The real trick to getting in super-shape for life

Today, I have a great article for you that is very appropriate for this time of year.

One of the main reasons most people struggle with their body is because lack of action-taking all starts in the head. If you can get your mind straight, permanent lifelong fitness really becomes easy. Read this article thoroughly, and I think this will help get you thinking differently:

Brain science reveals fitness goal setting and weight loss motivation for permanent success

I really think that's an important article to fully understand goal setting and taking action on it for permanent success.

I just had one other quick article for you today with a great recipe of mine for a healthy and delicious dessert (that is lower sugar and full of healthy fats and antioxidants:

Lower calorie, low sugar, delicious dessert recipe

If you liked todays articles, feel free to fwd this email on to any of your friends, family, or co-workers that would enjoy it.

Til next newsletter,
Don't be lazy... be lean.

Mike Geary
Certified Nutrition Specialist
Certified Personal Trainer

Recommended resource: www.SexyButtExercises.com

How to Eat Anything at Parties and Still Stay Lean

The time of year for fitness excuses is here... December is probably the worst time of year where most people use excuse after excuse as to why they are letting themselves get fat and out of shape during "the holidays".

So with this newsletter, I just want to give you some tips and motivation to do the opposite of what most people are going to do this december, and get yourself in BETTER shape during this busy season. This doesn't mean that you have to deprive yourself of anything during your parties with friends and family, but it DOES mean that you have to be sensible and stick to your fitness and nutrition plan when you're not in party mode.

First, the biggest excuse I've heard over the many years I've been doing fitness counseling is that they don't "have any time" to keep working out during the holidays.

Ok, I know we all may have a lot of family gatherings and holiday parties to go to during this time, but saying that you don't have time to keep yourself in shape is basically admitting that your health and fitness is not a priority in your life. If it was a priority, you'd make time.

So let's commit to a pact that we will not use the lack of time excuse this holiday season. Instead, if there are days that you don't feel that you have time to go to the gym for a full workout, schedule a 15 minute workout in for yourself at least 4 days/week either before or after work, or at whatever time you can fit in a 15 minute workout at home.

Anybody can fit in 15 minutes... that's all it takes. However, those 15 minutes need to be full of high intensity exercises that work your entire body. Even doing just some bodyweight circuits at home can keep you in great shape.

For example, you can rotate through 5 or 6 exercises such as lunges, bodyweight squats, pushups, mountain climbers, and lying leg thrusts in a circuit fashion, alternating between them for as many sets as you can do in that 15 minute time period.

If you work hard enough, you can get a great full body workout in only 15 minutes and then be ready to go for whatever holiday activities are on your schedule.

The second biggest excuse I've heard over the years from many people during the holidays is that there's no way they can control their eating during this time of year with parties and gatherings with all of the delicious food being offered everywhere. What many people have told me is that the 5 or 6 weeks between Thanksgiving and New Years every year is just one massive free-for-all bingefest for them.

This doesn't make any sense though. For example, even if you were extremely busy with parties and gatherings and let's say you have 8 parties/gatherings to go to during these 5 weeks, that is still only 8 days out of 35 that you're going to be surrounded by party food for only a small time each day.

This means that if you're still eating super-healthy during the 27 other days and also during the other time available on the party days, you can easily still have at least 90% compliance with your healthy diet. If you can have 90% compliance, it is quite easy to stay lean instead of packing on the lbs during the holidays.

The important thing to keep reminding yourself is that the ONLY time you are going to cheat is during the parties and gatherings and not before, after, or for entire weeks at a time.

One thing I like to do if I know I'll be going to a holiday party or big meal is that I plan to get in a great weight training workout within a few hours (if possible) before going to the party. This way I know that my metabolism is already elevated from the weight training and some of the excess calories that I may consume can help towards muscle repair and glycogen replenishment instead of being deposited as body fat.

So I hope this email has helped to make sure that you stay on track with your fitness during the holidays. There are NO EXCUSES. There's no reason at all to wait until January to start on your fitness program, when it should really be a part of your everyday lifestyle.
Here's to getting in BETTER SHAPE, instead of worse this December!

Here are a couple more articles you may be interested in reading:

Honey vs Table Sugar?
http://www.truthaboutabs.com/health-benefits-honey-vs-sugar.html

Tips for Eating Healthier at Restaurants:
http://www.truthaboutabs.com/healthy-dining-restaurants.html

Have a great week!

Mike Geary
Certified Nutrition Specialist
Certified Personal Trainer
Founder - TruthAboutAbs.com & BusyManFitness.com

A new European workout style... intersting stuff!

There are dozens of methods of workouts out there in terms of sets, reps, rest periods, and other training variables that you need to consider to keep your body from hitting a plateau where your results stop.

For example, over the years, I've tried almost every style of weight training program that I've ever studied to try to keep the results coming... things such as:

• German volume training - high rep, high set volume training such as 10x10 (10 sets of 10 reps for certain exercises)
• The typical 3x10 training
• 1-rep max training
• 20-rep training
• 5x5 weight training programs
• Olympic lifting
• Density Training (increasing reps in the same exact time period for the exact same weight)
• and many other styles of weight training

I've tried them all, and they all have their benefits and detriments.

So I just recently stumbled onto this unique new European method of Training, invented by a well-known French trainer and champion bodybuilder... he calls his method - "1-rep-fitness".

You can see his program at:
http://1-rep-fitness.com

I just finished reading through how the program works, and I can't believe I've never thought of this before. It's actually a VERY unique method of combining your sets, reps, rest intervals, and exercises... and it surprisingly has NOTHING to do with 1-rep max training -- it's actually quite different.

I think this can be a great method of training to break out of a plateau and stimulate new results... and I'm surprised that I've never seen this anywhere before.

Now here's the problems I saw with this program and a few minor things that I disagree with:

1. This program focuses a good portion of the exercises (maybe 50%) on single joint isolation exercises. The programs I usually design are about 95% multi-joint exercises (and almost always free weight), and at most, 5% single-joint exercises.

But I will admit, that for certain portions of the year, it can stimulate new results in your body to mix in different percentages of single joint exercises for variation, as long as most of the year, you are focusing on multi-joint, free weight exercises.

And the more important point is that regardless of which exercises you are doing, it can also stimulate results in your body to train in a drastically different method of sets, reps, and rest periods, which is certainly a benefit of trying this new European style of training at least for a good 12 weeks, before going back to my style of training.

So, although I disagree with some of the exercise selection in http://1-rep-fitness.com -- I certainly think that the training style itself can be very powerful in stimulating new results in your body if used for a small cycle.

2. The nutrition portion of this program is very solid, but I disagree with just a couple minor recommendations such as using soy protein... as you know from my writing, I'm strongly against almost all soy except for fermented soy... however, supposedly the quality of soy products in France are much higher, and in limited quantities, shouldn't be a problem.

Just realize that the quality of soy we are exposed to here in the States is not recommended.

Other than just some minor differences such as those, if you're looking for a new style of training to possibly break out of the rut and spur on some new results, I'd suggest giving this new European method of training a try. I thought it was very interesting and am going to start incorporating it into a couple cycles of my own training.

Since this program was just released this week, there is a 50% discount sale going on for 4 more days, so if you're interested in trying this, I'd recommend jumping on this right away to get the half-off sale price:

http://1-rep-fitness.com

Good luck!

I know most people use December as an excuse to stop working out and wait until the new year... but let's make sure not to fall into that trap this year. If you really want a great body and great health, it should be a year-round lifestyle, and NOT something that you only do in January each year.

So let's keep crankin on the workouts throughout December as well!

Til next newsletter,
Don't be lazy... be lean.

Mike Geary
Certified Nutrition Specialist
Certified Personal Trainer
Founder - http://TruthAboutAbs.com & http://BusyManFitness.com