The Best Kept Secret Of The Fit

What is the best kept secret of the fit? Is it a special diet, magic pill or a special lotion that they rub on their fat to make it disappear? Or is it those fat-burning magnetic shoe inserts?

None of the above. The best kept secret of the fit is that, on average, they only have about 24 hours in a day. The funny thing is that this is almost the same amount of time that unfit people have in their day.

The only difference is in how those 24 hours are applied. Another word for that is time management.

If you know what to do, then the only other hurdle is making what you know show up in what you do over the next 24 hours, and then the next 24 hours and then the next.

Getting the body you want is just the accumulation of a lot of small victories in personal behavior (choice) day-in and day-out. You don’t get it from one good day of eating, or five good days followed by two days of crap.

Labor Day is September 7th. That’s about five weeks away from today. You have two choices about what you will be doing in five weeks:

#1. You can be busy coming up with reasons why you look and feel essentially the same as you do today. (This is otherwise known as coming up with excuses.)

#2. You can be answering the question, “what did you do? You look fantastic! You look so much better than the last time I saw you!”

In five weeks you are going to be five weeks older regardless. The only question is if you will be five weeks fitter or five weeks fatter?

Nobody is going to put a gun to your head and force you down either path. There is just you and yourself and your behavior. You and your little choices day-in and day-out. Its all rather un-dramatic stuff. Its just a bunch of regular old days.

But if you string together five weeks with good choices day-in and day-out you can work miracles – like 10 or 20 pound miracles. And, if you keep on doing what you’re doing then you’ll be exactly where you are today, but five weeks older.

Its all you. Nobody will be putting a gun to your head and forcing you to eat starchy carbs or miss workouts. Just like nobody will be putting a gun to your head and getting you to eat your steak and hit the gym.

Maybe I can help one or two of you reading this Blog post, but I can only help people who will help themselves.

Josef Brandenburg is Washington, DC’s top personal trainer for busy people. He shows normal people with hectic lives and average genetics how to create the bodies they want in the time they actually have. To find out more about the 7-Day Free Trial click here. You can also pick up a copy of his brand new CD – “Why Eat Less and Exercise More is The Worst Advice Ever” here.

How To Eat Whatever You Want On Thanksgiving Without Getting Fat

I’m aware that I sound like I am selling a magic diet pill or something, but I’m not. I’m not selling anything but common sense. However, rarely, if ever, is common sense common practice.

Think about it, no one ever got fat on one day. It’s a really poor lifestyle that makes people fat. Its eating junk and sitting on your ass (or doing aerobics) all year long that makes people fat. If you are on point and live a great lifestyle 361 days out of the year, you can take off Thanksgiving, your birthday, X-mass (or Chanukah), and New Year’s and be fine.

Conversely if you try to be “good” on those holidays, but you suck the rest of the year the only thing you will accomplish is:

#1. Being a pain in the ass to your family: Don’t be the person at Thanksgiving who makes mom cook broiled white fish and steamed spinach when she is up to her elbows in turkey giblets.

#2. Being miserable: Eating your “health” food while everyone else has stuffing with gravy is not likely to put you in the best of spirits.

#3. Remain fat: Holidays “on” and the rest of the year “off” is bass-akwards. That’s spelled right:-).

#4. Reinforce the completely ERRONEOUS notion that “being fit is miserable”: People are just big versions of Pavlov’s dogs. Giving yourself pain for trying to do the right things does not reinforce the right behavior and will undermine your progress over the long haul.

The whole key is: Enjoy The Holidays On the Actual Holiday, then get back to a normal and healthy lifestyle. (Or, if you are in the process of losing body fat, take the holiday off and get back on your plan the next day.)

Don’t be one of those people who thinks they can use this blog post to try and “get over” on nature. You know, the people who will be thinking, “well, Josef said I can eat whatever I want on Thanksgiving and I won’t get fat. So, its OK for me to cheat when ever I want.”

No, no, no. You can fool yourself with such thinking, but at the end of the year you cannot fool nature. Thermodynamics and biochemistry determine what your body will look and feel like. You will be pudgy and tired if you do the wrong things, regardless of the rationalizations you make up in your head.

Keys To Success:

#1. Only Take Home Turkey: Don’t take home leftovers. Or, send away or give away all of your leftovers. Taking home half a pie is the same as inserting that pie into your fat cells manually. You had your pie on Thanksgiving and that is that. If you take it home it will end up in your mouth.

I know some of you think this is tantamount to wasting food. If you can’t give it away to someone else, then maybe it is. But, don’t you think that your body has better things to do than be a junk food trashcan?

It all depends on your values – is saving $3 worth of pie more important than having a million bucks worth of health, fitness, energy and sexiness? If you go with the $3, then I really can’t help you because you won’t even do the bare minimum to help yourself.

#2. Enjoy Thanksgiving ON Thanksgiving: I just want to reiterate the main point of this post.

• Wednesday the 26th – eat right.
• Thursday the 27th – do whatever you want (but do notice how lousy you feel afterwards as this will help reinforce why you WANT to eat right and be healthy the rest of the time).
• Friday the 28th – get back on point and notice how crappy you feel when you wake up, and how much your energy improves when you take great care of yourself.

Have a warm, wonderful and loving holiday.

And thank you so much to all the wonderful people who donated to the DC Basket Brigade. We raise 90% MORE money than last year. What recession?

“The media has correctly predicted 10 out of the last 2 recessions.”
-Zig Zigglar

Josef Brandenburg is also the author of The Body You Want, and a Washington, DC based nominee for 2009 Personal Trainer of the Year from Personal Fitness Professional Magazine. Click here to find out more.