Sunday

The "1% Rule" for Getting Your Perfect Body

I call this the "1% rule" and when you really think about how simple this is, you will quickly realize that most excuses for not being in shape are pretty lame.

The biggest excuse that most people use as to why they struggle to get in shape is their perceived lack of time to workout and to plan healthy meals regularly. As you know, I'm not a fan of excuses and believe that if you want something bad enough, excuses should not exist.

The 1% rule means that it really only takes 1% of your given time every week to keep yourself in top shape...

Let's think about it in terms of your available time... if you dedicate only 25 minutes per day, 4 days per week to a good exercise routine, that's only 100 total minutes per week. Considering that you have 1440 minutes in each day multiplied by 7 days equals 10,080 minutes per week of total time.

So now look at those 100 minutes per week dedicated to exercise and divide that into the 10,080 minutes total that you have in a week, and that represents approx 1% of your total time in any given week.

1% of your time... that's it!

When you think about it in those terms... isn't it really ridiculous when you hear someone say that they "don't have time to workout"... it's actually almost comical that someone would claim they can't dedicate 1% of their time every week to exercise.

Keep that in mind the next time you hear someone say that they don't have time to workout and keep themselves in shape... then go ahead and call them out on it (in a friendly way, of course).

Personally, I actually do a lot more than 100 minutes per week of exercise, because a lot of my hobbies involve exercise, such as hiking, mountain biking, skiing & snowboarding in the winter, and other sports. But for gym workouts, I probably do about 100 to 150 minutes per week of weight training workouts.

However, even for people that don't have exercise related hobbies, four 25-minute high intensity, full body workouts per week can keep anyone in top shape if you're choosing the right exercises at the right intensity.

Here's a related article I did recently that helps with avoiding excuses and taking action:
http://www.truthaboutabs.com/stop-missing-workouts.html

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

Mike Geary
Certified Nutrition Specialist
Certified Personal Trainer
Author: The Truth about Six Pack Abs

There's nothing healthy about high fructose corn syrup - don't fall for the TV ads