to leg training. As a result, the legs always lag. You need balance in your training plan. Maybe make a list of all the exercises you hate and perform them early in the week. Save your favorites for the end. This is called front loading your training program.

Keep in mind full body workouts will do wonders for your vigor, metabolic rate, and body composition.

Figure out the YOU plan: The best way to discover what eating style works for you is to experiment with periods of elimination. One month, go vegan, another month, try lower dairy. This is known as food cycling. Pretty soon, you will figure out what you need to do to make the fastest progress, and you will develop your own plan to follow for the rest of your life. Be mindful though about just cutting calories. Your eating style needs to match your training schedule. Seek help to address your specific calorie needs so you manage to get all the necessary nutrients in to push you mission forward.