We had an amazing event last night and I want to personally thank each of the 70 people that came out to listen to the leading experts talk about making 2009 their best year ever through better health and fitness, and supporting a great cause, The Family Care Network (http://www.fcni.org/).
If you missed attending Tuesday’s special event at The Family Care Network, "How To Make 2009 Your Best Year Ever!" – let me fill you in on all the details… (I’ll have the pictures back later this week and will be posting them here so stay tuned!)
It was a powerful night full of talented, motivating speakers talking about the secrets to making your life a better one. Here’s just some of the things revealed…
How often times at the grocery store 0% fat actually means 100% fat
How dieting makes you fatter
The 5 keys to reclaiming your healthy, attractive, and energetic body
How to eliminate the neck, back ,and shoulder pain that plagues so many with just two simple stretching movements
The four important changes associated with aging and how you can slow those changes
How to develop the "peak performance" diet of a champion… athlete, weight lifter, weight "loser!"
How stress negatively impacts your life, and the consequences of ignoring the "warning signs" you may be receiving right now
How movement (or lack of) is associated with breast, pancreatic and skin cancer!
How to create a fitness and health success environment in your life
You also missed hearing about the mission of The Family Care Network and the amazing things they do for us right here in our own county. You’ll have another chance to support their cause in May when they hold their 4th annual "Miracle Miles For Kids" fun run in Morro Bay and Cuyucos.
Also, I did announce I’m offering for those ready to get serious about getting their body back this spring FREE consultation times to learn about Athlon Elite’s new guaranteed fitness protocols and how to implement the key points from last night into you life. Those new times start today, so give us a call (805) 440-0215. And if you haven’t downloaded the free Body Transformation Starter Package gift certificate that you got for registering for the event… (www.slobestyearever.com) what are you waiting for! Call today to get started or click here.
Read all the details about how you can get back the healthy, energetic, and lean body you once had this spring by going to:
Oh, and stay tuned for pics of the event and all the speakers have teamed up to bring you a ton of great health, fitness, and wellness tips over the next several weeks right here on the Athlon Elite blogsite. I’ll be posting them and sending the info to you.
From all the "How To Make 2009 Your Best Year Ever!" presenters and me, we wish you a great year ahead!
Sincerely,
Ryan Joiner
P.S. Most everyone’s #1 New Year’s resolution is to get back in shape and lose some weight. Yet 90% fail by February. Don’t let this happen to you. Invest in a proven model of success, that guarantees you results this spring by going to:
“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with."
This is the last lesson of the five lesson series on good nutrition and changing your life to a healthier one. I have helped many people get into good shape… the best shape of their lives, and over those last 15 years of coaching people to rapid body transformation, I’ve seen some patterns emerge: people who do well, who succeed in achieving their goals, choose to approach the process the same way.
That approach, as far as I can tell, has three parts to it. And it’s those three parts, those three “secrets” that I want to share with you today.
The Athlon Elite Training Staff
1. Surround yourself with support
Pretty much nothing worth doing can be done alone. Almost every successful person, when asked about their success, pays homage to their coach or mentor.
You will need help, I promise you that. You will need people to challenge you and support you. A coach is an experienced and trusted counselor or teacher that can do this.
It is inevitable that you will come up against hard times on your path to eating healthier and losing weight. A coach will guide, motivate, educate and support you so that you can easily and rapidly overcome these hurdles.
In a recent study at Virginia Polytechnic University, researchers divided people starting a walking program into two groups. Every week, each individual in one group got a phone call asking how the exercise program was coming along; the other group was not called. At the end of 24 weeks, 45% of the individuals who got phone calls were still walking compared to just 2% who did not receive calls. The results show that weekly accountability… having a coach checking on your progress… increases the likelihood of sticking to an exercise program by 2200%!
The same goes for your healthy eating habits.
Remember that quote: you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. If you don’t like that average introduce more positive people into your social circle, such as a coach (personal trainer) and the other members here in Athlon Elite who are going through the same hurdles that you are. Exercise and good nutrition are bona fide sciences and learning everything you need to know on your own can take years of struggle – but not if you have support… a coach.
2. Make it fun.
Have some fun with this! The most common mistake is to look at fitness and healthy eating as drudgery, as a joyless task or a “Spartan lifestyle.” But that’s ridiculous. In reality, it’s whatever you make it. So why not make it fun?
The people who enjoy the most success at eating healthy and being in shape learn to make it a “fun” part of their lifestyle. They love trying new healthy things. They have fun with the new “healthy” people that they surround themselves with and they take pleasure in successfully navigating the “unhealthy” waters out there in our environment.
Eating healthy can mean enjoying a gourmet dinner with friends and family, it can mean trying new things, it can mean helping those you love, and it can mean getting healthier by the day. It can mean seeing your body transform before your eyes. You’ll enjoy that, believe me.
3. Do it now.
Make sure that you take some step, right now, to further your progress. One of the things I’ve learned over the years is that the “I’ll do it tomorrow” promise is never fulfilled — ever. Tomorrow will fill up with the same distractions and mind-numbing tasks as yesterday, and that promise will be broken. And the thing about promises is that the more we break, the harder it gets to fulfill them in the future.
Again: the only time to do something is right now.
Do something now – anything! It doesn’t matter what you do, as long as it’s positive and it moves you forward. The real "secret" here is quite simple and just requires you to do one thing… TAKE ACTION.
Take out your calendar and scribble down your goals, then mark off three days each week for the next 12 weeks when you will commit to exercise. Dump out the bad foods from your pantry and refrigerator, go to Trader Joe’s and stock up on healthy meats, veggies, fruits and nuts and start preparing small healthy meals that are convenient and thought-out ahead of time. Have lots of healthy veggie and fruit snacks available and then get some social support, like a fitness-loving friend, a personal trainer, anything.
And if you would like to start working with us, we’d love to help. Contact us at (805) 440-0215 or log-on to www.athlonelite.com/get-started and get signed up for a FREE fitness and health consultation with one of our friendly and knowledgeable Lead Personal Trainers.
It’s simple, it works, and hundreds of SLO County residents have used us to get the same results you’re looking for right now. And, don’t forget… we offer a 100% money-back guarantee on our services, so you can take all the risk out of making a decision.
Whatever you decide, do something positive right now. Don’t wait until tomorrow, don’t wait ten minutes, don’t wait at all. The only time to act is now, and the window of opportunity is closing.
So here’s the final lesson of these last five blogs, courtesy of the greatest slogan of all time…
Lisa has been training with us here at Athlon Elite for six weeks now and is doing awesome! Another example of the success you can have when following our systems… she gets her meals in and at the right times, she keeps under her calorie limits, she takes her supplements and shows up everyday for her workouts… despite having three kids!! TREMENDOUS!
Here’s some of her accomplishments in only the last six weeks of training:
She’s down over 5% body fat!
She’s gained 2 pounds of lean, toned muscle, and lost 8 pounds of unwanted fat,
A net weight loss of 6 pounds!
Her abdomen shrunk 2 inches, and her hips shrunk almost 3 inches!
She can now do 31 full sit-ups in a minute and 41 full push-ups without stopping!!
All this in just six weeks…
Again… TREMENDOUS!!
Here she is training with her hubby, Jay. Sorry fellas… she’s already spoken for…
Great job Lisa, you’re definitely deserving of the Spartan honor!
Who wants to be next. Stop waiting around and do it!
“The first step is realizing that you must not fool yourself; the second step is realizing that you’re the easiest one to fool.”
— Richard Feynman
Self-monitoring is simply a fancy term for recording or keeping track of what you do. Several research studies have shown that those people who keep track of their exercise habits have more success than those who don’t.
So how can you use the power of self-monitoring to improve your body? Here are five strategies we use with many of our clients.
1. Keep a workout log
One way to self-monitor is to keep a workout log. To do this, all you’ll need to do is pick up a notebook and at the beginning of each week, set aside 7 pages for the coming week’s workouts.Date the top of each page for the coming week and list the exercises you’re scheduled to do each day. If it’s an off day, write that too.
Then, while at the gym, record exactly what you do on the page designated for that day.
At the beginning of each week, when it’s time to set up your schedule for the coming days, look back and see how well you did. If you got all your workouts in, that’s awesome. If not, set exercise goals for the coming week so that you commit to getting to the gym as scheduled. This should only take you 10 minutes at most.
And remember, according to the 90% rule you don’t have to make every workout scheduled. But you shouldn’t miss any more than 1 workout in every 10.
2. Start an exercise calendar
Another way to self-monitor is to keep an exercise calendar. Just pickup a standard calendar or print one up with your word processor.
First, schedule the start of your new program. Then, write all the dates on the calendar for the next 12 weeks.Then, at the beginning of each week, schedule your activity for the week. Write in words like “15 minutes of intervals,” “30 minute walk,” “60 minutes of strength exercise,” or simply “no exercise.”Each time you accomplish what is scheduled for that day, go back and cross it off the calendar.This is a very simple but effective method, because seeing how you’ve done at a glance allows you to appraise your efforts honestly.
And for those of you who’ve been exercising for quite some time, don’t mistake this for a beginner’s tool. This is a valuable exercise for people at all levels – top coaches even have their medal-winning athletes do it.
And if you don’t know what exercises to do, call us up at Athlon Elite for a free consultation. We’ll get you a plan to move forward and figure out exactly what you should be doing.
3. Do a 3-day diet record.
Can these same tactics work for your nutrition as well? You bet. In fact they work even better!
Each client who comes to us is asked to track everything they eat for three days (both what they ate, and when they ate it) and submit it to their coach.
Together we then go through the log and compare each meal to the 5 Rules we gave you in Lesson #1. Nothing works better than a clear example drawn from your own life. And in addition, this can help you identify what kinds of foods you like and when you’re typically missing meals – valuable information when it comes time to design a new plan.
4. Create a two-week meal plan.
The next step you should take is to plan two weeks of eating in advance, including both the regular meals and the 10% “cheat meals.”
We have some great ideas of ways to do this. And we even have sample two-week menus that include the exact calories you should be taking in. We’ll help you create a 14-day meal plan calendar with each meal and snack properly designed and scheduled.
Afterwards, we’ll look at how the client fared: were meals missed? If so, which ones, and why? Was the client following the plan 90% of the time, or really just 70%? It’s amazing what information those little notebooks can reveal.
Again, it’s a low-tech way to make rapid progress. Give it a try!
5. Measure your results.
All successful programs share one simple method: they measure results.
As a colleague of mine likes to say, “If you’re not assessing, you’re guessing.” So which are you doing?
Athlon Elite is built around the concept of regular assessment and optimization. We never expect to design the perfect program right away. Instead, we start off with what we believe will work based on past experience and education, and then we test to see whether it’s doing what we expect. If it does, we continue. If it doesn’t, we adapt.
That regular assessment is what separates the winners from the "also-competed’s."
In the last lesson, you wrote out your goals. Today, choose something to measure. In the early stages of fat loss, it can be as simple as your body weight or waist circumference. In the more advanced stages, a multi-site skinfold measurement, like we do at Athlon Elite, will give you even better data.
And if your goal is really to look better, are you taking regular photos of yourself?
Our clients do all of these things with our help. Every four to six weeks we reassess the progress of our clients towards their goals. We perform a comprehensive assessment including body-composition, circumference measures, height and weight, blood pressure, photographs and all kinds of fitness tests to measure strength, power, endurance, balance, cardio-respiratory endurance, etc.
Summary
Tracking and measuring are methods designed to counter our basic human tendency to fool ourselves, and to give us the data we need for rapid success.
If you’re looking for “Close Enough” fitness results, or “That Looks About Right” Nutrition, then by all means, don’t contact us at Athlon Elite. But if you want to do it the way the pros do – if you want Elite results – then you better track and measure what you’re doing and let us help you with it!
Click the link below and start 2009 off right with a helpful personal trainer at Athlon Elite. It will be the best decision you make all year!
“A goal is a dream with a deadline.”
– Napoleon Hill
Writing a few sentences down can mean the difference between success and failure in your fitness plans. Plenty of studies show that people who take even a few seconds to put their goals on paper are 5 to 10 times as likely to achieve them.
So today, make me one promise. Get out a pen and an 8.5” x 11” sheet of paper, and do what most people aren’t willing to do . . .
Write out your goals.
The art and science of goal setting
Goal setting is both an art and a science. Most people think that setting goals just means picking something you don’t have right now and going for it, but there’s more to it than that. To unlock the power of goal setting, use the following tips:
Goals should be specific and measurable
A good goal can be measured accurately and is specific enough to direct your focus on the change that’s most needed or important to you.
“I will look really good naked” doesn’t really give you anything measurable or specific to work on.
However, “I will lose 15 lbs of body fat” does. It’s specific to one area of improvement (body fat) and it includes a measurable outcome (15 lbs).
Goals should be challenging but realistic
Goals must be big enough to inspire you to action, but not so big that you get frustrated with the impossibility of accomplishing them.
If you’re 80 pounds overweight, setting a goal of being on the cover of a fitness magazine in 6 months time isn’t realistic. But a goal of losing 10 pounds in the next year, while realistic, is too small to be inspiring.
For fat loss, a good rule is to expect 0.5 to 1 pound of fat loss per week. If you don’t know whether your goal is realistic or not, consult an expert personal trainer at Athlon Elite (www.athlonelite.com/get-started)
Goals should have short-term and long-term components
When setting your goals, make sure you’ve got small goals that are applicable to today, bigger goals that are applicable to next week, bigger goals yet applicable to next month, and the biggest goals applicable to next year. By setting aside little time points, you’ll have mile markers on the way to your success. It also helps you appreciate the fact that great long term progress feels like it’s happening pretty slowly.
Remember, if you want to drop from 160 at 25% to 130 at 12% in a year, which means you’ll have to drop about 25lbs of body fat in 52 weeks. Over the course of 12 months, that’s about 2 lbs of fat a month. So be patient!
Frame your goals around behaviors, not just outcomes
Do you know the difference between a behavior and an outcome goal? Well, a behavior goal is based on something you can directly control and do yourself; an outcome goal is based on the end product of a series of behaviors.
Most people set only outcome goals, such as the following:
* “I will lose ten pounds in ten weeks.”
* “I will make $100,000 next year.”
While these goals are specific and measurable and may be challenging and attainable, one problem is this: they’re outcomes. And outcomes are often beyond your control.
After all, you can’t control your fat cells and their rate of fat metabolism by just hoping they’ll shrink. And you can’t force someone to pay you $100,000 per year. What you can control, however, are your behaviors.
So how can you pick better goals, goals based on behaviors? Try these on for size:
Want to lose ten pounds in ten weeks? Then start by understanding what behaviors you can adopt immediately that’ll lead to this result. Make these your goals. Here are a few examples:
I will exercise for at least five hours per week.
I will eat five to six meals each day.
I will eat vegetables with every meal.
I will avoid alcohol this week.
And how about the financial thing?
I will go back to school and get an advanced degree in my field.
I will spend most of my time on big, high return projects.
I will improve one aspect of my job performance each day.
I will duplicate the behaviors of others that are making the amount of money I want to make.
In the end, if you make goals out of behaviors, behaviors you can control, your outcome goals (things like your body composition, salary, etc.) will fall right in line without you having to worry about them.
And one final tip for goal setting is this:
Tell someone about it
Once you set specific goals that you’re committed to sticking to, tell someone about them right away and ask that person to hold you accountable (hence a personal trainer at Athlon Elite). If a goal is a secret, it’s easy to blow it off. If you’ve got someone holding you accountable to a higher standard, you’re more likely to get it done.
Summary
A few sentences put on paper can mean the difference between success and failure. So get your pen and pad, and write out a few goals right now. Or… better yet, call us at Athlon Elite and schedule a consultation so we can help you not only set your goals in writing but then develop a workable plan for you to get there. It’s really easier than it seems.
I’m not joking. I actively encourage people to eat any food they like, because the reality is that good food can be one of the great joys of life.
But being overweight, unhealthy and lethargic are not. And certain foods eaten too frequently or in too large an amount will quickly make you all three of those things.
So I encourage my clients to… eat any food you like, in up to 10% of your meals; in the other 90% of your meals, eat the foods that will fuel your body to success. (see lesson #1)
That ratio will give you the body you want AND allow to enjoy the food you love.
But make sure you do the math.
Here’s the catch (there’s always a catch, right?): make sure you do the math and determine what 10% of the time really means.
For example, if you’re eating 6 meals per day for 7 days of the week – that’s 42 meals. 10% of 42 meals is about 4 meals. Therefore you’re allowed to “break the rules” on 4 meals each week. If you skip a meal or eat something not on the plan, that counts as breaking the rules!
Make sure your 10% doesn’t become 20% or 30%. If you’re eating 42 meals a week (6 meals per day x 7 days a week), you’re allowed to eat 4 meals or snacks per week that aren’t part of the program (10%) and that’s all. Don’t binge — schedule!
A caveat: your 10% meals should not include downing an entire pizza, followed by a full box of Krispy Kreme donuts. Binge eating can rapidly destroy your progress and make you feel like crap, let’s be clear on that. A day long binge is not the equivalent of “one cheat meal.”
Rather, your 10% meals should include some foods, in reasonable quantities, that might not normally fit into your plan.
This might include a couple slices of pizza on a Saturday evening, a piece of cheesecake after dinner on Sunday, a beer or glass of wine after work on Wednesday, or some chocolate cake on Monday morning.
And the best way to make sure you don’t go overboard is to schedule your 10% meals. Pick a day and a meal and schedule it just like you’ll be scheduling your exercise days. This will keep you committed to your eating plan as well as have you looking forward to something different. Of course, if you simply must have one of your 10% meals outside of its regularly scheduled time, go for it.
Even better: learn how to incorporate the food you love into your 90% meals.
With a little expertise and ingenuity in the kitchen, you can often turn your favorite meals into healthy options that meet the criteria for a 90% meal.
Ask your personal trainer at Athlon Elite for a healthy recipe for one of your favorite meals. Chances are we’ve got one! It’s often as simple as learning a few tricks.
Summary
You can eat anything you like — but only 10% of the time. The rest of the time, eat to fuel a healthy body. But don’t forget that with a little healthy cooking experience, that fuel can taste better than anything you’re eating right now.
Are you looking to start changing your body? Get a little leaner, a little less fat? If so, then you are probably thinking a lot about nutrition. I get asked a lot about nutrition, all through the year. This is probably because there are so many different nutrition programs out there… so many different opinions from different "experts." How can someone that doesn’t study it all day long and see positive examples of what works possibly know what to believe?!
Well here’s some very simple but very effective advice that I give all my clients here at Athlon Elite:
(taken from Dr. John Berardi’s book, Precision Nutrition)
First you need to know how to evaluate a nutritional strategy. I teach my clients to use The 3S Criteria:
1. Simple. Are the rules easy to follow?
2. Science-based. Are the rules based on sound scientific principles?
3. Successful. Have the rules produced success in others like you?
A system based on those three things is absolutely critical. Think again about your nutritional rules. Are your rules based on simplicity, science, and success? Have your rules produced the desired effect – a lean, healthy body that you’re able to maintain; a body that you’re happy with when looking in the mirror?
If not, perhaps they could use a re-evaluation.
In light of the above key points, here are 5 very simple yet very effective rules that will guarantee you achieve your weight loss or performance goals.
1. Eat every 2-3 hours.
You don’t need to eat a full meal every 2-3 hours – some of them can be smaller snacks. But every few hours you should be getting a dose of good food that follows the other rules below.
That may seem like a lot, but understand a) that each meal will be smaller than the ones most people eat, and b) that eating this way can drastically reduce your body’s inclination to store the calories you eat as body fat.
2. Include lean protein in each meal and snack.
Complete, lean protein generally is food that, well, was an animal or comes from an animal. Things like chicken, beef, fish, dairy, and the like.
“Lean” means low fat. So you want food high in protein but low in fat (e.g., leaner cuts of meat, low fat dairy, etc.).
Are you getting protein in each meal? If not, make the change.
Note: If you’re a vegetarian, this rule still applies – you’re just going to have to be more creative with your choices.
3. Include vegetables in each meal or snack.
One of the best and easiest things you can do to improve your health is to include veggies in each meal or snack you eat – every 2-3 hours, right?
Psychologically, that’s a big change for most people. But it makes such a difference physically that it’s well worth it. And it really isn’t that hard. Consult a personal trainer at Athlon Elite to learn more creative, and tasty, ways of including veggies in each and every meal.
4. Save carb-heavy meals for after exercise.
This includes things like things rice, pasta, potatoes, etc. You can eat them all – but wait until after you’ve exercised. Plenty of research shows that the body is better able to process carbohydrates in the 3 hour period following a bout of intense exercise.
It’s true that starches, grains and sugars are dietary staples in North America, but remember that heart disease, diabetes and cancer are medical staples in North America – and there’s a relationship between the two!
Challenge yourself to not eat carbs unless it’s after you’ve exercised for the day. (I do something like this when I go to Vegas… I won’t let myself go sit poolside and enjoy the day until I’ve gotten a workout in!) It really works from both ends! You will be more likely to stick with your meal plan and you’ll be more likely to exercise each day (because carbs are good!)
To stop heading down the heart disease highway, reward yourself for a good workout with a good carbohydrate meal right after. For the rest of the day, stick to lean protein and a delicious selection of fruits and veggies.
5. Include a good balance of healthy fat in your diet.
For a long time, dietary fat was vilified in the media. The truth is that dietary fat is absolutely essential! There are 3 types of fat: saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated. Eating all three kinds in a healthy balance can dramatically improve your health, and actually help you lose fat.
Your saturated fat will probably already be covered. Most foods containing lean protein also contain some saturated fat, and that’s okay. You can even toss in some butter or coconut oil for cooking.
Your monounsaturated fat should come from mixed nuts, olives, and olive oil.
Your polyunsaturated fat should come from flax seed oil, fish oil, and mixed nuts.
Working healthy fat into your meals is easy. Again, consult a personal trainer at Athlon Elite for tips and tricks to getting more healthy fats in your diet.
Good nutrition can seem complex, but it starts out with a few simple rules. The 5 rules above alone will have you eating better – and looking better – than 85-90% of the population.
You also missed hearing about the mission of The Family Care Network and the amazing things they do for us right here in our own county. You’ll have another chance to support their cause in May when they hold their 4th annual "Miracle Miles For Kids" fun run in Morro Bay and Cuyucos.
