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Body By Barak: Weight Loss Coaching From The President Of The U.S.A.

Barak Obama campaigning for change

“Luck is not a factor. Hope is not a strategy. Fear is not an option.”

— James Cameron

 

FORGET WILLPOWER. YOU NEED SYSTEMS TO LOSE WEIGHT

Why does Barak Obama, president of the United States of America, only wear blue or grey suits?

And what does such sartorial conservatism have to with weight loss?

The answer to both is fascinating and will help you lose weight better and faster than any diet or exercise programme on the market.

Forget P90 X or Insanity. Understanding this concept will have you dropping pounds faster than a wax mannequin in a pizza oven.

The funny thing is that the answer has nothing at all to do with ‘weight loss’ as you know it.

You see, when it comes to losing weight, diet and exercise aren’t the most important factors.

WHHHAAAT??

Surely it’s ALL about calories in vs. calories out. What else is there?

Well, my friend, there’s a missing ingredient that is the real ‘secret’ to burning fat fast, safely and keeping it off long-term.

Learn how to harness this simple principle and you’ll finally be able to take control of your health and fitness, once and for all and build the body of your dreams.

And it applies to much more than just weight loss. It’s the missing ingredient to achieving almost anything else you want in life.

It’s that powerful.

Don’t worry we’ll come back to this ‘missing ingredient’ in a minute (but for now, let me tell you it has nothing to do with crash dieting or spending hours on the treadmill, trying to chase down your dream body).

In fact, both of these are more likely to make you gain weight in the long run than lose it.

Before you discover the most important weight loss principle that will literally revolutionise your weight loss efforts, we need to take a look at why the conventional approach to weight loss doesn’t really work.

CONVENTIONAL WISDOM SUCKS

Believing the calories in vs. calories out nonsense is the first big mistake most people make when they’re trying to lose weight. What you eat is more important than how much.

The second is joining a gym and starting some grueling exercise regime (without a good personal trainer to guide you) that beats you into the ground and leaves you questioning your sanity when you’re too sore to sit on the toilet or walk up the stairs the next day.

To add insult to injury, drinking your usual, mid-morning cappuccino and reaching for the biscuit barrel, will undo all of that hard work and actually add more calories than you burnt in your entire hour’s workout.

But don’t worry it’s not YOUR fault.

The ‘weight loss’ industry has been misleading you for years and quietly raking in massive profits selling you pills, potions, gadgets and gizmos that don’t really work.

“Hey, just take this pill or use this gizmo and you’ll lose weight overnight AND you can keep eating crap and going to bed late and not exercising.”

Does this sound realistic? No. In fact it sounds ridiculous. The problem is that people are still falling for it on a daily basis and parting with their hard-earned cash for snake oil.

The reason they’ve been able to get away with this for so long is because we humans are bizarre creatures.

Most of us would rather take a magic weight loss pill, even though we know deep down it will never really work, than actually make some simple changes to what we eat and just move around more.

We’re the masters of self-delusion.

We live in hope, expecting our lives to miraculously change, without ever actually making any changes in our life. This is similar to Einstein’s definition of insanity by the way: repeatedly doing the same things but expecting different results.

This is because most of us suffer from what psychiatrist Dr Raj Persaud calls ‘False Hope Syndrome’.

We live in (false) hope that the next diet, the next exercise programme, the next gadget or supplement will solve all of our problems.

Somehow, even though everything else we’ve tried has failed, the next one will be the magic bullet that will make us thin, happy, rich and beautiful.

There’s a very BIG problem with False Hope Syndrome though and it goes something like this…

THIS MAGIC BULLET DOESN’T EXIST AND IT NEVER WILL.

Instead of understanding and accepting that the real problem is our own behaviour, and that we need to change that behaviour if we want a different result, we look for something external, a product or another person to cure or fix us. We want someone to come along and take away all of our problems.

We’re creatures of habit and we like routine. In very simple terms, routine is safe and the unknown is scary. Ultimately our reluctance to change anything is all about fear.

WE FEAR CHANGE.

For many people the prospect of making simple changes to diet and lifestyle – even if they’ve been diagnosed with a life-threatening condition – is so scary that they’d rather die than change.

Your routines and habits are so personal and engrained that making huge changes in multiple areas is almost impossible, or certainly unsustainable. And nothing is more personal than your relationship with food and your own body!

The good (and bad for some) news is that no one else can fix you. If you want to change something in your life (like losing weight and getting fit) you have to do it yourself.

YOU and only YOU are in charge of your health, body, fitness and pretty much everything else in your life.

If you want a different result, you’re going to have to make some simple changes in certain key areas.

For some of us this will sound depressing and scary (or it may even make you feel angry). That’s just fear of failure and temporary discomfort rearing its ugly head.

The prospect of making short-term changes to your safe routines is just too painful. Even though there’s a long-term payoff that will far outweigh this temporary pain, it’s not enough to persuade you to crawl out from under your rock.

For most of us it will be liberating. It’s liberating because it means that you are in control of your own body, health and life. YOU can create your own reality (good or bad). Once you understand the power and importance of this concept, things start to get exciting. If you can just get enough leverage on yourself to crawl out from under your rock, then the world is your oyster.

You’re steering the ship, so which way do you want to go?

BACK TO CONVENTIONAL WISDOM…

For years you’ve been fooled into thinking that losing weight is all about willpower, restrictive, rabbit-food-style diets that leave you hungry and irritable and hours of grueling exercise.

The Conventional Wisdom approach goes something like this:

1. Eat less

2. Exercise more

3. Develop the iron willpower of a Shaolin Monk

This approach is boring, outdated and totally unsustainable.

It may work for a little while, for absolute beginners, but what happens when you stop getting results?

In true, Westernised, “bigger is better” style, the answer is that you do more of it of course. You eat less, you move more and you punish yourself for being so weak-willed. Naughty you! Do an extra 90 minutes on the treadmill.

Taken to it’s extreme, this approach will have you eating next to nothing, exercising all of the time and becoming a depressed recluse.

Even worse, it’s also likely to make you ill and FAT, if you keep it up for too long. Clearly this is the opposite of what you’re actually trying to achieve!

You beat yourself up and wonder why you don’t have as much willpower as other people, why you can’t seem to find enough hours in the day to exercise, why you can’t seem to make healthy food choices because your body is craving sugar, caffeine and ‘carbs’ because you’re exhausted and starving yourself (not a good combination).

What’s wrong with you?

The answer is nothing. You are not the problem. The Conventional Wisdom approach to weight loss is because it doesn’t really work. You’ve been misled. So let’s forget about it, right now. Do yourself a favour and erase it from your memory. Free your mind from the chains of the status quo.

Instead, let’s take a look at what does work. At what will get you rapid results but, more importantly, lasting, sustainable results that will also improve your health not damage it.

We need a system that works but also allows you to eat well, to not spend your life in the gym (or ever set foot in the gym again if you don’t want to) and to have a little fun from time to time.

Something that will help you burn fat, flatten your stomach, increase your energy levels, boost your metabolism and build a leaner more toned body, all without the need for crash dieting or hours and hours of boring exercise (although you’re going to have to do some – just the right sort – and chances are that you’ve been doing the wrong sort).

After all, life is for living and enjoying not long-term dieting. You’re here to have an experience, not spend your time worrying about every little thing you eat or missing a workout here and there. Life’s too short.

More than anything, we want a system that allows you to live a little, not spend your time eating egg white omelettes and doing hill sprints, neither of which are much fun!

BEHAVIOURAL CHANGE NOT WILLPOWER

It’s become increasingly clear that willpower alone is not enough to successfully lose weight.

So you can stop beating yourself up because you “don’t have much willpower.”

That’s total crap.

Now don’t get me wrong. In short bursts, willpower is incredibly powerful. But when it comes to achieving something longer-term, it just isn’t enough to get the job done.

You have to find something stronger than willpower, a bigger reason to make the changes that you have to make in order to stick to the plan and achieve your goals.

You have to find a REASON TO CHANGE, something raw and emotional that is much more powerful and primal than your limited supply of willpower.

You need something BIG that will carry you safely through the dark times when the cravings for sugar and junk food run rampant and you don’t want to get out of bed to exercise.

Willpower might be enough to drag you to the local gym on the 3rd of January but it will have you running for the door by week 3, telling yourself “you’re just not meant to be slim”. (But you won’t cancel your direct-debit for at least 6 months because still being a member is at least something…)

Do yourself a favour and don’t rely on willpower anymore.

Don’t sign up for a spin class or start a diet.

Instead, spend your time and energy finding a big enough reason to change before you even think of doing anything else.

Finding that reason is the hardest part of the process. Once you’ve found it, the rest is relatively easy. All you need is a system that doesn’t rely on willpower but focuses on taking small, simple, achievable steps and changing your self-destructive behaviours.

It’s time to start wearing only blue or grey suits.

DECISION PARALYSIS AND MINIMISING CHOICE

Back to the beginning: Barak Obama only wears blue or grey suits because he doesn’t want to have to waste his limited supply of decision-making power choosing what to wear in the morning.

He’s cleverly automated his wardrobe choices so he can save his decision-making energy for the decisions that really matter.

By limiting his choices, he’s built a system that leaves his brain fresh and ready to tackle the important stuff. Anymore than two choices on the suit front and he risks sapping his energy for running the USA.

If you’re struggling to lose weight, you can learn a lot from this from this approach.

You see willpower and decisions are controlled by your conscious mind and there’s only so much it can handle before it runs out of energy. Ask too much of it and it will start making unwise decisions based on past experience and conditioned behaviour (the last thing you want if you’re trying to lose weight).

When tired or overloaded, your brain says…

“How do we usually respond to this situation? We eat ice cream on the sofa. Okay, that’s what we’ll do this time then!”

This is why willpower will only get you so far. It’ll help you make good decisions for most of the day but bombard it with too much and it’ll go A.W.O.L.

The problem is that life is hectic and we’re all bombarded with endless choices and information all day long, day in and day out. It’s unavoidable in this day and age.

By the time you get home from a hard day at the office or looking after the kids and household, making endless decisions about all sorts of minutiae, your capacity to make “good” decisions it pretty much non-existent.

The chances of you having enough willpower left to hit the gym or eat a ‘healthy’ meal are very, very slim (pun intended), especially if you haven’t planned ahead.

Be honest. When you’re exhausted and stressed, are you more likely to look in the fridge for healthy ingredients, surf the internet for inspiration and then spend the time cooking a fresh, healthy meal, or reach for something quick and comforting, washed down with a couple of glasses of wine and some chocolate?

If you want to successfully lose weight, you’ve got to take willpower out of the equation and have simple, automated systems in place so you don’t fall off the wagon. Just like Barak and his suits but with food and exercise.

You MUST limit your choices.

HOW TO CHANGE YOUR BEHAVIOUR

In the next part of this 4 part series, you’ll learn exactly how to take the first step and change your behaviour when it comes to food and exercise. You’ll learn how to create what I call a Weight Loss Mindset.

You’ll find out how to get ‘Emotional Ammunition’ on yourself and how to ‘engage your elephant’. Getting this guy on your side is the absolute key to achieving nearly any goal, without having to rely on willpower. If you can get him onboard, the elephant will trample any obstacles in his way to get you to your goals.

Then in parts 3 and 4 you’ll discover two very simple, ‘plug and play’ systems you can start using straight away to automate your decision-making, minimise choice, rev up your metabolism and become a fat burning machine.

Make sure you check your inbox for part 2 in the next 5 days to find out how to get your elephant moving…

Want To Get Strong Without Going To The Gym? Try This

So, you want to get stronger but you’re bored of the gym.

The good news is that with very little equipment (and without ever setting foot in a gym again if you don’t want to) you can build lots of strength and muscle. Don’t believe me? Just take a look at pretty much any gymnast.

On the whole they’re stacked, with muscle development to rival that of many drug-free bodybuilders. They also have insane levels of strength (have you ever tried getting anywhere near an iron cross on the rings?) but don’t lift weights or do traditional gym training. I think these guys might be on to something!

If you want to get stronger and add more muscle, then all you need are a few simple principles and a little creativity and willingness to experiment. Once you know the basic principles of building strength, it’s just a case of hard work and consistency. Like most things when it comes to health and fitness, it really isn’t rocket science!

Unfortunately, as with everything else in the world of fitness, strength has been overcomplicated and ‘commoditised’. It’s time to get back to basics.

The rules of strength are very simple: lift heavy stuff (or just your own body weight) and use a moderate to slow tempo (3-4 seconds raising and lowering) and mid-range reps (3-8) and take 1-3 minutes in between sets, depending on how many reps you do (more reps equals less rest and vice versa).

If you’re creative enough you can get an amazing strength workout pretty much anywhere. I’ve used anything from rocks and logs, to my kids, my wife, wheelbarrows, trampolines, etc. Kids playgrounds are always great too, as are trees, staircases and a whole host of natural and man made obstacles.

Once you know the principles, you can apply them in many situations and you’ll never be limited by not having access to a gym or lots of equipment again.

Here are the exercises I’m doing in the video, with the acute variables so you can have a try. If you don’t have the right equipment, then use whatever you can lay your hands on and go lift heavy stuff! If in doubt, please use your common sense.

1. Strict Pull Ups – 5 reps x 10 sets / 3-0-3, 90-120 sec rest / sets.
In the full hang position (arms straight and fully stretched at the bottom) squeeze your shoulder blades together and imagine tucking them down into your back pockets. Holding this retracted position, lean slightly backwards and pull your chest up to the bar (aim to touch your chest to the bar, even if you can’t), pulling your triceps in to your lats at the top. Lower under control, reset your shoulder blades and repeat.

2. Frog Balance – 20-30 second hold in between sets of pull ups.
Hands on the floor about shoulder width apart, inside of your knees resting on your triceps above your elbows. Shift your weight forwards and lift your feet off the floor. Hold the position as steadily as you can for at least 20 seconds. Just one hold between each set of pull ups.

3. Trampoline Drag – 20 metres, all out, 1 min rest / sets.
Find a trampoline or something heavy to drag (that’s not going to plough up your lawn), take a firm grip, then a deep belly breath, draw you belly button in to activate your deep abdominals and then drag for 20+ metres. Keep your knees slightly bent throughout and a natural arch in your lower back. Keep your shoulder blades squeezed together and tucked down and your chest slightly lifted.

4. Trampoline Push Press – 8 reps x 4 sets / 3-0-3 tempo, 60-90 sec rest / sets.
If you don’t have access to a trampoline, you can do this with a big log, a rock, 2 kettlebells, etc.). Holding the trampoline in a clean position (kind of like the bottom of a shoulder press), take a deep belly breath, gently draw your belly button in, bend your knees a little (no more than a quarter squat), then drive up, forcefully extending your knees and hips and let the movement flow into a shoulder press. Lower under control and repeat. Keep a natural arch in your lower back at all times.

5. Single Arm Ring Row – 8 reps x 4 sets each arm / 3-0-3 tempo, 90 sec rest / sets.
Keep your body straight like a plank, with you belly button gently drawn in to activate your core. Pull yourself up, keeping your elbow close to your ribcage to fully contract your lats. Lower under control. Do all reps on 1 side and then swap and repeat on other side. Don’t cheat by thrusting your hips forwards or wriggling.

6. Ring “Roll Out” – 5 reps x 4 sets / 3-3-3 tempo, 1 min rest / sets.
This is very tough, so take it easy and really watch your lower back. If you have a history of back pain, don’t do this! Set the rings low, to about 6-8 inches off the ground (you can also use a TRX if you have one) and start off in a pike position, with straight arms and a 15-20 degree bend in your knees. Take a deep belly breath, firmly draw your belly button in towards your spine and then slowly roll out forwards as far as you comfortably can (building up to a full arms extended push up position). Stop before you feel your lower back wants to collapse through, hold the end position for 3 seconds and then slowly return to the start and repeat.

7. Two Kettlebell Uneven Carry (20 Kg bottoms up / 24 Kg farmers carry) –
Walk as far as you can before your grip goes (the upside down kettlebell at your shoulder is likely to go first). Use good form to pick up and put the kettlebells down.

8. Kettlebell Swings (24 Kg) – 20 reps x 2-3 sets, 1 min rest in between sets.
This is also very tough. Again, if you have any history of lower back pain or injury, be very careful with this or don’t do it! With a kettlebell in between your legs and behind your body, squat down and grasp the handle. Using your legs and hips only, slowly build up momentum until you’re swinging the kettlebell up to head height (don’t go too much higher as you can lose control). Explosively extend your legs and hips to drive the kettlebell, don’t use your arms. Sit down into the movement on the way down and keep your forearms close to your groin (don’t lean forwards as it will overload your spine), letting the bell swing through your legs, before explosively swinging upwards again. Keep your belly button firmly drawn in throughout and a natural arch in your lower back, never let it round out.

9. Kettlebell Handstand Balance? – I was just playing around with some gymnastic style holds that weren’t very successful as I was knackered!

Hope you enjoy the workout and leave me a comment below to let me know how you get on.

How Passionate Are You?

I’ve got a question for you:

How passionate do you feel about movement?

Anything under 8 out of 10 and you’re going
to struggle to achieve your goals, whatever they
are.

You see, passion is like rocket fuel. It energises
and motivates you to reach higher and achieve
more, to touch the stars and become more.

Without that passion, movement just becomes
stale, stagnant, part of a routine or, in the worst
case, exercise – something you do because you’ve
been told it’s good for you and you have to.

Variety is the key to staying passionate about
movement. Routine is the enemy of variety.

With that in mind, I want to challenge you to
try something different this week. It’s a beautiful
day, the sun’s shining, so get outside and move
your body in the way nature intended.

Throw out your normal routine (you can always
go back to it next week, or tomorrow) and do
something new, fresh and invigorating.

Do anything as long as it’s different.

If you normally lift weights, then try some of
those advanced body weight exercises you’ve
always wanted to try but put off.

If you hate running, take your shoes off and
trot barefoot on grass or a soft surface.

If you focus on serious, competitive training,
get outside, in the park or the woods and just
play.

Use a kettlebell, a rock, a log, a rope, your
own body, a partner, your kids, your dog.

Just mix it up, try something new, challenge
your mind and body and, most important of all…

Have fun!

When you get back to your normal routine, you
should find that this little foray into the training
wilderness has reignited your passion for what
you’re doing.

Even better, you may find that what you’ve really
been looking for is a new way to train, one that
lines up with what Mother Nature really intended
for us Lean Green Human Beings.

Enjoy and let me know how you get on!

Olly

Breakfast Of Champions


Music credit:

We humans are built to move. The best way to start the day is to do just that. Get moving.

If you wake up feeling sluggish and lethargic, instead of reaching for coffee and sugar to hotwire your tired adrenal glands, get outside, breathe the fresh air and start moving. I guarantee it will wake you up, energise you and make you feel good.

For the next week, try getting up 15-30 minutes earlier than normal and create a simple early morning movement routine for yourself. Do it first thing, before you do anything else and see what affect it has on your energy levels and mood.

A simple way to track progress (of how you feel) is what I call the “crapometer”. This is just a simple 1-10 scale, with a smiley face by the 10 and a frowney face by the 1. When you wake up, ask yourself how you feel on a 1-10 scale (1 is crap and 10 is amazing) and then write down the score in a diary or journal. Although its low-tech, this kind of simple tracking can really help you make dramatic changes in your life. You can adapt and use this for pretty much anything you want to improve.

As for the specific exercises, anything goes really, but low intensity is the order of the day, first thing in the morning. Instead of a full on, gut wrenching workout, focus on gentle, rhythmical movements, mobilisation and deep breathing. The idea is to warm up your body and bring all systems online for the day ahead. Start gently and warm and moblilise the major joints, get the cerebro-spinal fluid pumping and the digestion working.

Think about bringing energy into your body, not draining energy out. If you do it right, after 10 minutes, you should feel like you’re firing on all cylinders and ready to tackle anything life throws your way.

My typical routine

I have a couple of 10 minute routines I alternate, depending on what sort of mood I’m in. Sometimes I’ll do just some basic tai chi or qi gong, or even sun salutations (not sure which type of yoga they’re from). If I’m short of time, I’ll just do a couple of sets of 10 deep squats and hang out in the “paleo chair” for a minute or two. It doesn’t really matter as long as you move, breathe and feel like you’re boosting your energy levels. The more playful the better.

The routine I show you in the video is largely based on Paul Chek’s Zone Exercises. The idea is to not get out of breath, or raise your heart rate. If you feel you’re working too hard, stop, rest for a moment and then pick up where you left off. All movements should be rhythmical and flowing and don’t worry too much about strict form. It’s kind of like a dynamic meditation.

Here are the 5 exercises from the video to get you started but feel free to create your own routine.

1. Breathing Squats

These are just deep squats done with a slow tempo and a focus on deep breathing. They’re one of my favourite Zone exercises and the perfect start to any day. Go as low as you comfortably can, exhaling on the way down and inhaling on the way up. Take 4-6 seconds going down and 4-6 seconds coming up. This slow tempo is harder than it looks. Aim for 10-20 reps.

2. Tai Chi Rotations

This is a very popular tai chi warm up. The idea is to swing your arms, generating the movement from your core, not the arms. Keep your arms totally relaxed and loose by your sides, bend the knees a little and then rotate to one side as you straighten your legs. Imagine your arms are soft like spaghetti and let them slap against your body (gently). The leading hand (left hand if you’re rotating left) should wrap around your back and slap against your opposite kidney (right kidney), giving it a gentle massage. Breathe deeply and gradually increase the speed and range of movement as you warm up. Do 20 rotations in each direction.

3. Piston Breathing

This is fun and will probably make you laugh the first couple of times you try it. You’ll also want to make sure you have a tissue to hand if, like most people, you haven’t cut out the foods you’re sensitive to and have excess mucous. Standing with good but relaxed posture, take a deep belly breath (from the diaphragm) and then forcefully exhale in short sharp pulses through your nose until you’ve fully exhaled all of the air in your lungs. Push the air out from the diaphragm, like a piston. Aim for 10 pulses to every 1 inhale. Do 10 reps (10 inhales, 100 pulses out).

4. Shoulder Shrugs

These are pretty straight forward. Standing with good but relaxed posture and slightly bent knees, do slow, exaggerated shoulder shrugs, working through a full range of motion. Feel any tight spots and try and breathe through them. Inhale as you shrug upwards, straightening your knees and exhale as you shrug downwards, bending your knees. Work at a natural breathing pace or around 5 sec inhaling and 5 sec exhaling. Do 10 reps.

5. Neck Rotations

Standing with good, relaxed posture, gently drop your head forwards, chin down to your chest. Move your head out to the side and back in a wide circle, inhaling as you move through the back half of the circle and exhaling as you move through the front half of the circle. Move at a steady breathing pace and take it easy, don’t force anything. Don’t grind your vertebrae as you move through the centre of the back of the circle and be careful. Breathe deeply through any tight spots until they release. Do 5 circles in each direction (5 clockwise then 5 anti-clockwise). If you feel any pain or dizziness, stop!

6. Cross Crawl

Standing with your feet about hip width apart and your arms raised above your head, with your thumbs sticking out as if you’re thumbing a lift, take a deep belly breath. As you exhale, bring your right elbow down to meet your left knee and your left knee up to meet your right elbow. They should meet around waist height. Allow the elbow and knee to both cross over the centre line of the body. Inhale as you return to the start position and then repeat with the opposite arm, opposite leg. Do 10-20 reps each side and work at a steady breathing pace. Keep your head and neck in line with your spine and don’t jut your chin forwards. You may find it difficult to balance at first, but it will soon become easy after a few practice sessions.

It doesn’t just have to be first thing in the morning. You can do a gentle “wake up” routine like this any time you’re feeling low on energy and lethargic. If you work in an office or are seated for long periods during the day, then try and do something like this to move your body and get the oxygenated blood flowing as often as you can.

Try the above routine every morning for the next week and let me know how it makes you feel by leaving me a comment below. Before you know it it will become an invaluable part of your morning routine.

When you’ve done your 10 minutes of movement first thing and given your body the kind of wake up it needs, then you can think about coffee, if you still need it. Just make sure its organic!

Move Like A Human (Not A Robot!)

I have not done biceps curls for over 3 years because biceps curls are boring.

This means that I’ll probably never have 20 inch arms. It’s okay though, this is something that I can live with. After all, having 20 inch arms doesn’t mean that you’re functional, fit or healthy. In fact, besides aesthetics and ripping shirt sleeves, 20 inch arms have little to no functional purpose. They also look a bit freaky, like someone’s pumped themselves up with a bicycle pump. 20 inch arms are also not found in nature because they’d constitute a massive waste of energy and resources that could be used for more important things.

Bodybuilding movements like biceps curls are what I call “moving like a robot”. In case you hadn’t noticed (and some people do need reminding) you’re not a robot. You are a human being. This means that you’re capable of so much more, in terms of movement than limited range, one dimensional, isolated robot movements (unless of course you’re on the dance floor, when robot movements are perfectly acceptable). If you want to lose weight, increase your energy levels, improve your health and well-being and look and feel better, then you need to start “moving like a human”, instead. Unfortunately, most traditional exercise programmes are still based on outdated, bodybuilding style, robotic movements. Dysfunctional, isolated movement has permeated most gyms and training systems and has become  the norm. It’s time to reclaim your mind and body and re-discover what you’re really capable of in terms of movement.

How to move like a human

We humans are actually pretty cool. In our natural state, when we’re fit, functional and healthy, we’re capable of amazing things, like lifting 500 lbs or running 100 miles. The best thing is that we’re born with everything we’ll ever need to get fit and healthy. All of the movement patterns and abilities come pre-loaded, part of the standard human model. The problem is that, once we hit a certain point in our life (adult hood), something  called “reality” takes over and we stop moving, start sitting a lot and forget how to have fun. Generally, when we reach middle age, we realise that we’e sacrificed some of the best years of our life chasing money and material possessions and that we’ve sacrificed our health and body in the process. This is when most people think about hiring a personal trainer or joining a gym. And, guess what happens then? That’s right, they start a dysfunctional exercise programme based on robot movements. It’s all about hard, grueling work and restrictive diets, both of which are boring and unsustainable. That’s why only

 

 

 

10 Golden Rules Of Fat Loss

1. Weight Loss vs. Fat Loss

You’re not just trying to lose “weight”, at any cost. That usually involves losing water and muscle mass from the body, both of which are bad! You really want to lose excess body-fat and reduce your body-fat percentage, whilst preserving your existing muscle mass.

2. Shoot For the Goal

Setting specific, realistic goals is absolutely essential to success, in anything. You need to know exactly what you’re trying to achieve, by when and why. Who are you really getting in shape for: you or somebody else? Simply wanting to “lose weight” is no good. Be specific!

3. Eat Real Food!

You’re designed to eat a natural diet, made up of “real food”. When you eat like this, your body will be lean, strong and healthy. A modern diet based around highly processed, commercially farmed “fake foods” is likely to leave you overweight, exhausted and generally unhealthy. This is not the way it should be!

4. Move Like a Human

You’re a human being and you’re designed to move, a lot. You’re not designed to sit in a chair for 8 hours a day and stare at a computer screen! When it comes to moving properly – moving like a human– the quality is more important than the quantity. More is not necessarily better.

5. Do Less Cardio

What? Have all those people pounding away on the treadmill day in and day out really got it wrong? Unfortunately, the answer is yes. Doing more cardio-vascular exercise is not the best way to lose weight and can even make you gain fat around your middle. Resistance training (lifting weights) is far superior for fat loss.

6. Drink More Water!

Your body is about 75% water and your brain about 40% water. It’s essential to stay hydrated for physical and mental performance. Being dehydrated can also show up as “false hunger” and cravings, making you eat more than you need.

7. Get More Sleep

You need 7-8 hours of sleep each night. Lack of sleep and poor quality sleep (due to waking up to urinate or sleep apnea for example) lead to increased levels of the stress hormone cortisol. This can encourage your body to store fat and can contribute to increased inflammation in the body, thought to be the precursor to many chronic diseases.

8. Address Your Stress

Chronic stress is the enemy of fat loss and your health in general. Like too little sleep, it can elevate your cortisol levels and lead to increased fat storage around your middle, memory deterioration and premature aging.

9. “Good Carb/Bad Carb”

The modern diet is based around refined, starchy carbohydrates (“bad carbs”) mainly in the form of gluten containing grains. You’re not designed to eat these, they’re bad for your health and a disaster if you’re struggling to lose weight. Watch this video to find out what “bad carbs” are and what “good carbs” are and start to lose weight within 7 days.

10. Diets Don’t Work

Restrictive, fad diets don’t work, are unsustainable and can seriously damage your health. Of course, some people will lose weight on the latest, fashionable diet. The big problem is when you stop, you’ll quickly put weight on again, with interest! Too many yo-yo diets can make you fatter than ever.

What Is A Lean Green Human Being? Start Here


You are.

At least, in your natural state – the way nature designed you to be – you’re a Lean Green Human Being.

Over the last 4+ million years, Mother Nature’s been tweaking the design, refining, making improvements and adaptations. Some form of hominid has been on this earth though, for at least this long and you’re the result of their trials and tribulations.

But, before we go any further, let’s move away from any “Paleo-Romanticism”. Your ancestors were not faced with an easily available, abundant food supply that would just leap on to the end of their spear, with little effort. They weren’t all built like Greek Gods and Goddesses and there were a lot of bigger, hairier, tougher creatures out there with sharper teeth that wanted to eat them. Life wasn’t a picnic for these guys. It was tough and everyday they would face the harsh struggle for survival.

Which is exactly why you’re here, walking and talking and thinking in the way you do. The selective pressures of nature drove evolution in a certain direction and the evolutionary compass-needle points directly at you. And you, my friend, are truly amazing!

Ok, so you may not feel amazing right now but take a moment to think about it. You’re the culmination of over 4 million years of evolutionary trial and error. That’s a long time to experiment, make mistakes and then iron out the kinks. Also, Nature’s clever, in a way that humans will never be. It stands to reason that, after all this time, she’s going to come up with something pretty special.

Your default state is to be fit, healthy and happy.

You can move beautifully and freely in three dimensions, squatting, lunging, bending, pushing, pulling, twisting, walking and running [1]. You can crawl, climb, jump, swim, wriggle, roll, attack, defend (all of which are made up of a combination of the first 6 movements incidentally) and perform exquisitely intricate movements like threading a needle, typing on a keyboard or brain surgery.

You can talk by the age of two, building up to a vocabulary of 20,000 words by the time you’re just 5 years old, just as easily in two completely different languages, if necessary.

Perhaps most important of all, you have this big, incredible brain capable of something that may be unique to humans, called imagination. This creative intelligence gives you the ability to project into the future, conceive wonderful plans and concepts and then make them come true, if you so desire. Essentially, you can create your own reality.
Cyber Tracker founder, Louis Leibenberg believes that this capacity of imagination was born on the savannahs of Africa whilst early hunter-gatherers persistence hunted prey. Because they couldn’t keep the animal in sight for the duration of the hunt, they would have to track it. When the tracks became obscured or unreliable, the hunters had to put themselves in the place of the animal and project into the future, “imagining” what it’s next moves would be. According to Louis, this is the origin of deductive reasoning and the whole scientific process [2].

The beauty is that all of these amazing abilities all come as standard, built in and pre-loaded with the average human model, straight out of the box. Of course, it takes a little practise to master the controls, but the ability is there, right from the first breath. At some point between the ages of 6 – 12 months, you could do a perfect squat. You didn’t have to think about this or concentrate on your technique. You could just do it because that’s what you’re designed to do.

You really are a miracle. You’re arguably the most advanced, sophisticated being that has ever walked the surface of planet Earth.

You’re Nature’s flagship model…

… for the time being,

but, are you throwing it all away? Do you realise it in the first place? Are you wasting your evolutionary gifts and living a life below your potential? Are you in pain, unhealthy, exhausted, overweight, depressed or chronically ill? Unfortunately, nowadays, the answer is probably a yes to more than one of the above.

Instead of being the fit, healthy, functional, happy manimals that nature intended, even designed us to be, the norm has become much different.

We should be able to move easily and freely, without pain or injury, over a variety of terrains and using all of our natural movement patterns. We should be fit, strong and have great endurance. We should be healthy, lean and energetic, looking and feeling great inside and out. This is how we’re meant to be.

The modern reality is quite different and a lot more depressing.

• Obesity is running rampant and by 2025, just 13 years time, an estimated 47% of men and 36% of women in the UK will be obese – not just overweight but obese.
Approximately 1 in 5 10 to 11 year olds are obese
• 7 out of 10 men and 8 out of 10 women fall below their ‘age appropriate activity level’
Obesity and physical inactivity cost the UK £10.7 Billion each year
• Obesity increases the likelihood of: type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, narrowing and blockage of blood vessels, cardiovascular disesase, cancer, disability, reduced quality of life and can lead to premature death.
• Since 1996, the number of people diagnosed with diabetes has doubled. It’s estimated to double again by 2025.
Around 3 people will be diagnosed with diabetes every 10 minutes (17 people every hour, 400 every day)
• Obesity accounts for 80-85% of the overall risk of developing type 2 diabetes
• Type 2 diabetes reduces life expectancy by up to 10 years
Diabetes costs the NHS: £27 million a day, £1 million an hour, £17,000 a minute, £286 a second
Type 2 Diabetes can largely be prevented by improving health, nutritional and lifestyle factors

These are just a handful of figures I’ve chosen for obesity [3] and diabetes [4], two of the biggest problems facing modern, westernized society. I haven’t even started on cancer and heart disease.

Perhaps the worst part of it all is that these ‘diseases of civilisation’: obesity, type 2 diabetes, high-cholesterol, high blood pressure, coronary heart disease and even some forms of cancer, are largely preventable. That means that you can prevent them from happening with nutrition, exercise and lifestyle modifications.

This means that these alarming epidemics are self-inflicted.That’s right, folks, we’re doing it to ourselves.

After countless millions of years of evolution (eons if you go back to the very beginning) and all of the challenges faced by our ancestors, struggling to survive against the odds and ensure the continuation of their genetic expression, modern man has decided to kill him self off, along with the planet which gave him life in the first place.

And they call us Homo Sapiens…

Time To Wake Up

The good news is that it doesn’t have to be this way.

It’s not too late to change direction and clean up our act.

No matter who you are, how unhealthy, overweight or unfit you may be, you’re designed to be fit and healthy, energetic and happy. You have the ability to move better, lose weight, boost your energy levels and dramatically improve your health. You have the capacity to improve your life in all areas. You may have just forgotten how to do it, or resigned yourself to the fiction that good health and a beautiful, functional body is something only other people can achieve.

This is simply not true.

I firmly believe that your default state is to be fit, healthy and happy and that anyone has the ability to change the way their body looks and feels. It’s also a lot simpler that you might think, if you have the right information and resources for the job and that’s why I created Lean Green Human Being.

It’s my mission to show you how to take control of your health and fitness, once and for all. I want to show you how to build vigorous health and the body of your dreams, that looks and performs the way you’ve always wanted. I want to free you from the idea that you’re born somehow lacking, without everything you need to live life fully.

Most of all, I want to remind you who and what you are and show you what you’re capable of. I want to change the way you think about health and fitness, for good and help you discover and unleash your true potential.

References

1.Paul Chek’s Primal Patterns® as described in Movement That Matters, C.H.E.K. Institute

2.Tracking, The Origin Of Science, Louis Leibenberg, South Africa

3.Statistics On Obesity, Physical Activity and Diet: England 2012, The NHS Information Centre, Lifestyle Statistics

4.Diabetes In The UK 2012: Key Statistics On Diabetes, http://www.diabetes.org.uk, accessed 10th July 2012

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