Deep Thoughts

5 Diet Rules for Flat Abs

As much as I love exercise (and you know I do!) exercise alone will not get you a toned stomach.

Your diet is a huge part of the equation.

Someone could workout all day long, but then eat in a way that promotes major fat storage, and they wouldn’t have a toned, beach-ready tummy. While your diet is probably not terrible, the 5 secrets below will help you improve it even more. And a cleaner diet means flatter and more attractive abs.

Diet Rule #1: Don’t eat late

This is the most simple and effective way to flatten your abs. Instead of eating less food late at night, simply don’t eat late at all. Try these tips…

• Brush your teeth right after dinner. Once your teeth are clean, you’ve put an end to your consumption for the day.
• Change things up. If your evening routine revolves around food then find a new routine.
• Let the habit form. The first few weeks will be tough, but soon your new no-food-late routine will feel normal.

Diet Rule #2: Drink more water

Drinking lots of water is another extremely simple way to promote fat loss. Chronic dehydration triggers false hunger signals that causes you to eat extra, empty calories. Try these tips…

• Drink a big glass of water before each meal. This will make you less likely to overeat.
• Replace sugar-filled sodas, coffee drinks and juices with water. This tip alone can make a huge difference in the shape of your body.
• Carry water with you throughout the day.

Diet Rule #3: Load up on fiber

Most of us do not get enough fiber in our diet. This is a problem since fiber is essential when it comes to getting lean. Fiber-filled foods are low in calories and are filling, so you’ll be eating less and getting lean. Try these tips…

• Turn salads into meals. Add a serving of lean protein to a large pile of greens for a guiltless meal. *Try the recipe for Sweet & Smokey Chicken below and serve it on a bed of greens.
• Include vegetables in every meal. The benefits to eating more veggies are too many to list, so just know that your body will become healthier and leaner with each fibrous bite.
• Fruits are a tasty source of fiber. Eat fresh, seasonal fruits every day.

Diet Rule #4: Eat fewer carbs

Now I didn’t say to cut out all carbs, but rather to eat fewer carbs. These diet secrets are meant as lifestyle changes for you to stick with long term. Eating fewer carbs is a realistic and very effective way to flatten your tummy. Try these tips…

• Choose whole grain bread and pasta instead of white. Whole grains are less likely to be stored as fat. That being said, limit the amount that you eat.
• Eat half of the carbs. Make your sandwich open-faced and cut down the size of your pasta serving.
• Avoid carb-filled snacks. Instead of crackers or chips, have a hard boiled egg, a protein shake, fresh fruit or veggies.

Diet Rule #5: Only wholesome sweets

Refined sugar-filled sweets will quickly add up around your waistline. Learn to enjoy natural sweets. Try these tips…

• Fruit is natural candy. When you stop eating refined sugar you’ll find fresh fruit to be more sweet and more delicious than ever.
• Do not eat foods that contain white sugar or high fructose corn syrup. These items are the worst for your abs.
• Try wholesome sweeteners, like pure maple syrup, raw honey or dates in your cooking instead of white sugar. Get white sugar out of your kitchen.

Take these diet secrets and run with them. These tips, along with a challenging and consistent exercise program, are the formula for a toned, lean body.

The Weekly Cheat

A little balance in life is important. So while eating healthy most of the time is essential for flat abs, it’s OK to enjoy a weekly cheat.

The rules of the cheat day are simple: control your calories but loosen up on the content of your diet. So you’ve been craving pizza all week long? Enjoy a slice on your cheat day.

Notice I said a slice and not the whole pizza. Indulge with control!

Deep Thoughts

The Snap-Back Effect

According to popular statistics, only 8% of New Year’s Resolutions are successfully kept. This means that 92% of us that are brave enough to set out for self-improvement will fail.

Those aren’t very good odds.

Thankfully there is science that explains this curious “Snap-Back Effect” and offers us tools to make the effect work in our favor.

Snap-Back Effect: A term coined by Dr. Maxwell Maltz, the author of Psycho-Cybernetics to describe the rampant self-sabotage of personal improvement goals. Maltz noted that you can stretch a rubber band only to a certain length and hold it only for a certain time until you get weak or get distracted and the rubber band will then snap back to its true shape.

This is essentially what happens when you attempt to achieve a new level of self-improvement. Sooner or later you sabotage yourself and get back to your normal level of achievement.

What sort of person do you believe yourself to be? This mental image of yourself is your self-image.

All of your actions, feelings, habits, and even your abilities, will always be consistent with your self-image. Always. You will “act like” the sort of person that you believe yourself to be. This means that you literally will not be able to act against your self-image for any length of time, despite making a New Year’s Resolution about it, and despite deploying grit, conscious effort and willpower.

Sooner or later you will snap-back to the sort of person that you believe yourself to be.

If you have a "fat" self-image, if you believe that you are the sort of person who "can't resist sweets," if you "are unable to enjoy exercise," then you will not be able to reduce your body fat and keep it off no matter how many times you attempt to turn over a new leaf. Maltz proved that we can’t escape our self-image. You may be able to do so in the short term, but sooner than later you'll be "snapped-back," like a rubber band.

The answer is Self-Image Management

According to Maltz, your self-image is a “premise,” or a foundation upon which your entire personality, behavior, and even your circumstances are built. As such, your experiences will verify and strengthen your self-image, and either a destructive or beneficial cycle is set up.

In other words, you will seek out evidence that supports your opinion about yourself, even going so far as to create the circumstances for proof to be had.

For example, as a dieter who sees herself as a “failure”-type dieter, or one who is “thick in the waist,” will invariably find that the number on her scale continues to go up. She then has “proof.”

Whatever seems just out of your reach, whatever frustrations you have in your life, are likely reinforcing something ingrained in your self-image like a groove in a record.

Maltz goes on to say, “Obviously it’s not enough to say, “it’s all in your head.” In fact, that’s insulting. It is more productive to explain that “it” is based on certain ingrained and possibly hidden patterns of thought that, if altered, will free you to tap more of your potential and experience vastly difference results.

This brings me to the most important truth about the self-image: it can be changed.”

Take time this New Year’s to revise the sort of person that you consider yourself to be. The possibilities are endless!

Deep Thoughts

How to Achieve Your Fitness Goals

Do you have a specific fitness goal that you are hoping to achieve? This goal could be a number on the scale, or a clothing size. Or maybe you are hoping to wear a certain cut or style of clothes like strappy tank tops, shorts, or a bathing suit.

While having this goal is great, it will NOT guarantee success.

You knew that, though, because this isn’t the first time that you’ve had a fitness goal. A goal that you didn’t meet. In fact, you probably know dozens of other people who also have struggled to meet their fitness goals.

Here’s the typical scenario: you get all pumped up to lose weight and get into shape by starting out completely gung-ho. Your enthusiasm lasts about two weeks, before old habits and routine slide back into place, cutting your results off before reaching your goal. Then your goal begins to fade from your mind, and life goes on.

The problem, my friend, was your initial focus on the result rather than a sustained focus on the process. Let me break this down for you…

"Fitness success is not about focusing on your goal. It’s about making the fit lifestyle stick."

Of course, once you’ve gotten a fit lifestyle to stick you’ll end up meeting that goal!

This may go against everything you’ve come to believe about achieving a goal, but then, your techniques haven’t exactly been working. The number that you’re hoping to magically be one day doesn’t matter one bit, and here’s why…

"IT’S ABOUT LIVING IN THE MOMENTUM."

Can you remember how it felt the last time that you ate clean, exercised hard and got adequate sleep for a few consecutive days? A feeling of momentum came over you, didn’t it? There was a buzzing in your cells and a rhythm in your pace. You felt alive, you felt sexy, and you felt empowered. Never mind that you weren’t yet at your goal number, you were headed there!

Getting down to your goal weight, and fitting into your goal size, is the direct result of living in that state of momentum for an extended period of time. You see, the momentum can be felt immediately, once you start eating clean, exercising hard and taking care of your health, whereas that “goal number” simply can’t be felt until it is achieved, and so it’s not as powerful a motivator.

My challenge and advice to you is to find the joy of living in the momentum, and keep that momentum going until your goal number is achieved. Focus only on the momentum, not on the number.

Fitness is a way of life. Being lean is a lifestyle. Neither of which can be had by going about it halfheartedly.

You have to become the momentum.

Call or email me today and we will get your momentum started on the exercise program that will reshape your body once and for all!

Jay Raymundo

NRG Fitness Inc.

403-630-1553

Do you eat your emotions?

Read this.

It happens with most of us. You have a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day… and at the end of it you turn to food. There’s a reason that it’s called comfort food. While you’re eating it you feel better. And when you’re done eating it you feel worse.

Keep this in mind next time you are tempted to turn to food for comfort:

"Emotional eating temporarily relieves distress and then makes it impossible to attain what you really want."

Deep Thoughts

Open for Inspiration

There’s nothing quite as inspiring as a truly jaw-dropping before and after picture. I’m talking about a 50+ pound weight loss where they look like an entirely new person. It’s striking how much younger people look when the extra fat comes off. An attractive, happy, energetic person was inside of them all along.

Many popular magazines showcase transformation success stories like this at the beginning of a new year. Flip through the pages of before and after photos and it’s hard not to feel inspired to make healthy changes in your own life. It’s also interesting to read how each person managed to lose all the weight. What was their exercise routine? What diet plan did they follow?

The truth is that there are many routines and plans that bring success. The key is to choose your plan and stick with it.

Of course, this is where things get tricky, during the stick with it period. This is when life tempts you to lose your focus and get lazy. This is when even the best intentions don’t help you win.

Below I have compiled a list of Best Transformation Tips that came from the mouths of those who have actually done it. Every tip below is from a fat loss champion who lost 50+ pounds and some even half of their body weight.

• Fat loss is 80% mental and only 20% physical. Get your mind right if you want to succeed.
• Focus on non-scale victories like how your clothes fit, how you feel, and how much healthier you are.
• Fix what’s going on inside before you attempt to fix what’s going on outside. The mind is a powerful part of your transformation.
• Don’t stress as much on what you are eating, but instead on how much you are eating. Keep calories under control.
• Find a workout routine that you won’t be bored with, so that you’ll stick with it.
• Stick to your workout plan no matter how tired you’re feeling that day. Push your body through the motions even if you’re tired.
• Don’t be afraid to make healthy changes. You have nothing to lose and so much life to gain.
• Use a slow cooker to have healthy meals on hand to avoid unhealthy meals. (See the recipe below!)
• Use a fitness app to log your meals, workouts and water consumption. This helps to stay on track on those days when you aren’t feeling it.
• Try eating leafy vegetables and protein throughout the day to increase your energy. As a bonus this also increase the speed of your results.
• Find a plan and stick with it. Jumping from diet to diet never works in the long run.
• Get creative with your healthy eating by trying out new recipes. This helps prevent boredom from creeping in.
• Find and accountability partner who will keep you going strong with temptation hits.
• Make healthy changes gradually. If you ate a whole pizza yesterday then don’t swear pizza off completely. Just eat one slice today.
• Don’t give yourself the option of giving up. If you messed up then pick yourself back up and keep moving forward.
• Remember that the best part of getting into shape is not the six pack. It’s about improvements to your self-confidence and overall outlook on life.
• Be willing to ask for help. Seeking the help of a knowledgeable fitness professional is to ensure that your efforts are safe, effective and successful.

Are you ready to unleash that attractive, happy, energetic person that’s hiding inside of you? I’m here to help you do it. Call or email me today and we will get your own stunning transformation started!

The BEST Tip (don’t miss this one!)

This is tip is the linchpin in every transformation success story. And that is why this was the tip that was mentioned time after time, by the people who went through the pain of losing half of their size through old fashion healthy eating and exercise.

Fat loss starts in your mind.

Before you start counting calories or signing up for exercise plans, you must get your mind primed for success. Do this by imagining the new you, after the weight comes off. What do you look like? How do you feel? What does your fit lifestyle consist of?

Dedicate a portion of each day to mentally focusing on your transformation goal, until the idea of a new you feels inevitable. And then get started on the physical work of achieving your goal!

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