One Key Habit of the Lean, Fit and Healthy

Just think of how much better your life would be and the world would work if you were truly committed to 100% excellence? Maybe you don’t think it would make a difference, or may be the difference is just not clear to you. You see one of the key habits of people who are always lean, fit and healthy is that they hold themselves to a certain standard. It is seen in their level of 100% commitment to; what they will eat, how much they will eat and daily exercise. They are completely unwilling to compromise on that pact they made with themselves. Ever meet someone like that?

There is no partial commitment, no forgetting about it because of rain, busy day, social event or any other thing that might try to de-rail their plans. No person, situation or event will stop them from holding to the 100% commitment they made within themselves! They know that a moment of question, even a 99.9% commitment, will open the door to rationalize, make excuses or de-prioritize their health priorities. Here is an example of what can happen when you soften your commitment even a drop. Did you know that if doctors only held themselves to a 99.9% commitment to excellence then; 500 incorrect surgical operations would be performed each week and 50 newborn babies would be dropped at birth each day…just for starters? Think about it, what if your heart took on a less than total commitment and worked only 99.9% of the time? Your heart would fail to beat 32,000 times a year! Does this sound hard?

Is it unreasonable to be 100% committed to something? Let me ask you, are you anything less than 100% committed to being faithful to your spouse or significant other, less than 100% committed to protecting your kids? When you think about it, you are that committed to a lot of things aren’t you? Remember 100% commitment is easy, 99% commitment is a bitch! If you give yourself even a moment of wiggle room then it can lead to an increase in excuses and rationalization. You will talk yourself out of it more and more, especially if this is a new habit for you. What if every day you had to decide if you were going to be faithful to your spouse, or whether or not you were going to protect your kids. Imagine weighing the options, the pros and cons, imagine the internal struggle. It would be a bitch wouldn’t it?

 That is why committing 100% is easy; there are no questions, no decisions, no room for excuses…you just do it. When it comes to your weight and health, being 100% commitment does not mean 100% abstinence from foods you enjoy. It means that you hold yourself to your rules and standard. It might be.. • Exercise daily for 1 hours...or • Exercise 3 times a week for 30 minutes…or • Ice cream one time a month. • Pizza once every two weeks • Healthy breakfast every day • Lean protein and vegetables every lunch mon-Friday. Take the time to design your health rules and then once decided, commit 100% to them! You will see your life and health change!

Protein Benefits: Real or Hype?

Protein has been shown to benefit people in a number of different ways, from increasing metabolism (thermogenic effects) to de-greasing and repairing a fatty liver.  One of the important benefits that increasing your dietary protein seems to deliver is the benefit of increasing lean muscle mass.  Even in a calorie deficit, it has been suggested that increasing your protein will preserve your lean muscle so that the majority of weight will be lost from fat.    You see when you go on a diet, eating less than your body needs, then “what” you are eating will result in you losing certain amount of muscle and a certain amount of fat.

An ideal diet, has you burning the greatest amount of fat, but preserves as much lean muscle as possible.  Many people go on diets eating anything that they want (including junk food) but just less of it.  What they do not understand is that they could be losing as much if not more muscle than fat, a fact that they will not be aware of simply by looking at the scale.  Do you think that that would make a difference in your body composition and how you looked? Imagine if you were to lose 50 pounds of weight, but in one scenario you lost 50 pounds of fat compared to another scenario where you lost 25 pounds of fat and 25 pounds of muscle?  Which scenario would you prefer?

A study that was just conducted this year, looked at the effects of dietary protein content on weight gain, energy expenditure and body composition during overeating. This was an excellent study because it was all performed in a controlled setting.  This means that all the participants were observed, monitored and fed under the control of the researchers.  Basically they were under house arrest for the duration of the study so all food eating was accurately recorded.

The results were interesting.  This was an overfeeding study so all subjects, who were between the ages of 18 and 35, were fed more than their daily energy needs. One group was fed a calorie surplus that had 5% protein (low group), another had 15% protein (normal group) and the last group was fed a diet that had 25% of its calories coming from protein (high protein group).  All groups were overfed an average of a thousand calories over their daily requirements.

The results proved that you can gain weight regardless of the macronutrient profile, of course.  But it also proved that the higher the protein intake the greater the acceleration of fat burning and the increase in lean muscle mass. The low protein group gained the least amount of weight, the normal protein group gained more weight, and the high protein group gained the most. But, the interesting thing is that all 3 groups had gained the same amount of fat.

• The low protein group experienced no increase in energy expenditure (thermogenesis) and no increases in lean muscle mass.
• The normal group had an increase both in lean muscle mass and energy expenditure.
• The high group had even a greater increase in both!  

The bottom line just looking at calories is that eating more than your body needs will increase your weight.
But, more importantly, this study proves the benefit of protein as it relates to thermogenic properties and retaining or increasing lean muscle even in a calorie deficit diet!  Said differently if you want to have the body of your dreams it involves losing fat and retaining or increasing your lean muscle.  To do that protein in the right amounts are key.

1)Bray, GA.  Effect of dietary protein content on weight gain, energy expenditure, and body composition during overeating: a randomized controlled trial. JAMA 2012

The Key to Achieving Your Health Goals

Sitting up straight or lying down, close your eyes for a moment and imagine what you would feel like, if you had your ideal body and perfect health. Really take a few moments to let yourself imagine this. Let go of your current self, your present self-image, health and body... and imagine the new you.

Imagine yourself with toned arms, flat 6-pack abs and legs and butt to die-for.

What would you do with all that extra energy, how would you dress differently, how would you feel about yourself?

Experience the confidence you would have, how your self-esteem would soar and how others would perceive your attractiveness and confidence! Imagine the limitlessness to all the activities you could participate in with your healthy, fit body. Imagine an evening of feeling sexy, sexually confident and attractive with your significant other. How would that affect your relationship or your ability to attract your ideal soul mate? Envision your perfect body and the way it would make you feel! Think of it like this: This vision is the “authentic” you – the person you have always wanted to be with the body and health that you have always known you should have!

Do you ever say to yourself, “If I just lost the weight, got healthy and took care of myself, then I would feel like […]”

That is the person you should be …the True or “authentic” You.

Now, open your eyes and realize where your health truly is. How much weight could you stand to lose or how much farther do you have to go before you have the lean, flat stomach of your dreams? Take a look at the harsh reality of what your body has become and consider the effect it has had on your self-esteem and self-image. Think about how your poor body image has negatively impacted your life.

Has your confidence become less than it could be?

Are you less sexually confident and is your sense of attractiveness diminished?

Do you feel great in a swimsuit or revealing outfit or do you hide from your mate or from yourself?

This is an excerpt from 'Mindset for Weight Loss' by Michael Mountain. The answers to these questions and more can be found by opting in to the free diet in the right hand sidebar.

WHY You Eat is the Key To Permanent Weight Loss

Hunger, social situations and the myriad of reasons one eats is not the topic of this article. The larger, broader picture of what leads us to gaining weight is, because within its understanding lies the solution to permanent weight loss. An important part to realize in the broader picture of things is that what we eat and how much we eat is an action, as is whether or not we exercise. These actions have lead to the level of health you know have. Your past actions (food choices) or lack of action (exercise) have created the results, your weight, you presently enjoy. If you want to change your results than all you should have to do is change your actions.

Since going on a diet is a change in action, it would make sense if the results were to follow and success was easy to achieve. We can summarize it in the following way…

Unhealthy Actions => unhealthy results/being overweight

Change the action or go on a diet/start to exercise…

New Healthy Actions => New Results/Weight Loss

That is what a diet in fact is supposed to do, it gives you the information necessary to hopefully carry out new actions. But, here is the problem and why 95-97% of all people fail to lose weight and keep it off when they simply follow a diet. All actions that human beings perform are initiated by their thoughts and their feelings. Unfortunately, your thoughts and feelings are linked to old patterns. These learned patterns or habits are associated with unhealthy actions (unhealthy food and no exercise). Picking a diet book up off the shelf reading it and then following its recommendations for diet and perhaps exercise, does nothing to change your thoughts and emotions; the very thoughts and emotions that drive you towards your unhealthy patterns of eating and not exercising.

Here is an analogy, you can think of going on a diet just like taking an aspirin for pain, it does not treat the underlying condition or cause of your pain, it just masks it. Similarly while on a diet, you have not broken the cycle by treating the cause of your weight gain, as a result you will inevitably gain the weight back or sabotage your own weight loss efforts.

We can summarize things further in the following way…

Thoughts/feelings => unhealthy actions=> unhealthy results

It should be obvious by looking at that line above that real, lasting change will come from having strategies in place that direct your thoughts and feelings. By creating a simple and slight shift in your mindset towards food and exercise, you will engage the most powerful ally you could ever have in your goal to lose weight… YOU!

New thoughts/feelings =>New healthy actions=> New Results!

New thoughts and emotional connections with food will treat the cause of your problem and free you to achieve your dream results. Knowledge on what is healthy, nutritious food and why exercise is vital to your health is going to give your new mindset the opportunity to make new associations with that information. When your mind and your new actions are congruent and “on the same page” towards achieving your goal, then permanent weight loss becomes effortless. But, if you ignore the power of your mind, it will fight you all the way. That is why people struggle with will power and why up to 97% of all people don’t achieve lasting results. If you want to end your struggle and want to feel a sense of incredible self-empowerment, then know the following… When you change your mind then you will change your results, because changing your mind is the key to following through with new action!

About: Michael Mountain is a transformational author on health, weight loss & personal growth and is featured on Amazon.com. He is the author of the Ultimate Fat Loss Solution Diet which is available presently free of charge at www.michael-mountain.com. He is also the author of Mindset for Weight Loss transformational program - a revolutionary step-by-step program designed to provide the “inner-strength strategies” to take any diet and make it effective for permanent weight loss. This program allowed him to end his own personal 20 year struggle with weight and poor health! You can sign up to receive his blog updates on weight loss and motivation at www.michael-mountain.com

How to Create Your Own Weight Loss Diet!!!

It is the New Year and you have decided to lose weight and get healthy!  That is awesome…but just how are you going to do it, and how are you going to make it your own so that you can stick with it long term? Realize that successful weight loss is 75% mental and 25% mechanics – mechanics being diet and exercise.  This blog is dedicated to predominantly helping you with the mental aspects of the weight loss formula. 

In this article we are going to focus on the 25% side of the formula.  If you take the mechanics of weight loss and look at what is more important, diet or exercise; diet makes up 80% of the process where as exercise is only 20% of what will lead to success.   So we will focus on the diet, today.
Now, I know that you know you can down load my diet program, the Ultimate Fat Loss Solution, free of charge at any time.  But, today I want to give you some ideas of setting up your own program.
The key to a successful diet is creating simple rules that you can follow.

First, decide what is realistic for you, will it be a simple guideline or will it be set in stone? 
Loose guidelines are more apt to create an abundance of situations and occasions that can trigger a loss of control; this inevitably can prevent you from losing weight and have you living with regrets.  Remember that eating, for most of us, is an emotional response and what has gotten you into the situation that you find yourself right now.  You need to get control back. 

A more stringent approach with flexibility factored in works better.  For example I like the 90-10 rule.  90 % of your week’s meals should be spent eating foods that adhere to the diet strictly.  10% of your meals give yourself the flexibility to eat things that you enjoy in moderation.  10% does not slow weight loss…any more cheat meals than that and it will affect your results.

Eating perfectly 100% of the time for a short amount of time; let’s say 4-6 weeks is a good way to jump-start your progress.  But is it realistic for you? Do you want wiggle room for dates and social situations?  After that how many meals will you give yourself some freedom, one-three? Eating like a saint 100% of the time for the rest of your life is not realistic, for anyone! Here is another approach…you might decide to control ¾ of what is on your plate.  The other ¼ can be what you like.  Example..might be ½ a plate of vegetables, ¼ plate of lean protein and the rest…what ever you want.

I don’t like this method because I look at certain foods as triggers for food cravings and binge eating, and caloric intake is very difficult to control!

The next thing is to decide what you will eat and what you won’t eat.  Will you cut out all processed foods and refined sugars?  Will you cut out all transfats and products with high fructose corn syrup?  Will you eat only grains and vegetables, or lean protein and vegetables?  The list is vast and the opinions vary from guru to guru; low carb, low fat, high healthy fat, low protein, vegan, vegetarianism, just to name a few.  I would base your choice on what is healthy and makes you feel great when you eat that way. 

Here is what I don’t suggest you do…eat out every meal and just try to eat less.  The majority of restaurants and fast-food joints create combinations of food that lead to food cravings that will sabotage your efforts.  Even eating regular processed foods, which is made up largely carbohydrates, fat and salt, and just trying to eat less of it…is a formula for failure.  You are not improving your health and are again setting yourself up for powerful food cravings.  Calorie counting becomes hugely important and no-matter how hard you try, even with a trusted calculator, hard to do and not much fun; doesn’t work long term.

Here is a simple suggestion – eat generously from the following list: 

• Healthy proteins – Poultry, fish, lean meats, cottage cheese, eggs.
• Healthy fats – Nuts, seeds, olives, avocados, olive oil, coconut oil.
• Healthy Carbs – all vegetables, legumes, sweet potatoes, oatmeal, quinoa, buckwheat. 

When you eat solely from this list, you don’t have to count calories!

You could add in limited amounts – Fruits, Whole grains, potatoes, wild rice, low sugar-high fiber cereals. That’s it you only have to make two decisions or rules to create your own diet plan;

1. Which meals will you stick to the plan
2. What type of foods will you eat

Is The Cost of Eating Healthy Foods a Legitimate Excuse?

One of the common excuses I hear from people who say they want to lose weight but can’t because of “blah-blah-blah” is because of the cost of eating healthy.

Commonly, this is stated by people who buy their Starbucks every morning,  and eat out breakfast, lunch and dinner at fast food joints.  There is no way that these people are spending less than I spend on an average day to eat 5 very nutritious meals a day.  My average daily expenditure is well under $10 dollars for all my meals total. 

Even on a cheap, fast food diet – it would be very difficult to eat 3 meals, let alone 5 meals for under $15.00.  The truth is that eating healthy, especially if you prepare your meals at home and take them with you, is very inexpensive.  My wife and I figured it out;  when we began to eat healthy we were saving $200-400 dollars a month by not eating fast food or low end eating out- we still have occasional date nights at nice restaurants.

 The reality is that the cost of eating healthy is just an untrue excuse. Similarly, all excuses like cost of food, no time, bad influences or no-support are just that, excuses. 

Excuses and blame are cut from the same mold.  Neither one can exist if you are to be successful losing weight.  Excuses and blame create a prison within the mind of the person using them.  By pointing your finger at things outside of yourself as to why you just can’t lose weight, you are robbing yourself of power you possess.  This power - your personal power is the very key to personal freedom and permanent weight loss. 

Even when you lose weight on a diet and then gain the weight back; if you blame that diet for your lost result, then you are positioning yourself in your prison as a victim. In my past, I lost and gained weight back on seven different diets, so I know how easy it is to play the blame game.
So how did I begin the process of changing my result? I took responsibility!

Permanent weight loss will never be achieved until you take responsibility for your life and your health.

The second you start to tell yourself that you and you alone are responsible for your health and the weight your presently have, you will get your power back.  By taking responsibility for your present state of health, you place the responsibility for action likewise upon yourself and will start actively finding a way to move boldly towards your goal! 

When you blame, make excuses or justify – you accomplish the other, weakening your position and shutting down appropriate action!

Taking responsibility for your health and your results are one of the keys to permanent change and successful weight loss!

Here is something that you should begin to say to yourself with emotion everyday!

“ I am responsible for my health, I am responsible for my feelings, I am responsible for my weight loss results!” 

Try repeating that 5-10 times each day and see if your life doesn’t change dramatically!

Your Past Does Not Equal Your Future!

The key is to…..

….change your perspective, start looking at the past and the present as a reference for guided improvement, look at the future as something that you create.  You have a choice to do and become anything you choose when you start realizing that you can create your life!  

Nelson Mandela after being wrongly incarcerated for over 25 years could of come out of prison an angry man, hell bent on exacting revenge upon his captors.  But instead he chose to create his future and to find good in all human beings, even the ones who put him in prison.  Of course when you can foster a philosophy like that in such a situation, you are destined for greatness.   Upon his release form prison, he became the president of South Africa and an inspirational leader for all humanity.  To guide his thoughts and vision towards creating his dream future, he often read a poem entitled Invictus, the last two lines of that poem read….  “ I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.”  He chose his beliefs and created his future!

Achieving permanent weight loss begins with changing your beliefs.  Adopt beliefs that provide you with the opportunity for success.  Believe that “Your Past does not Equal your Future.”
The answers that came from that question; the direction of study and learning that blossomed from asking the right question, created the Mindset for Weight Loss Transformational program, a solution that you can model to create your own permanent lifestyle change! 
I realized that asking myself “why can’t I lose the weight,” was not going to give me the answers.  So instead I asked myself “what has to happen, what do I need to change in order to reach my goal of permanent weight loss?.
The next step in finding the solution was to ask myself the right question.
As for myself, I failed seven times to change my weight and my health permanently over a 20-year period!  I had gotten to the point of giving up, but then I decided to choose this belief that my past does not equal my future, and as a result I was able to take the first step in finding a solution. 
Thomas Edison failed 9,999 times before he figured out how to make the light bulb work.  If he had stopped trying because he believed the past equaled the future and any future attempt would end in yet another failure, you and I would still be using candles.  He had empowering beliefs!
I recommend adopting the belief that “the past does not equal the future” as a great place to start!
While it is good to look at the past as an opportunity to learn from your previous experiences, in fact I have come to believe that all of my past weight loss failures and frustrations were actually laying the foundation for the understanding that has created the new level of love, health and fitness, I now enjoy, it should not get turned into a predictor of failure for any weight loss attempt on-going or in the future.
Many people who are trying to lose weight and create a new and healthy future for themselves struggle with dis-empowering beliefs.  One of these beliefs as it relates to dieting and weight loss is that “I have not been able to do it in the past, so why will this time be any different?” 

Breaking Through the Obstacles that will Sabotage Your New Years Resolution

The number one reason people don’t reach or realize their New Year’s Resolution to lose weight is that they don’t know how to break through the obstacles that they will inevitably have to face.

The problem lies in the fact that people think that the obstacles that appear in their lives are just life getting in the way of their goal.  They feel that the obstacles are like Murphy’s Law, “whatever can go wrong will go wrong”, unforeseen forces are actively trying to prevent them from exercising or from eating healthy.   This conspiracy theory places them in the role of being a victim and acts to spare them of all personal responsibility.

In fact, it is nothing more than a way to blame the outside world for the struggles they are experiencing with weight loss,  instead of seeing the truth.

 The reality is that these obstacles are nothing more than the manifestations created by their own mind.    What is the difference between someone who is very busy and who can’t find the time to exercise and eat healthy, and someone who is very busy but makes the time to exercise and eat healthy? 

·       The person, who makes the time, has made health a priority!

·       The person, who makes the time, has made a commitment to themselves!

·       The person, who makes the time, has no mental baggage that creates obstacles that would sabotage their health.

Now, compare that to the person who just can’t find the time or energy to eat healthy or exercise; things just keep getting in their way of them being able to live their desired healthy lifestyle.

·       Health fails to be a top priority!

·       They fail to reach the level of commitment necessary to achieve their healthy and body goals!

·       They have learned doubts, fears, beliefs and habits that create opportunities to stop trying to lose weight and blame outside influences beyond their control!

·       Their own mental baggage sabotages their lives and their ability to follow through where their desired goal to lose weight.

This problem exists in 95% of all people trying to lose weight and it is why the Mindset for Weight Loss transformational program was created; to help all those who find that life keeps interfering with or messing up their diets. 

It is the information that will free you of all your unwanted, learned doubts and fears, negative beliefs and poor eating habits, and negative relationships with food!    It will show you how to break through all obstacles that would lead to self-sabotage, and it will show you how to make your weight loss resolution come true!

Want Motivation While on Your Diet - Throw Out The Scale!

People who are on a diet continually look for ways to stay motivated.  One of the most common and self–destructive ways that is used both for accountability and motivation is to get on the scale daily or every other day.  Although it seems like a good way to measure progress, it couldn’t be farther from the truth, this is what this article will be focusing on.  But, first here is a leading question.

Do you want to be successful?

 Do you want to have a stress free experience with weight loss or are you into frustration and obsessing over every fluctuation in your weight? Your weight can change day to day based upon many variables, the smallest of which being your weight. The scale literally creates the opportunity for you to become demoralized and sabotage your weight loss efforts each and every day. Each and every day you step on a scale you create the anxiety surrounding success or failure based upon the numbers. Just so you know, stress creates cortisol and cortisol is a hormone that increases the amount of fat in your belly…so how does getting stressed every time you approach the scale help? It doesn't, it helps you gain weight!

The scale also has you evaluating your health, self-image, how you look and feel, based solely on what the scale says. In the blink of an eye you can go from looking at yourself in the mirror, thinking “wow, I am really looking leaner, I am wearing clothes that I have not been able to get into for years. I feel good and even a little sexy….let’s go see what that scale says” POW you're two pounds heavier and now you feel like crap!  In a second your thoughts shift to, "What’s the point, I give up?"  Where is your motivation now?

Here is another example of how the scale doesn’t create a clear picture of your body composition.  Do you know that every year as you get older you lose 1 pound of muscle and gain 1 pound of fat?

As a result, many people look at the scale each year and inaccurately feel that because their weight has not changed, that their health and body has not changed either.  Yet they are weaker and fatter every year.

The scale is toxic for people who are trying to lose weight if you obsess on the daily fluctuations that the scale tells you. The problem is that the scale doesn’t take into consideration muscle increases, water retention, menstrual cycles, body fat changes, etc.   A simple evening meal that has more salt in it could change the scale 2-3 pounds the following morning due to water weight and destroy your motivation in the process.  Weighing yourself first thing in the morning can be off as much as 5-7 pounds compared to the rest of the day.

The Scale is NOT your friend!

You love it when it tells you what you want to hear and hate it when it tells you otherwise.  A number should not dictate your self-esteem or effect your motivation. If you are to be successful in weight loss, you must remove things that would create a negative emotional response that could lead to binge eating or self-sabotage! How you look, how you feel, your diminishing waistline, your level of cardiovascular fitness, your body fat measurement, your resting heart rate, blood pressure, a full blood panel and how your clothes fit; these are indicators for health and weight loss..   The scale should only be used in conjunction with evaluating all these other indicators.

So, throw out your scale or at least put it away! Do yourself a favor, if you must weigh yourself do it only once or twice a month.   You have a better chance for success, if you always create a weight loss environment that promotes positive feedback and makes it easy to stay motivated.

About:  Michael Mountain is a transformational author on health, weight loss & personal growth and is featured on Amazon.com. He is the author of the Ultimate Fat Loss Solution Diet which is available presently free of charge at http://www.michael-mountain.com/.   He is also the author of Mindset for Weight Loss transformational program - a revolutionary step-by-step program designed to provide the “inner-strength strategies” to take any diet and make it effective for

Diet and Weight Loss – Confused Yet!?

Don’t you get tired of all of the conflicting information out there about diet and weight loss? 

Some people recommend a low fat diet, some recommend low carb, some high protein, some high fiber, some cabbage soup and the folks that like to make things easy - boil it down to a simple formula; calories in vs. calories out i.e. eating less than your body burns each day.  Then, there is the question of when to eat; eat every 2-3 hours, eat the normal 3 times a day, fast during the day and eat one big dinner….I mean there are a never ending number of options.  Then there are the quick fix solutions like all the diet pills that are available or the option of lap bands, liposuction and other surgical procedures. 

It would appear that it would be easy for someone to get caught up in over- analysis paralysis…..or said differently, getting so confused with conflicting information that you end up doing nothing.  But, here is the reality from a different perspective: they are all right and they are all wrong. You can lose weight on any of these approaches and of course some are healthier than others, but what should also be pointed out is that they are all missing very important information.  None of these options address the entire problem and are therefore an incomplete solution.

Wouldn’t you agree that the problem is in part, knowing what food is healthy for your body, and the other part is knowing how to make and follow through with the healthy choice!
The problem in reality, is our own internal struggle with sticking with and following through with healthy choices, eating the right foods in the right amounts, for life.  We struggle with our own feelings, habits, desires, motivations and will power to not stray from the healthy food choices each and every time! 
The weight and health you have now is a result of all those struggles. If you don’t like what you see and you truly want to lose the weight permanently then you need more information, you must make some internal changes.

Unfortunately, all of the options listed above only address an option for physical change – diet, pills or surgery.  They might change how you look and feel temporarily but, none of these options will change you!
This is the number one reason that 95% of all people on a diet, taking a pill or after surgery fail to keep the weight off!  You haven’t changed on the inside. 

The only way for a fat loss and diet solution to truly be just that…a solution, is for that program to address all aspects.  Diet, nutrition and exercise information is the beginning, but most importantly that information must include; how to stay motivated, committed and focused on achieving your goal.   A true solution must show you how to break free of your negative beliefs, emotional relationships and unhealthy habits surrounding food!

A complete weight loss solution will self-empower you by providing not just the nutritional and dietary information you need but also the inner-strength strategies that lead to certain permanent weight loss! 

About:  Michael Mountain is a transformational author on health, weight loss & personal growth and is featured on Amazon.com. He is the author of the Ultimate Fat Loss Solution Diet which is available presently free of charge at http://www.michael-mountain.com/.   He is also the author of Mindset for Weight Loss transformational program - a revolutionary step-by-step program designed to provide the “inner-strength strategies” to take any diet and make it effective for permanent weight loss.  This program allowed him to end his own personal 20 year struggle with weight and poor health! 

Pleasure and Pain

Your desire to seek or experience PLEASURE and…
Your need to avoid or not experience PAIN.

These are things that bring us pleasure we are attracted to --- and things that cause us pain we try to avoid. Plain and simple. And almost all our daily decisions are based on these two simple needs. But, let’s clarify some important points beyond your initial thought that chocolate, pizza and ice cream give you pleasure….and… Exercise, lean chicken and broccoli give you pain. (LOL)

You see, it goes much deeper than that... In fact, YOU really didn't create your own likes and dislikes.
Mostly during childhood; your culture, family, friends, personal experiences, the media and advertisements directed what we have linked to pleasure.
And for clarity…
There is Short Term Pleasure and Long Term Pleasure
There is Short Term Pain and Long Term Pain
Pain is not always bad… for example, the pain of being overweight, unhealthy and wanting more has driven you to The Mindset for Weight Loss program and to finally losing the weight for good. So, that's good.
People who get healthy and stay healthy for a lifetime have associated pain with being OUT of shape. They have also linked pleasure with respecting their bodies, feeding it health, and exercising daily.
So that being said, we can, by choice, learn from others and change our behavior by changing what we LINK to pain and pleasure.
Here is an example using ice cream… Have you ever eaten a bowl of ice cream that brought you pleasure at the time, but as soon as you were finished, you felt Pain? Let me elaborate… Let's say that you ate the ice cream because of the immediate pleasure it gave you; not only did it taste good, but you had always been given ice cream as a reward or treat by your parents and you linked that feeling of reward, connection and love to ice cream anytime you ate it. Also, it lit up the taste buds in your mouth just like the advertisement said it would.
But after, it caused you pain because you knew that it would make you fat, you would feel bloated which in turn would make you feel unattractive… ultimately you had let yourself down. Now as a second option, have you ever chosen not to eat the ice cream?… which caused you some pain because you were denying yourself that immediate pleasure - But after the pangs for the ice cream go away, you feel great about yourself; you realize that you have taken one more step towards your goal, you feel more attractive and confident in yourself and are empowered because of your own self-discipline! Two similar scenarios with dramatically different actions and interpretations, right?

The above is an excerpt from my book Mindset for Weight Loss.  You can purchase the full book at http://tinyurl.com/7vbxkjo

Protein and Resistance Exercise Reign Supreme

Are you trying to lose weight?  What is best?   These and other head scratching questions and considerations come to mind when people are trying to figure out what diet they should go on.

 

There is a lot of conflicting information out there that can lead folks into a state of over-analysis paralysis!   Diet Guru’s only seem to foster a greater level of confusion because instead of sharing the results of research, they choose only to promote their own agenda by substantiating their perspective.

 

So here is some unbiased information of 3 different research papers that looked at the superiority of a high protein diet compared to a high carbohydrate diet.  They looked at the advantages of protein or carbohydrates with resistant exercise and without. They looked at the effects of a high protein diet on Cardiovascular disease, belly fat, nutrient profile, lipid profiles and weight loss.

 

The results for all 3 research papers were unanimously conclusive that a high protein diet is a superior way to go.  Weight loss was superior in the group that ate high protein, and even more so when combined with resistance exercise.  CVD or markers for cardio vascular disease decreased substantially with the high protein diet as did the test subjects amount of belly fat.  Important nutrients like vitamin B-6 and B-12 increased with a high protein diet, the same cannot be said with the high carbohydrate diets.

 

In fact it was found that when you eat protein, you can increase your metabolism more 30% for as long as 12 hours!  Fat and Carbohydrates elevate metabolism less than 4 % for less than an hour. 

 

All in all this research is conclusive that high protein diets are important not just for increasing lean muscle mass but also for important health markers: such as CVD markers, lipid and nutrient profiles, as well as losing belly fat, over all body weight and effectively changing your body composition.

 

Please note that protein is not your only consideration when trying to eat both for health and a lean, fit body.

 

But, this is a good start to build on.

 

How to Stop Emotional Eating

Human beings are always creating coping mechanisms, ways to deal with stress and emotions.  We create these patterns of coping to give us a temporary reprieve from the stress or negative emotion we are experiencing.

Some coping patterns are healthy, release the stress and help us to think clearly… to find a positive direction towards that which stressed us out or affected us emotionally.

Responding to a emotional trigger or stressful situation with some exercise is a healthy coping mechanism that will help foster a positive outcome.  It will….

• Release bottled up stress and anxiety.
• Relax you and calm you down.
• Make you feel good about yourself…this will help you to approach the situation with a positive outlook.
• Create a positive self-image that allows you to move forward.

On the other hand some ways to cope do not give us a clearer perspective but make us feel better at least for a very short period of time, some of these actually do more damage than good.

Emotional eating is an example of a coping mechanism that doesn’t serve us, in fact it falls into the same category of coping with drugs and alcohol. When you realize that, it might help you to recognize the importance of changing.

To take a stressful situation or negative emotion and start eating junk food to deal or cope  will do the following…

• Give you a momentary break from stress and anxiety, but does not get rid of it or release in anyway.
• It will make you fat and unhealthy.
• When you are done eating…all of the feelings return plus now you feel guilty for the food you just needlessly ate.  In essence, you have added to your stress!
• You now feel bad about yourself….this does not foster a positive approach to finding a solution to the trigger or stressful situation.
• This creates a negative self image and magnifies the problem so that it grows in your own mind.

There you have two different coping mechanisms with dramatically different impacts upon your psyche, self image and your ability to respond to the situation.

To understand how to use positive coping mechanisms in our lives instead of negative ones like emotional eating we need to discuss one more aspect to this powerful human response.

We live most moments in our lives habitually, meaning we do most things as a habit.   We have patterns of eating that are learned and become habits, this is true likewise for exercise.

Lean, fit people have a habit of eating healthy foods in reasonable amounts most of the time.  They prioritize exercise and fit it in whenever possible, habitually.

Overweight people do not. 

Likewise, any particular coping mechanism is a learned response that you go to habitually to deal with emotional stress or triggers.

In order to change your coping mechanism you need to first change your eating and exercise habits.  It is much more probable that someone who eats healthy and exercises daily will respond to a stressful or emotional situation with exercise.

But, even more than that….the methods that are used to change unhealthy, bad eating and exercise habits can then be used to change deeply ingrained coping mechanisms. 

So what really needs to happen to end emotional eating; is that someone who responds in this way needs to understand healthy foods and eating, best ways to exercise, be motivated to eat healthy and exercise, turn these into powerful learned habits and then use the same methods to retrain themselves to cope with emotional triggers in a positive way.

All this is very possible and in fact is easy once you know how. 

The Ultimate Fat Loss Solution (www.ultimatefatlosssolution.com/download) is your resource for learning the very best in healthy eating, accelerated weight loss, efficient exercise approaches, as well as habit and behavioral re-conditioning.  

Yours in health and weight loss,

Michael Mountain

Calorie Counting – The Pitfalls of Micro-Managing Your Daily Meals!

Calorie Counting every meal absolutely sucks. So, what if there was a better way? 

We are bombarded with the idea that we have to eat less than our body needs in order to lose weight, to create a calorie deficit. We then are lead to believe that the only way to achieve this daily deficit is to account for and mathematically analyze each and every ounce or calorie of food we eat.

This left-brained approach to eating is supposed to be the way that we will successfully lose weight – and not only lose it, but hopefully lose it permanently.

That, in and of itself, is the inherent problem with calorie counting: it is a left-brained activity.  The problem lies in the fact that we as human beings eat predominantly because of emotions and feelings.  We eat sometimes because we are hungry,  but we eat most of the time because of the way it makes us feel, mostly a right brain phenomenon.

We eat because we are bored, and often because we are sad or depressed; to deal with stress… we eat to feel better.  In essence, we eat largely for emotional reasons.

Counting calories is so polar opposite to the very reason we are eating, that it is only a matter of time before our brain rebels against this dichotomy and sabotages our diet plans.  You will take all of the joy out of eating and because of that your brain will say, forget this…this sucks!  And you will sabotage your diet! Here is the proof!

How successful do you think calorie counting is?  This approach will lead to permanent weight loss in about 3% of all those who are using it to lose weight!  The statistics prove that this method doesn’t work; a 97% failure rate is not exactly inspiring, is it?

So what do we do when it is important to be able to evaluate whether or not we have eaten an appropriate amount of calories at a meal?  How do we make that assessment easily, in a split second – to know that we are on track with what we are eating?

Firstly, because we are eating largely to enjoy the experience, we should not destroy that enjoyment by counting calories or points.  That way we don’t create more stress and turmoil in our brain that may lead to self-sabotage.

Secondly, a smart diet is one that creates a calorie deficit by design not by counting.    Through easy to use eyeball assessments and combining the best of health restoring and fat burning food combinations you should never have to count.

On the flip side if trying to eat less of high fat, high sugar, processed foods in the amounts that will let you lose weight is your way of getting healthy, then count away!  Try to figure out whether or not you should eat 3 French fries or 4… two or two and a half bites of your Big Mac… that is when you have to count calories.

And that is a lesson in frustration and leads to certain failure!

I suggest you embrace both your mind and your health by finding a smart diet plan that throws out the calorie counting all together.

Weight Loss Camps for Adults

Weight loss camps for adults exist because diets are an incomplete solution for addressing the problems that people who are overweight face.

In America, the National Institute of Health tells us that the failure rates for people who are trying to permanently lose weight is 95%.  Only one out of every twenty people will be successful at changing their health and weight permanently by taking weight loss pills, going on a diet, etc. 

The reason being is that a diet only changes what you eat; It does not change WHY you eat. 

If the why is not addressed then permanent weight loss can never be achieved.  We are not like animals, eating only because we are hungry.   Human beings eat for a multitude of reasons of which hunger is only the start;  we eat for pleasure,  we eat to connect with others, we eat to push others away, we eat out of boredom, we eat out of habit, we eat to cope with stress, we eat because we feel good, we eat because we feel bad, we eat to protect ourselves and we eat because it (food) is there!

When you look at that long list of why people eat, the predominant reason why we eat has nothing to do with hunger and more to do with our feelings.  Going on a diet does nothing to address this relationship we all have between food and our emotions or feelings.  That is why the failure rate of only going on a diet is so high!
Weight loss camps for adults are a way to attempt to address these relationships.  Unfortunately these camps become nothing more than mini-vacations focusing on short-term accountability and motivation.  When you consider the cost of such a short term effort (often $3000 – $20,000) and the fact that lasting change comes from the inside out and requires more than the average length of time of these camps, we must conclude that weight loss camps seem to be an ineffective solution for the growing obesity epidemic that the western world is facing. 

Obesity is the number one contributor to health related deaths in the world!

There is no doubt that a successful solution must be comprehensive. It must address the why – issues that include bad eating habits, limiting beliefs, and negative relationships with food and replace them with behaviors that lead to a healthy expression of emotion and greater sense self.   Love and acceptance must be the foundation that these changes are built upon.

A successful solution also must address the what by helping people make healthy food choices and give them the understanding of the importance of daily exercise. Personal responsibility for health must be the foundation that diet, nutrition and exercise is built upon.

How To Want To Lose Weight

Are you asking yourself, “How can I want to lose weight? I know I want to, but I don’t know how to make myself REALLY want it.”

The question that the above thoughts are truly covering up for you is this: How can you elevate your motivation and commitment level towards a goal of self improvement, in this case for your body and health, so that you take the actions required to get you to your end goal?

Well, if you have a lukewarm attitude towards losing weight it means that you feel that there is more to lose by going on a diet, than there is to be gained by going on one and losing the weight.  You might have to do some self-reflecting and ask yourself…

1)  What are you afraid of losing if you lose the weight or said differently, what is to be gained by not losing the weight? 

Do you use weight as a way to protect yourself, as a way to push people or someone away?  Is it a way for you to protect yourself from potential rejection or putting yourself in a vulnerable situation?  Do you feel that you could be rejected by loved ones if you change?  Do you use food as a coping mechanism for stress, sadness or depression and fear losing your crutch?  Is food so important that energy, health and living life fully is less of a priority?

We eat predominantly due to feelings or emotions; if you want increase how much you want to lose weight you are going to have to learn to love and appreciate yourself for more than what you eat.  You should try to embrace the fact that if you live to eat, food has taken on an unhealthy level of importance in your life.  There is opportunity to end these dis-empowering relationships with food.

2)  What could be lost if you don’t lose the weight or what can be gained by losing the weight?

Take a moment and approach this question by looking at what you have missed out on in the past because of your weight or your lack of energy.  What has it cost you? Missed opportunities to live fully, love fully or to participate fully?

What will not changing your weight cost in the present?  What is it costing your right now?  How does your weight affect your life and your self esteem?

What will it cost you in the future – your health?  Obesity is the number one reason for health related deaths in the western world!  If you die an early death, what could you potentially miss out on?

If you want to raise your level of motivation and commitment, you must get leverage on yourself and use it to raise the huge importance for health.   When you realize what it has cost you and realize that you are holding onto your weight for unhealthy reasons, you will begin to increase your “want”, and  to develop the commitment that leads to permanent weight loss.

This is the key to knowing how to want to lose weight.

The Best Belly Fat Burners

Belly fat, also known as “visceral fat”, is associated with increased risks of heart disease.  It presents us with abdominal distention that is commonly referred to as a Beer belly, even if the affected person doesn’t drink beer.

To understand how to get rid of it quickly requires a little bit of understanding about what is happening below the surface of your tummy.  What you should know is that not all of a big belly is fat! A lot of it is fluid retention, that is why it gushes around.

Let’s get right into it, so it all makes sense and then I will give you a list of how to burn the belly fat as fast as possible.

When you are gaining weight, the first place that the fat goes is of course into your fat cells all over the body.  As the fat cells begin to expand with fat and toxins (there are toxins in most fat) then the amount of inflammation in the fat cells starts to increase.  It will increase until the fat cell is so engorged that the inflammation will start to spill out into the circulation, raising the overall inflammation in the body.
This inflammation can lead to other health problems, but it will also raise the amount of cortisol (a hormone) in your body and start increasing the accumulation of fat specifically in the belly.   As cortisol elevates it shuts off your HES1 protein in the liver, that turns off the liver from being able to process fat and leads to fat accumulating in the liver.

The struggling fat cells will send the fat storage problem back to the liver, the liver then begins to become further congested with fat and toxins and stops functioning properly.   As a result you start to spill triglycerides or fat into the digestive track and you begin to retain fluid in the abdomen and produce more inflammation in the gut.  This situation is made worse by eating high carbohydrate meals.

The fat cells have something called leptin and as it rises, the amount of Adiponectin inversely decreases.  A low level of Adiponectin causes insulin resistance in your liver!

Now your blood sugars start to rise, raising the release of insulin… unfortunately, practically all carbohydrates that you eat will be converted into belly fat.  A fatty liver raises your chance for type 2 diabetes by 500%.

If you have ever had a weekend when you drank too much alcohol and ate a lot of unhealthy carbohydrates, you have experienced this at least temporarily.  The alcohol shuts down the liver, you start retaining water and it is made worse because likewise carbohydrates makes you retain water and you can’t process the carbohydrates properly.

So what do we do about all of this?

The following are some simple steps to reverse this process quickly.

• Decrease your carbohydrate intake dramatically until the liver is de-greased.  Eat nothing white or processed.
• Eat smaller meals to decrease the effort on the liver.
• Limit your calorie intake.
• Increase your intake of lean healthy proteins; it will accelerate the healing within the liver.
• Increase your intake of nutrient-rich fibrous vegetables.  Fiber will absorb excess fat, toxins and cholesterol out of the body at a faster rate; vitamins and minerals will promote healing.
• Stay away from high fat diets so that the liver can detoxify and de-grease!
• Exercise at least 30 minutes a day.  Burst training or high intensity interval training are shown to be best for belly fat.  Hot-box yoga is great for dumping toxins as well.
• Take at least 500mg of green tea extract – decreases belly fat.
• Take 900-1200mg of DHA – it de-greases the liver.
• Take 200mg Resveratrol and 200mg Turmeric – as anti-oxidants to combat the inflammation.
• Take a Probiotic 8-12 billion active cultures – heals inflammatory effects on the gut.

I recommend doing much of the above as a lifestyle, but especially at the very beginning of a belly fat burning program – because it will virtually guarantee that you will lose the belly fat, very quickly.

5 Tips on How NOT to Gain Weight This Holiday Season!

Through all of the many holiday seasons that I experienced during the years I spent struggling with my weight, there was always something that I could count on. Gaining between 20-30 pounds by the time New Years Eve rolled around!

I got just as sick and tired of gaining weight throughout the holidays as I am imagining you are. So when I figured out how to not let that happen and how to continue to enjoy the holidays I felt it was something that I should share.

Holidays don’t need to be a time of weight gain and they don’t need to be a time of not enjoying the cheer that goes with it in the form of eating and drinking. You just have to set up some rules or tips…so you can negotiate your way through it without any damage!

Here are some tips for the holidays so you can still lose weight and enjoy holiday food  in moderation:

1. Plan for which meals you will go off diet to enjoy some of the holiday fair.  Limit the number to 10% of your week’s meals.  If you eat 5 small meals a day, then your weeks total is 35, plan to enjoy between 3-4 meals without guilt throughout the week!   If you eat 3 times a day then 2-3 meals for the week.  This is your master plan.
2. Prepare and snack on veggies and a large glass of water ½ hour before every meal where there will be holiday food in your master plan.  By going into those situations already with a semi-full stomach you will be able to control  how much of the goodies you eat!
3. Increase your activity and exercise on the days you are going to go off diet in the master plan.  By burning more calories, it will give you a little more wiggle room to eat holiday treats in moderation.  It will also free you of any guilt!
4. Don’t write off the entire day because of one meal or act of indiscretion.  It is common for people who are trying to lose weight to want to write off the entire day when they have eaten something that is not on their diet.   “I already blew my diet when I ate (X)  at the office, I might as well enjoy the rest of the day, and start again on my diet tomorrow.”   If you act impulsively and eat something outside of your master plan, immediately get back on track, do not give up on the day…every meal counts!
5. The holidays are filled with more temptations, more stress and more opportunities for emotional eating!  You must have in place; simple strategies and reminders to keep you motivated and focused on the big picture…you achieving your weight loss goals!

If you’re interested in putting simple strategies and reminders in place so that you don’t go overboard this Holiday season – click here for instant access to a great tool that many people are using for just that.