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Weight Loss Exercise

What is Mindset and Weight Loss?


I found this great article from Michelle Hastie who is a fitness and lifestyle coach on the power of mindset when you are trying to lose weight and wanted to share it with you today. I believe (as does Arnold Schwarzenegger) that any kind of body transformation is 90% mental. Get your head in the right place and you can make huge changes.

I used to tell people that, “I help women entrepreneurs lose weight by mastering their mindset”… I say used to because what has become clear to me is that most people don’t truly understand what it means to master their mindset.

What is Mindset and Weight Loss?Mindset to many people means how much they are willing to push through or have willpower. They say, “Oh Michelle you are so right, mindset is the most important thing because you have to be able to fight your mind when it tells you to eat cake, or take a nap instead of the gym.” To me this is not mastering your mindset it is mastering your will. This comes in handy if you are competing or on a reality show trying to win a million dollars by standing on one foot the longest. This is not real life.. unless you plan to be in competition mode forever.

What is the Truth About Mindset and Weight Loss you ask?

To master your mindset for weight loss you must have mastery over your thoughts, your beliefs and your patterns. In other words, you want mastery over who you are “being” not what you are “doing.”

This takes extreme consciousness… you cannot run on auto-pilot or you will continue getting the same results you have always gotten. You also have to be extremely honest about where you are and where you want to go. This means if you hate running up and down those damn stairs you can’t use that as your tool to overcome your mindset because all that will teach you is how much will power you have… it will not change your thoughts about it, your beliefs about it or your patterns for real weight loss results that last. You cannot go from hating the stairs to loving the stairs by forcing yourself to run them each day. You either change who you are being and become someone who truly loves running stairs deep down or you accept that stairs aren’t your thing and there are million other ways to move.

When it comes down to it, most people will only force themselves to run those stairs because they believe if they push through the weight will come off their body. While this may work for some, it won’t work for most long term because you can only fool yourself for so long. The truth always comes out and it always sets you free.

So, it’s time to ask yourself…

Do you want to master your mindset or do you want to master willpower?

If you want to master your willpower I can write out a year long exercise and eating plan for you and you can see how religious you can be following it. It leaves no wiggle room and if you have an unexpected party or dinner it will throw everything off. If you get invited to Mexico the whole plan will be messed up and frankly it’s extremely unrealistic and will not last long term.

Find out who you are “being” right now that is creating you current results. Your thoughts, beliefs and patterns. Decide who you want to become and write out what this person would think, believe and what patterns they would have. Become this person immediately. Be conscious in your days to notice when you slip back in to the old way of being. Eventually this new way of being will simply be who you are. You will automatically think the thoughts of someone who is at their goal weight. You will have the beliefs of someone who never struggles with their weight and you will run patterns automatically that are in alignment with your highest goals.

Which one sounds better to you?

If you are ready to master your mindset try out our home study program “The 7 Ways to Lose Weight While Living Your Life” Have fun “being” someone who automatically loses weight while living an incredible life.

As a Mindset Mentor and Results Coach, Michelle Hastie teaches conscious entrepreneurs how to live their absolute truth in order to live in their ideal bodies forever. If your body isn’t you, then your negative thoughts, beliefs and patterns aren’t you either. It’s time to change who you are being in order to live your most incredible life, in a body you love.


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Weight Loss Exercise

Weight Loss Contest for the Summer


Tom Venuto sent me this article about a Weight Loss Contest for the Summer. Tom as you may know is the creator of Burn the Fat Feed the Muscle. For the last couple years in the late Spring he has been putting on a big weight loss contest for the summer.

Weight Loss Contest for the SummerWeight loss contests, especially the Biggest Loser, where obese people drop insane amounts of body weight – like 10, 15 or even 20 lbs in a week – have become extremely popular. Many people say they get incredibly inspired and motivated watching these huge weight losses take place right before their eyes.

Weight Loss Contest for the Summer

I agree that fitness contests are a powerful motivational catalyst. But I also believe that there are some fatal flaws in contests that encourage rapid “weight loss.” That’s why I finally decided to host my own body transformation contest – the “Burn The Fat Challenge”…

But Our Contest Was NOTHING Like The Biggest Loser…

Our fitness contest is different because it’s a “body composition transformation” contest – not just a “weight loss” contest.

If you’re not hip to what “body composition” means, then the results of our first contest are going to blow your mind: Josh, the men’s champ, and Ryan one of the top finalists, both only lost one pound.

You might be thinking, “what kind of weird body transformation contest were you running where the winner and the finalists only drop a pound?”

Well, it might seem weird if you thought success at body transformation ONLY meant dropping large amounts of weight on the scale, but…

What About The Difference Between Fat Loss and Weight Loss?

What if you gain muscle while losing weight? Think about this – if you gain muscle in a weight loss contest, you get penalized, right? But shouldn’t you be REWARDED for gaining muscle as well as burning fat? Wouldn’t that be the ultimate prize?

That’s the fatal flaw of “weight loss” contests: Most people are obsessed with scale weight but don’t pay any attention to their body composition – the all-important fat-to-muscle ratio.

Of course, some of the contestants in our last Burn The Fat Challenge contest DID drop a lot of weight – 14, 19, even 26 lbs in only 7 weeks (49 days). In our upcoming 98 day challenge those amounts could be double that. But the person who drops the most pounds is not necessarily voted the winner in the Burn The Fat Challenge.

Weight Loss Contest for the Summer

Weight Loss Contest for the Summer

 

Some contestants became winners because they made astonishing improvements in their muscle to fat ratio, even though they didn’t lose much weight.

For example, Josh lost LESS than a pound because the solid new muscle weight replaced the fat weight. He looks leaner AND more muscular, but the scale hardly changed at all!

How Gaining LEAN Muscle While Losing Fat Helps Women Get Fit, Sexy and Bikini-Ready…

The Burn the Fat System works for women too, and replacing fat with muscle is EXACTLY what most women need, but aren’t getting, because most women are worried about getting “bulky.”

Women who don’t train for more muscle are making a BIG mistake! What most women don’t realize is that if you strip off fat AT THE SAME TIME as you put on lean muscle, you don’t get bulky – you get strong and sexy!

The idea that women who gain muscle will look bulky or masculine is completely false (except for women who take anabolic steroid drugs, and I would NEVER recommend that!)

One of our female champs, Sarah, gained an astonishing 7 pounds of muscle during one of our previous Burn the Fat contests. Her body transformation puts to rest the idea that women get bulky from gaining muscle. They also reveal why the scale can play tricks on you…

Sarah actually GAINED a pound of bodyweight according to the scale, increasing from 119 to 120 pounds, BUT her body fat decreased from 19% to a ripped 12.6%.

These results are definitely not typical. Most people don’t lose 7 pounds of fat weight and replace it with 7 pounds of muscle weight in 7 weeks. More typical results might be 1-2 pounds per week of fat lost (7-14 pounds in 7 weeks) and, if you do everything right, 2 or 3 pounds of muscle gained at the same time.

However, these body composition transformations do show what is possible with hard work, a goal, support and accountability.

3 Things You Must Know To Make Body Transformations Like These

My fat burning programs have helped dozens of men and women lose over 100 pounds, and up to as much as 256 pounds. I’ve published their success stories on the Burn The Fat Website, in the burn the fat newsletter and in our famous success story interviews at the Burn The Fat Inner Circle.

Why then, did I share the success stories above, where there was virtually no “weight loss”, instead of 100+ pound massive weight loss stories – the kind so popular on TV shows today?

There are 3 major reasons:
1. I wanted you to see real-world proof that it IS possible to gain muscle and lose fat at the same time…
2. I wanted you to realize the difference between weight loss and fat loss…
3. I wanted you to finally give up the notion that weight loss is the only goal that matters

You may have a lot of weight to lose (body fat), but weight loss is not all there is to a body transformation.

Some people are not seriously overweight, but they are seriously unhappy with their bodies.

Whichever is your situation – you want to drop 40, 70 or even 100+ pounds, or if you don’t need to lose a lot of weight but you want to firm-up, lean-out and re-shape how your body looks, here is the perfect chance for you to do it.

We hold two Burn the Fat Body transformation contests per year. Our winter contest (the holiday challenge is only 7 weeks (49 days) long and takes place over the Thanksgiving, Christmas and New year’s Holidays.

We are running another transformation contest over the summer of 2011.

It’s NOT a weight loss contest – it’s a “BODY COMPOSITION TRANSFORMATION CONTEST.”

If you choose to enter and accept this challenge, you will take a “before” photograph of yourself no later than May 25th

You will also record your body weight AND your ULTRA-IMPORTANT body fat percentage. The body fat test will then tell you how much of your weight is fat and how much is muscle.

You may lose a lot of weight, or you may lose only a little. However, the winners of the Burn the Fat challenge will be chosen based on the following:

1. The improvement in your body as seen in your before photo compared to your after photo.
2. The improvement in your body composition (the fat-to-muscle ratio)
3. The essay you will write about your experience at the end of the 98 day contest.

For full contest details, including information about the grand prize trip to MAUI, check out this page of the burnthefat.com website:

http://www.fitnesstipsforlife.com/goto/summer-challenge

The contest entry deadline is May 30th – mark your calendars now!

Tom Venuto
Author, Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle

P.S. Register before Wednesday, May 25th to get in the best shape of your life and a for a chance to win a trip for two to Maui, Hawaii:

http://www.fitnesstipsforlife.com/goto/summer-challenge

Categories
Weight Loss Exercise

Goal Setting for 2011

Goal Setting for 2011

Goal Setting for 2011

Tom Venuto of Burn the Fat sent me this article on Goal Setting for 2011 to print up on the blog. Hope you find some great value in it as I did.

When you pause and reflect on the past decade as you look ahead to a new one, it makes you appreciate how short life is, how valuable time is and how quickly the time can pass you by – with nothing to show for it, if you don’t plan otherwise.

We sure live in a Technological Time

That’s why the passing of another decade can feel like a wakeup call as much as a fresh start: Looking at the technological wonders that surround us in 2010, I can’t help thinking it feels like science fiction.

In fact, modern technology is one of the reasons why some people have succeeded at body transformation while others have failed.

I’m still in awe of the web. The satellite navigation system in my car amazes me every time I drive. I can store a library of books in a device that fits in my pocket. It blows my mind that we can speak to each other face to face through the internet live on video. That’s straight from Star Trek! And those are just the everyday little things.

It’s the greatest time to be alive in all of human history! Unfortunately, today’s modern conveniences have brought a dark side upon us.

Goal Setting for 2011 – We are Fatter Than Ever

Rising obesity has paralleled the march of technology. The chair-bound, desk-job, computer, car, elevator, television based society of today is helping to make millions of people fat and lazy.

Our current way of life is less than a century old, yet our biology hasn’t changed in tens of thousands of years. Our bodies were designed to move and work, not sit and click.

We’ve become spoiled. Complacent. Dependent. And we are paying a price for it. We are fatter than ever before in all of human history. More than two thirds of Americans are now overweight. One third are obese.

People are dying because they‘re too fat.

Ironically, none of our new technology can solve our body fat problems.  There’s no easy way. No pill. No machine. No drug. More knowledge isn’t going to help. We already have most of the answers. We know more about the human body than ever before. But it’s all academic.

The problem lies in the doing. You have to do the work – in the gym and in the kitchen. Hard work.

We are a quick fix society. It’s partly human nature, but technology is making us more impatient. We can have products delivered to us with one click and even do it from our cell phones. We have instant downloads, movies on demand, and drive through coffee shops. We get  our food made and delivered in just minutes while we are sitting in our cars, and it’s still not quick enough. The internet is blazingly fast, but most people will abandon a web page in seconds if it hasn’t loaded. It’s no different with fat loss. We want six pack abs yesterday.

Simultaneously fighting the pull of human nature and the convenience of new technology is no easy task. But there is a solution: Future Orientation.

Successful People will be Goal Setting for 2011

The most successful people in the world today are those who have a long term perspective. They plan 5-10 years in advance and beyond. They know how to enjoy and live in the present moment, but they take action and make decisions based on their future vision. And they will be doing goal setting for 2011

The passing of another decade makes you take stock of yourself and your achievements, or lack thereof. “What did I accomplish in the last 10 years? Am I a better person today than I was in 2000?”

If you don’t like the answers, then it’s time to finally get serious about your future because the next 10 years are going to fly by even faster than the last 10 as the pace of life and society gets even faster.

To succeed in the new decade, think beyond new year’s resolutions. Think beyond the 12 week fitness goal. As you write your goals this year, don’t stop with 3 month or even 1 year goals.

Project yourself into the future: 3, 5 and 10 years from now. For each point, dream, fantasize, visualize: if your body, your health your physical performance were perfect in every way, what would that look like? Describe it in vivid detail.

With our ingrained penchant for quick fixes, we often overestimate what we can achieve in the short term and set unrealistic deadlines on our short term goals. But the flipside is that we often underestimate what we can achieve in the long term, so we set our long term goals too low.  Do you realize that people have gone from broke to billionaire in 10 years? In this internet age, some have done it even faster.

My challenge for you this year is to start thinking about your body and your life with the same type of creativity that has led to our greatest technological advances:

Not the same thoughts as yesterday. Not just positive thoughts. just bigger thoughts. NEW THOUGHTS! Creative thoughts! Inventive thoughts! From new thoughts will spring new goals, new actions and new achievements.

Fitness goals should not take over your life, they should enhance every other part of it. So take this opportunity to achieve balance by setting long term goals for every area of your life – health, fitness, finances, career, relationships, experiences, travel, possessions and spiritual growth.

Most people didn’t set any goals 10 years ago. They’re among the masses who are in the same place today as they were a decade ago. So do some Goal Setting for 2011

Some people only set short term goals, so they accomplished a few little things, but then stopped, as if a goal were a final destination rather than a stepping stone along a path. Other people set goals but didn’t follow through on them. They forgot that goal setting and goal achieving are two different things.

Don’t fall into these traps.

If you need coaching in the goal setting process – from the daily and weekly baby steps to the long term goals and dreams that span a decade – read chapter one of Burn The Fat, Feed the Muscle.  If you already have it. Now is the time to revisit it.

If you don’t own a copy yet, you can get the program at:

Burn The Fat Feed the Muscle

Most people make resolutions. Some people set well-formed goals. But long term goals are the goals that almost everyone forgets to set.

If you didn’t do this exercise 10 years ago, do it now. If you do, I guarantee that in 2013, 2015, 2020, you’ll not only find yourself living at a whole new level, you’ll find yourself living in another world – one of your own creation.

Happy New Year!

Tom Venuto, author of Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle

PS. Remember, goal setting is just the start. Goal ACHIEVING requires a nutrition and training plan.  Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle is the most comprehensive fat loss program of its kind because it teaches you every element necessary to succeed: nutrition, cardio training, weight training and “mental training” (goal setting and mindset).

Learn more about the Burn The Fat program at: Burn The Fat

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