Rules To Success
By: Louis Dorman
I would like to congratulate you for deciding to make your body, your sex appeal & your future accomplishments a priority in your life. These rules will teach you everything you must do to have success at this new lifestyle.
In order to be successful at this lifestyle, you must have a good reason for doing it in the first place. What will get you up in the morning when you just want to stay in bed?
Many people say "I want to lose weight" or "I want to become healthier". These are great goals, but they are not good enough reasons for long-term success. You must dig a little deeper. What is important to you? What do you value most in life?
Commitment:
Once you find your "why", it's time to make a commitment. Here is a definition of commitment: "A commitment is the ability to carry out a worthy decision, even when the excitement of making that decision has passed." Read that definition again, and really understand it.
How many times have you been excited to start a diet or an exercise program, only to become bored or side tracked by other things? As soon as the excitement passes, so does your exercise plans or your diet. Be sure you are ready to commit to this new lifestyle.
Motivation is what gets you to start & results are what keeps you from not quitting. Making changes in your lifestyle and starting something new is always difficult and takes time.
As a beginner, you need to be patient with yourself. Life's challenges are not supposed to paralyze you; they help you discover who you are. Go ahead and make mistakes. Make all you can. They are like our "teachers" - they help us to learn. There will be times when it will be difficult to maintain motivation. Don't let those situations stop you from that "reason" why you wanted to start.
Here Are 3 Keys To Staying Motivated:
1. The feeling you have a program that works for you - to reach your goals.
2. The feeling of people around you noticing results - Friends, family, co-workers.
3. Noticing results - clothing, weight, attracting opposite sex.
Try To Focus On The Following Steps To Staying Motivated:
· Self Motivation:
Don't sit around and wait for someone to hold your hand and walk you to the gym or make your meals for you. You need to make this the most important thing in your life and do whatever it takes to achieve your goals.
· View Your Mistakes As Stepping Stones:
View your mistakes as learning lessons on how to better accomplish your goals. A greater mistake is being afraid to never fail, then you will never learn from your mistakes. Our mistakes are our teachers - we learn from them.
· Avoid Self-Collapsing:
So you decided to eat a few pieces of cake at your best friends wedding. Don't give up, you just took a few steps back. Take what you learned from this experience and "harness" it for later use.
· Enjoy It, Love It & Look Forward To It!
One way of assuring that you stay motivated is to make it fun. If you perceive your workout as a chore, you more than likely will not stick with it. Or not enjoying your meals - your going to cheat on your meal plan.
Here Are 5 Tips For Making Your New Lifestyle Something To Look Forward To:
· Variety:
Add exercises that you enjoy doing and allow you to get results. Come up with a list of foods you enjoy eating that are healthy and give you the nutrients you need to get results!
· Educate Your Friends & Family To Start:
Training with a workout partner not only makes your training session more fun, safe, and intense, but will also increase the likelihood of your showing up at the gym. Make sure you pick a partner whose goals and interests are similar to yours and who is willing to spot you correctly and motivate you to do your best. When you are around people that enjoy a healthy eating lifestyle, it doesn't put stress on you to choose foods that are "not" healthy to please them.
· Don't Get Discouraged:
If you decide to blow off your morning workout to join your friends for a barbeque, just accept it and enjoy your decision and don't become guilty of your choice. Focus on the journey that you have traveled so far, and not how far you have left to go.
· Expect Plateaus:
If you feel you have reached a plateau and/or are bored, do not give up - this is a natural part of working out. Continue to search for new ways of making your routine fun and exciting. Make sure to vary the exercises, sets, repetitions and order of your workout.
· Include Your Workout In Your Daily Schedule:
If you always exercise on the same days at the same time, your routine will become a lifestyle and not just something to do when you have time for it. Not going to the gym will feel unnatural. Eating unhealthy foods will become less and less desirable.
Goal Setting/Planning.
One of the main reason most people never accomplish their goals is that they don't define them, or ever seriously consider them achievable. One of the biggest tragedies of fitness it's not reaching your goal, but not having a goal to reach for.
When you determine your goal, you have made the very most crucial decision in your new lifestyle. You have to know what you want in order to reach it. So I suggest you don't think small goals, because you will only have small success, but if you plan for huge goals you will have made life-changing accomplishments.
Here Are 5 Questions To Ask Yourself To Evaluate Your Goals:
1. Do you have a specific goal?
2. Can you measure your goal?
3. Do you have a deadline?
4. Do I have people around me to give me support?
5. Do I have short-term goals leading toward my main goal?
As you reach your goals, you gain further motivation to reach for higher goals. Here are 5 tips achieve the goals you plan for and obtain the results you deserve.
· Set Daily, Measurable & Realistic Goals:
If your only goal is to lose 50 pounds it will take you a while to feel successful. Because it can take awhile to see these results. Instead, set daily measurable, achievable goals that allow you to feel success every single day. Keep a weekly journal and set goals each day for what kind of exercise you will do, how long you will workout and how hard you will exercise.
· Track Your Progress:
After you set your goals and write them down, you will want to also track your progress. Be sure to write down your daily achievements to compare to your goals. This will become extremely motivating as you see yourself achieving your daily/weekly goals.
With consistent exercise, you will also see your workouts becoming easier and your ability to work harder and longer. This might happen faster than visual results on your body, such as definition. Many people become frustrated and quit right before big changes are about to happen, because they don't see the results in the mirror. Seeing measurable progress on paper will keep you motivated while you work towards the bigger goals you have set.
· Get Feedback - Even If Its Objective:
You may know what a good workout feels like - you have that "high" after exercise, or you have energy all day long. But do you know what an effective workout feels like? It is hard to know how effective your workout is when you wait for weeks or months to see the results.
What if you could see how many calories you burned? Using a heart rate monitor can tell you if you are working too hard or not hard enough.
An accelerometer can tell you all day long how many calories you are burning and keep you motivated to move! When you look for ways to add activity to your day it becomes a great way to instantly see results.
· Avoid The "All Or Nothing" Mindset:
So you had plans to exercise five times one week and the first day something happened and you didn't exercise. When this happens, many people give up on the rest of the week. This is known as the "All or Nothing Mentality." Keep away from this - it doesn't work.
If you approach your exercise and nutrition program in that manner, you set yourself up for failure. Allow for flexibility in your exercise plans and missing one workout day is not realistically a setback.
· Be Accountable!
You might need someone who will also hold you accountable for your exercise. Working with someone like a personal trainer, a coach or a friend will give you the support you need and you can work together to identify obstacles from keeping your commitment and develop strategies to overcome these barriers. Most people need far more support, follow up and accountability than they think to start and maintain an exercise program.
Fitness is not just about reaching a destination, it is a journey where you will learn so much about yourself and grow from your experiences to achieve many accomplishments. Keep your short-term goals in mind, and enjoy the journey to reaching your ultimate fitness goals.
Be Fitness Minded.
Here Are 5 Tips To Improve Your Fitness Mind:
1. Watch the movements of other people training to give you an ideal image of how to do things right - whether it's Bob doing squats or Mary's correct posture while running on the treadmill.
2. Learn to concentrate deeply, so that no outside distractions prevent you achieving your fitness results.
3. Give yourself challenges to beat, which will lead to increased confidence.
4. Believe in yourself and your abilities, which will develop and reveals itself increasingly with every new day.
5. Before you start your workout see it performed perfectly in your mind's eye.
Eating healthy and exercise is essential to achieve optimal wellness. Most people moan when confronted with these ideas, but in reality taking care of you is not as hard, time consuming or as expensive as most would believe.
In fact, once people decide to choose a healthy life, they notice more energy, increased self-confidence, more time to do things that really matter, and they spend less time in the doctor's office or in front of the television.
It is less expensive to buy organic foods and shop for a lot of items at the store than it is to buy candy, soda, chips, pizza, alcohol, and cigarettes. Not only do people consume less food on a healthy diet (you really can't just eat one Pringle), they help their bodies to become stronger and more able to fight disease, which makes their health costs lower as well
The foods are not boring or tasteless either. It does depend on what you enjoy, but most unprocessed and whole foods from the produce section are the tastiest and most satisfying.
In our current society - we often go for the cheapest and quickest foods to get rid of that nasty hunger sensation. But what does that do to you? Really - come on.
Most people don't know and they don't care. They will care more when they discover they have a tire around their waist, diabetes or the variety of other conditions caused by this type of lifestyle.
A healthy lifestyle also involves taking care of your body in ways besides nutrition. It is necessary for everyone to exercise. Not only does it keep you in shape, it also keeps your muscles, heart, blood vessels, lungs, and other organs functioning their best. Humans are meant to move. Sitting all day at a job then coming home and sitting the rest of the day at home is very unhealthy.
Change positions, stretch every hour or take a walk on your breaks. Walk everywhere you can. Take the stairs. Take the long way around. Park farther away from the door and walk the extra distance.
Live An Extreme Lifestyle
You should always have many interests in your life. It not only keeps you motivated to achieve many great accomplishments in life, but it gives you the ability to find happiness in many different outlets in your life. Making yourself a priority and taking your needs seriously is one of the most desired of all the "Rules".
So many people think that if they were only in another place, or were involved in another career, they would be happy. Try to get as much happiness out of what you are doing as you can and don't put off being happy until the future. There is no better time than the present.
One of the greatest lessons in life is learning to be happy without the things we cannot control or should not have. But controlling the amount of interests that you can be involved in.
When one door of opportunity closes, another opens but often we look so long and hard at the closed door that we don't see the one that has been opened right in front of us.
Know what interests you. Know your own abilities. Think about all the things you're good at. Think about your interests.
What are you interested in? What type of lifestyle do you want? When thinking about your future, you must consider what's important to you right now.
Make the most out of every moment, every situation and never wait for the next time. It is almost always true that opportunity doesn't knock twice. You could put things off until tomorrow but tomorrow may not come.
Where will you be in 2 years? Will you become everything you ever dreamed of becoming? Get out on the dance floor - dance with every opportunity, because opportunity only dances with who is on the dance floor.
Confidence
The key to losing weight and having success with the opposite sex is in your mindset and in your attitude. You should have the feeling that you are sure of your ability to complete a challenging or even a dangerous task.
You ask yourself, "Can I do it?" and then answer, "Of course I can". You have to be sure of your own ability, and then be confident enough to follow through.
Feeling confident means you know your skills and the ability to succeed in a certain task. It is an internal feeling of determination or judgment of how sure you are of your skills.
Lack of this means you aren't sure that you can complete an activity successfully. It is not what you know, it is what you achieve with your own ability that counts.
Your confidence in being able to do something based on your track record of succeeding in multiple similar circumstances. The feeling of being self-confident is learned and can be passed from one task to another. With this great ability it develops and reveals itself increasingly with every new circumstance.
It's amazing the differences in self-performance, achievement and satisfaction when you compare the performance results of confident and unconfident individuals under the same conditions. Never accept that it is impossible to gain self-confidence. This state of mind should never be in your thought process.
Boost Your Self Confidence:
You feel anxious about mingling at a club/bar/party wondering if anyone will talk to you or if you will say anything engaging. You repeatedly check your appearance in the mirror.
Perhaps, you failed at something you worked on and feel inadequate. You might even feel that you have been victimized and are not responsible for being fired or dumped. All these "symptoms" share a common denominator; you are lacking self-confidence. Most daily stressors gnaw at the root of self-esteem.
Filling your thoughts with perceived enemies and old conflicts drains your spirit and zaps your creative joy. No one can trivialize you, label you, or crush your convictions if you have a fundamental sense of who you are.
"There is no better time than the present!"
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Whether its 5-lb free weights or ‘big boy’ barbells, lifting weights on a regular basis will leave you stronger, more toned, and more efficient at burning calories. But when done without good form, weightlifting weighs in as a potentially harmful waste of time.
Many times you'll go to the gym and see people watching TV instead of focusing on the weights they're lifting, or showing off by lifting weights that are just too heavy. That's a sure-fire recipe for injury. To weight train properly you've got to flex your mind, not just your muscle. That means forgetting about what's going on around you, making that mind-body connection, and concentrating on every movement your muscles make with those weights.
Let's say you're doing a basic bicep curl, you lift the weights up for two seconds – exhaling upon exertion, pause for one second, then breathe in as you slowly lower the weights over three seconds. It's the full range of motion that you're focusing on, but that slow, controlled pace is the key to feeling you're muscles work throughout the whole movement.
That bicep curl, much like every other weight training exercise performed while standing, will also require good posture, soft knees, a relaxed spine, contracted abs, and a proper tilt to the pelvis to protect the back from injury. But if all that sounds like too much to coordinate, a spotter or a mirror can help you monitor these other important elements to your good form.
A spotter feels the weight as you’re working with it and helps keep you focused. But if you don't have one, working out in front of a mirror let's you see how you're lifting and visually keep your concentration. Either way you have to have at least one of these assists if you really want to focus on form.
Healthy muscle exhaust, too, is another key ingredient to good weightlifting form.
Everyone is different as to how much weight to use and why they're using it. For example, someone wanting to bulk up will use heavier weights and do fewer repetitions. Someone concerned about toning up will use lighter weight and do more repetitions. But at the end of a set of 12 reps, that 12th rep should be the absolute last one you can do while keeping good form. Doing anything more than that with bad form won't be worth it.
No pain no gain approach to weight training just doesn't make sense. The fact is if you lift too much weight with poor form you'll put too much pressure on the joints and damage the muscles. Overstressed muscles like that can take days to heal.
To avoid that know your fitness goals, get the right program to help you meet these objectives, and weight train with the right attitude as much as the right form.
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