Breaking News: Michelangelo’s David Comes To Washington, DC For A Month

Have you heard that Italy is sending Michelangelo’s David to visit Washington, DC for a month?

The historic museum trip has 3 generous sponsors that provided free food unfortunately.

This brings up an important point:  How To Make The Body You Want last forever.

After you’ve cleaned up your diet, worked hard in the gym/ and/or at home, disciplined yourself to be consistent with all of the other demands on your time and energy, and navigated the myriad of obstacles and setbacks that are sure to come up, you will arrive at the body you wanted when you started.  Most people think that this is the end of the road.

No.  No.  No.

The conscious or unconscious belief that most people have is that eating better and exercising regularly is something that you do until your clothes fit again (or your arms are as big as you want them).  Then, after you look and feel the way you want to, then you can go back to what you were doing before you got in shape.  (Occasionally people will say this in a sentence, but usually they will demonstrate their belief with behavior.)

The way you used to eat and the way you used to exercise (or not exercise) was the problem. If you go back to your old lifestyle, then you will also go back to your old body.

The 3 Skills You Must Have To Make The Body You Want Last Forever

#1.  Learn how to come out of a spin: Just in case you weren’t aware, you are human.  That means that you are most definitely going to fall off the wagon at some point.  Maybe you’ll have to work 80-100hrs a week for a while, you’ll have a major family tragedy, get pregnant, or something else will get you off track.

The  common response to realizing that you’ve messed up is, “see, I always do this.  I messed up again.  I don’t know why I just can’t ever seem to keep it up.  I always fall off the wagon.  I don’t even know why I tried in the first place, I’m just a screw up.  I should just give up and stuff my face…”

I know how that feels, and I have most certainly been there too.  It’s not a good place.

People who are successful long term and people who fail long term have one thing in common:  They both fall off the wagon.

People who are successful long term and people who fail long term have one important difference too:  The successes pick themselves up ASAP, refocus on where they want to be and get started back there; the failures wallow in misery and spend their energy insulting themselves.

#2.  Start with the right attitude: Getting and keeping the body you want is a 3 step process:

• Step 1:  get it.  Do what it takes to get what you want.
• Step 2:  find out how many carbs you can eat, and how little exercise you can do to keep it.
• Step 3:  when you mess-up, reset, go back to #1

This is not a quick fix.  This is a new life.

#3.  Learn how to cook: Most people cannot cook period.  They only way that most people (or restaurants) can make their food taste good is by making it unhealthy – extra sugar, high fructose corn syrup and trans-fats.

Healthy food can and should be good food too.  Investing a few bucks in a good cookbook, and some time in learning how to cook will pay huge dividends in life – more energy, less fat, more muscle, and you might even impress somebody special in your life.

Here is my new favorite cookbook:

Josef Brandenburg is 2010, Washington, DC  Personal Trainer of the Year Nominee for both Personal Fitness Professional Magazine and The Washington, DC Fitness Association, The DC Fitness Advisor and the Fitness Expert for the PCOS Challenge TV Show. 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 FREE copy of his brand new CD – “Why Eat Less and Exercise More is The Worst Advice Ever” here.

Josef in the News… Check me out!

Jimmy Moore did an interview with me recently about 10 Fitness Myths that hold people back from getting the bodies they want (esp. as it pertains to folks on low/lower carb diets).  That is FREE right here to download as a podcast or just to listen to at your computer.

Josef Brandenburg is 2010, Washington, DC  Personal Trainer of the Year Nominee for both Personal Fitness Professional Magazine and The Washington, DC Fitness Association, The DC Fitness Advisor and the Fitness Expert for the PCOS Challenge TV Show. 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 FREE copy of his brand new CD – “Why Eat Less and Exercise More is The Worst Advice Ever” here.

How To Workout When The Weather Sucks, or You’re Snowed-In At Home

It’s Snowmageddon in Washington, DC. Gyms are closed. Cars are buried. And if your gym was open today, it’s still a pain to walk there. But that’s OK, you don’t need a gym to get a killer workout.

This video lays out the entire workout, the warm-up, the rest periods, and equipment substitutions too.

Here’s the crib notes:

Part 1 – the warm-up:

The warm-up is actually THE single most important part of any workout. Now, I don’t mean a boring, waste of time warm-up like walking on the treadmill – really, why on earth do people go to the gym to go walking! – I mean something that will actually do your body some good.

Think about it. We wake up, and sit down to eat breakfast, then sit for an hour to get to work, then we sit at our desk for 8-10hrs, then we sit in our cars for another hour, then we site down to watch TV for two hours… why the hell would we go to the gym, sit down on a bike, then do bicep curls and crunches? Do we really need to spend our hour at the gym hunched over like we are the rest of the day?

Walking lunge with OH reach 5-8/side
Walking Spiderman 5-8/side
Walking side lunge 5-8/side
Inch worm 5-8
Single leg bridge 10/side

Part II – fat blasting interval workout

Now that your body is ready to do some real work, let’s do some real work that will make you stronger, fitter and way better looking.

We’re going to use time for this workout instead of reps. You will need a timer – a watch, a Gymboss, or even a kitchen timer will work just fine.

If you are a beginner – start with 30sec of work, followed by 30sec of rest; intermediate do 40/20, and for the advanced folks, go with 50on.10sec off.

This will take 20min. We’ve got 5 stations, that we’ll cycle around

Squat to press

Valslide plank

Lunge jump

Valslide mountain climber

KB swing

You can get a Valslide right here. They are super useful for home or hotel room workouts.

You can also pick up a kettlebell right here.

Josef Brandenburg is 2010, Washington, DC  Personal Trainer of the Year Nominee for both Personal Fitness Professional Magazine and The Washington, DC Fitness Association, The DC Fitness Advisor and the Fitness Expert for the PCOS Challenge TV Show. 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 FREE copy of his brand new CD – “Why Eat Less and Exercise More is The Worst Advice Ever” here.

The New Book Is Now On Amazon.com

I wanted to let you know that the new book “The Body You Want from A to Z” is now available on Amazon.com

It’s got chapters by me, Jimmy Moore, Gary Taubes and Dr. Bryan Walsh.

Josef Brandenburg is 2010, Washington, DC  Personal Trainer of the Year Nominee for both Personal Fitness Professional Magazine and The Washington, DC Fitness Association, The DC Fitness Advisor and the Fitness Expert for the PCOS Challenge TV Show. 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 FREE copy of his brand new CD – “Why Eat Less and Exercise More is The Worst Advice Ever” here.

Super Exciting News! (Washington, DC Personal Trainer Picked as THE PCOS Challenge Fitness Expert TV Show)

I just got a phone call from Sasha Ottey the founder of the PCOS (polycystic ovary syndrome) Challenge.  She’s doing a 13 week TV show for women with PCOS, and they’ve selected me as THE fitness expert for the show!

Just so everyone knows as soon as the first show airs I’ll stop being nice to people:-).

watch this 22sec hilarious video on getting smug:

Josef Brandenburg is 2010, Washington, DC  Personal Trainer of the Year Nominee for both Personal Fitness Professional Magazine and The Washington, DC Fitness Association, The DC Fitness Advisor and the Fitness Expert for the PCOS Challenge TV Show. 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 FREE copy of his brand new CD – “Why Eat Less and Exercise More is The Worst Advice Ever” here..

Please Help Out In Haiti

Hopefully you are aware of what’s going on in Haiti – a country that was already in bad shape just went through 4 hurricanes and then a major earthquake. A client of mine who’s family is from Haiti wants to do something to help and needs YOU to get it done.

If you have any sheets or bedclothes of any size, or any condition please donate them.

Terrell (my client) has made this VERY simple. Just call her on her cell phone and she’ll come pick up your stuff.

Her # is (202) 531-1796.

Any sheets or bed clothes, in any condition. Call Terrell and she’ll pick up your sheets.

Thank YOU in advance for your generosity!

Josef Brandenburg is 2010, Washington, DC  Personal Trainer of the Year Nominee for both Personal Fitness Professional Magazine and The Washington, DC Fitness Association, and author of “The Body You Want”. 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 FREE copy of his brand new CD – “Why Eat Less and Exercise More is The Worst Advice Ever” here.

Can Laughing Help You Lose Weight?

I recently ran across a very neat research article in Diabetes Care on the power of laughter.

Japanese researchers took a group of type-2 diabetics and healthy subjects for two days:

Day 1 – they ate a 500 calorie lunch and attended a “monotonous lecture (40 min) without humorous content.”

Day 2 – they ate an identical 500 calorie lunch and attended a 40min comedy show where “the subjects laughed.”

(Funny excerpt: “The subjects estimated their laughter level on a scale of 0–5, and most of them considered that they laughed well (level 4 or 5).”  Leave it to a scientist to take the fun out of a comedy show!)

Researchers monitored the subjects bloo d glucose levels for two hours after the and in the people who attended the comedy show glucose levels where significantly lower .

“Negative emotions such as anxiety, fear, and sorrow are known to be factors that elevate the blood glucose level.”

Why Does This Matter To You?

Elevated blood sugar (glucose) levels require that your body secretes insulin to bring them back down.  The more insulin you secrete the more your fat cells grow.  Anything you can do to reduce your insulin levels (high intensity exercise, low-carb eating) will help to make you leaner.

Apparently, its not just what you eat, but how you eat.  If you eat in a stressed out state, that can make your healthy lunch less healthy.

So, lighten up!  Pass gas and blame it on somebody else at lunch.  Make sure that you are having fun every day – even at work.

You can read the whole article in Diabetes Care right here for free:
http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/26/5/1651.full

Josef Brandenburg is 2010, Washington, DC  Personal Trainer of the Year Nominee for both Personal Fitness Professional Magazine and The Washington, DC Fitness Association, and author of “The Body You Want”. 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 FREE copy of his brand new CD – “Why Eat Less and Exercise More is The Worst Advice Ever” here.

Merry Christmas – Josef Doing The Sprinkler

I don’t know why I decided to break out into the sprinkler, but I did and it’s in this video of how to do the face pull.

Josef Brandenburg is 2010, Washington, DC  Personal Trainer of the Year Nominee for both Personal Fitness Professional Magazine and The Washington, DC Fitness Association, and author of “The Body You Want”. 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 FREE copy of his brand new CD – “Why Eat Less and Exercise More is The Worst Advice Ever” here.

I’m So Sorry For Missing ALL Of Last Week

To everyone who reads my blog, I am sorry for zoning out and missing all of last week – not one single post.  Bad Josef!

I’m inclined to offer some kind of reason (a.k.a. BS excuse) about why I missed last week’s blog, but that would  be just like me telling my body “oh, I just didn’t have the time to eat right and exercise last week – I was really busy.  Do you think you could let me off the hook, give me a lot of energy and keep me looking good anyway?”

Excuses don’t matter, it’s not a result.

See you all this Thursday.

Josef Brandenburg is 2010, Washington, DC based Personal Trainer of the Year Nominee for both Personal Fitness Professional Magazine and The Washington, DC Fitness Association, and author of “The Body You Want”.  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.

The Cutest Basket Brigade Volunteer + Thanksgiving Pugs!

Would you beleive that this baby carried all of these frozen turkies in all by himself?

Thank you to everyone who reads this blog and who donated to the DC Basket Brigade.  When the dust has settled tomorrow we’ll have fed well over 100 families!

Thanksgiving Pugs

These have nothing to do with a fitness blog.  I just like pugs.

Happy Holidays.  We’ll be back to fitness stuff next week.

Josef Brandenburg is 2010, Washington, DC based Personal Trainer of the Year Nominee for both Personal Fitness Professional Magazine and The Washington, DC Fitness Association, and author of “The Body You Want”.  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.

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