Tag Archives: NLP

Goal Setting For Weight Loss.

August 5, 2014UncategorizedBuilding, coach, coaching, diet, dieting, exercise, Fitness, food, health, healthy eating, inspiration, lose weight, Low Carb, Motivation, N. L. P., NLP, paleo, Pounds, psychological, shred, success, Supplement, take action, Weight, Weight Loss, workoutadvancedweightlossresources

One of the things that I have found enormously helpful for myself and my clients is setting goals. In fact setting goals is a requirement for those who secure Advanced Weight-loss Resources as a training or coaching agency. What follows are a few simple steps that will help you set goals and in turn help you lose weight.

Step one is be specific. Too often I hear people say something like, “I need to lose a few pounds.” But what is a few pounds? Is it ten or one hundred? The reason you need to be specific is so you have an objective criterion in which to measure your success. Without an objective standard, it is easier let up on your weight-loss program sooner than you should. So, if you would like to lose fifty pounds write down fifty pounds.

Step two is give yourself a dead line. Deadlines create motivation. If you know you have to lose twenty pounds by the end of the month, then you know you have to get working on your goals right away.

Finally, put your goals in a place where you can see them every day preferably put them in a place where you can see them every morning. This will set a positive mental attitude at the beginning of each day.

If you want to go the extra mile, you can read your goals out loud at least once a day. This also gives you psychological inspiration for keeping you on track.

Keep Moving Forward

If you do not hit your desired goals, do not panic. I would almost guarantee that if you followed the steps above you will be much closer to your goals than if you hadn’t. Don’t be afraid to adjust and re-adjust as necessary. The important part is to keep moving toward you weight-loss goals!

A Personal Request

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The Right Workout.

July 28, 2014UncategorizedBuilding, coach, exercise, Fitness, health, healthy eating, Low Carb, Motivation, Muscle, N. L. P., NLP, paleo, Pounds, shred, success, take action, workoutadvancedweightlossresources

Working out is a great way to accelerate your weight loss goals. For most who want to lose weight, working out is not an option–it is a requirement. But that leads to a very important question: What workout is right for you?

Answering the above question is a bit tricky. There are many theories by many experts talking about what kind of work out one should and should not do. And, like I have mentioned in previous posts, I am not an expert. I can only tell you what I have done to lose weight myself, and what I have recommended to my clients.

First off, I am of the opinion that (most) any exercise is better than nothing. This is particularly true for beginners. Generally speaking, for people who just starting, a low-carb diet along with most any workout will accelerate fat mobilization. In other words, I am not one of those coaches that say, “Don’t do cardio,” or, “Only do cardio.” If you are a beginner, just get moving!

There is also a psychological advantage in doing a workout that you enjoy. And that is simply this: if you enjoy it, you are more likely to do it! So pick something you like and go for it!

However, I do have to say that this kind of philosophy on working out is only good for a short period of time. The reason is your body adjusts and it becomes more resistant to fat mobilization. This is particularly true of cardio. The better you get at cardio, the longer you have to do it in order to get the same effects.

A good example of this is jogging. At the beginning, person may struggle to jog a block. But at the end of a month, he can jog a block with no problem. In order for the same person to receive the same benefits, he has to now run further which will takes more time. People can continue to lose wight doing cardio as long as the workouts continue to intensify and the duration increases.

This leads me to one of my favorite kinds of workouts and that is strength training. One of the best ways I have found to accelerate weight loss is lifting weights. This kind of workout does not suffer from the same problem as cardio. What do I mean by this? Well it is true that your body can adjust and as a result stop mobilizing fat as readily. However, in order to fix this problem you do not have to increase the duration of your workout. All you have to do is increase the weights.

This does not mean that lifting does not have its setbacks. For example, you can adjust to strength training and there does come a point when adding weight no longer helps. This situation does take much longer to reach with strength training rather than cardio, but you will still get there.

The other problem is that of too much bulk. Leaning out and buffing up is great. But, there are not too many people out there that desire to look like a professional weight lifter. In fact, for most, that kind of look is simply unattractive.

With that in mind, it is important to note that for a great majority of people bulking up like a professional will never be a problem. This is partly due to the fact that in order to look like a professional body builder you have to take supplements (some legal some not so legal) that increase growth hormone in addition to working out. But some people with some body types can bulk up with like a professional without the supplements.

I know that I have to watch out for this personally. I have a naturally thick build, and if I do too much strength training, it is easy for me to get too bulkie.

There should be something said about Yoga and HIIT. However, this article is getting too long already so we will have to save these subjects for another time.

So what kind of workout do I recommend? At first, I suggest that you pick a workout you like and do that two to three days a week. But do not do it every day because of the reasons listed above. Break these workouts up with other workouts. Here is an example of what I have done and have recommended:

Day 1: Strength training (pick only two or three muscle groups).

Day 2: Strength training (make these different from the muscle groups form day one).

Day 3: Cardio (your choice. Just make it intense).

Day 4: Strength training (Mix it up).

Day 5: Yoga.

Day 6: Cardio or Hiit.

Day 7: Rest.

I will keep this kind of workout up for about three weeks. Then I change to this:

Day 1: Cardio (usually Martial Arts).

Day 2: Strength training (two or three muscle groups).

Day 3: Cardio.

Day 4: Yoga.

Day 5: Weights.

Day 6: Cardio (maybe a HIIT workout).

Day 7: Rest.

I usually keep this second set of days going for a two weeks. Then I go back to the first set of days for another three weeks.

Conclusion

If you are a beginner, just get moving. Pick a workout you like, but don’t do it everyday. And remember, success is the ultimate test of whether or not something is working. If it is not getting you closer to the goals, DO SOMETHING ELSE.

Secret Carbs (Making Low-Carb Diets Work).

July 18, 2014UncategorizedBuilding, coach, coaching, diet, dieting, exercise, food, health, healthy eating, Low Carb, Motivation, N. L. P., NLP, paleo, Pounds, shred, take action, Weight, Weight Loss, workoutadvancedweightlossresources

Have you plateaued on your low-carb diet. If so why? The answer could be that you are getting more carbs in your diet than you are aware of.

How does this happen? It happens by neglect. People neglect to check labels or look up foods online to find out how many carbs they are eating. As a result, they plateau quickly, get discouraged, and resume unhealthy eating.

What’s in Your Salad?

Eating uncounted carbs happens all the time in salads. And I’m not just taking about the croutons. Most people who are on a low carbohydrate diet are savvy to avoiding them. However, even in a salad without croutons, there are still many uncounted carbs.

My eyes were opened to this when on one occasion, I had a salad with some craisins in it. At the time, I did not think anything of it. However, later on in the evening I decided to check the carbohydrate count just to see. I was surprised. I always expect the carb count to be higher on fruit, but I was not expecting this. There are about 22 carbs in 1/4 of a cup! After, this I started counting carbohydrates in many of my questionable favorites.

Another Common Oversight

Here is another common oversight that I have committed myself and have also seen regularly in other people’s choices. This oversight is sauces. For example, many cheese sauces have flour in them. Often lowcarbers will not think of this because cheese is often OK on many low carbohydrate diets. And when we make this sauce at home we usually use cheese and heavy cream. But the pre-packaged kind will mostly use flour. This should make any good low-carber reconsider ordering the broccoli, cheese soup.

A popular sauce that often has more carbs that expected is tomato sauce. Almost all the canned tomato sauces have sugar added. Check the label before you make that spaghetti squash with spaghetti sauce.

It’s Just the Broth

Another culprit is broth. I have seen many people order chicken noodle soup and ask the server for just the broth. However, much of the starch of the noodles can leach out into the broth. This creates a much higher carb count than expected.

The Fix

There is an easy way to fix this and it is to simply check the labels. If it’s a kind of food without a label, look it up on line. If you are out at a restaurant, ask questions. Doing these simple things will help keep you on the weight-loss path.

How Often Should You Have a Cheat Day?

July 13, 2014Uncategorizeddiet, dieting, exercise, Fitness, lose weight, Low Carb, Motivation, N. L. P., NLP, paleo, Pounds, shred, success, take action, workoutadvancedweightlossresources

Restricting yourself from pleasure foods can be difficult. This is why cheat days or cheat meals are so important. Cheat meals allows you to indulge in foods that you may have been craving and also re-activate your fat burning hormones.

But these indulgences are shrouded in mystery. How often should your cheat? Should you cheat the whole day or just one meal? Can you have anything you want? These are just some of the questions that people ask when considering a scheduled cheat.

First off, I would like my readers to consider that I am not a dietitian. I’m just a guy who lost sixty pounds. My only credential is success. With that in mind, lets move on.

The truth is, there is no right answer to when and how often one should have a scheduled cheat. This is due to the fact that everyone is different. However, I do have general recommendations. For example, I recommend that a person refrains form cheating for the first six weeks of their diet. While there may be some exceptions to this, those exceptions are few and far between. The first six weeks are critical. This is where you retrain your body to mobilize fat storage habitually. This means that the body is training to use fat storage rather than store fat preferentially.

After the first six weeks, I recommend a cheat day without limits. In other words, I don’t care when, how long, or what you eat on your cheat day. The only thing is you must have one. And it must be at least two feeding. After the first cheat day, I recommend that a person go on the induction phase of the low-carb diet again. Going on the induction phase after a cheat will accelerate the fat burning process.

As a person progresses the more cheats he or she can have. It could go from every six weeks to every four weeks to every three to ten days. There is no hard-and-fast rule. But your cheats must be monitored carefully. If you are gaining weight, then you need to stop and give yourself another four to six weeks to once again re-adjust your body.

How many feeding should you have? Again, there is no strict rule. However, I recommend that cheat day is not really a day. It’s good to avoid all carbs the first half of the day. Then have two cheat meals along with a snack and a dessert. It should last between six to eight hours. If you have been on a low-carb diet for more than six months with success, then I recommend that after your cheat meal you go back on the induction phase of the diet for about three to five days.

What can you have on your cheat day? The sky really is the limit. However, the common mistake is not eating enough carbs or trying to eat only low-glycemic carbs. Remember cheat days are a time to indulge. These indulgences help psychologically and physically.

Finally, success is the only measure of a diet. Don’t be afraid to adjust and readjust as needed. And remember, cheaters always win by losing!

Free Offer

July 10, 2014UncategorizedBuilding, coaching, diet, exercise, Fitness, free offer, healthy eating, lose weight, Low Carb, Motivation, Muscle, NLP, paleo, Pounds, shred, success, take action, Weight, Weight Loss, workoutadvancedweightlossresources

For a limited time, I am offering a free coaching session! Well, I’ts not completely free. All you have to do is share your favorite article from this blog on your favorite social media. That’s right just share your favorite article form my blog on your most used social media and you can receive a free coaching session.

There are several topics you can choose from. You can have a session on motivation where we can talk about how to break food addictions. Or simply get you motivated to take the first steps.

We could also discuss diet. We can talk about what to foods to eat and what foods to avoid. I can tell you precisely what I did to lose 60 pounds.

Or we could talk about exercise. I can tell you what kinds of workouts I recommend and what kind of exercise I think one should avoid.

We can have this session over Skype, or over the phone. If you live near me, you can redeem you free session in person!

Act now because this free offer is only good for a limited time. The only restriction is that you cannot share this article. But you can choose any other article from this blog. Again, just share the article on your favorite social media and redeem your free session!

When you share this on social media use the contact sheet below and let me know the best way to get a hold of you and what article you shared and where you shared it. Then we will scheduled a time that is best for us.

Offer only good within the continental United States. Offer ends on 7-17-14. Coaching session must be redeemed by 8-31-14.

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The Importance of Cheat Day (Why Diets Fail)

July 8, 2014weight losscoaching, diet, exercise, Fitness, food, health, Low Carb, Motivation, NLP, paleo, Pounds, shred, success, take action, Weight Loss, workoutadvancedweightlossresources

How did you spend your Fourth of July? I spent mine eating bagels, donuts, cookies, potatoes, potato chips, corn chips, and ice cream (among other things). But I did not fall off the wagon. Rather I indulged in a well deserved cheat day.

If you do not already know, a cheat day is a day when you can eat all those foods that you do not normally eat. Foods that are “bad for you.” Cheat days are important and you should not skip them. Why are they so important? Here are two reasons.

Psychological

In an earlier post, I talked about one of the reasons why diets fail. And that reason was an un-manageability factor. In other words, any diet that is going to work has to be a diet that you can live with.

How does this concept figure into a cheat day? Well, what if you were on a diet that forbid you to eat any unhealthy food–ever. Could you do this? I know I could not. While I love eating healthy, I also love some unhealthy foods as well. If I were told I could never eat them again, eventually I would break down and go off the diet. And without the regulation one gets form cheat day, I would probably continue to eat unhealthy food and regain weight.

But this is not a problem when you have a scheduled cheat day. I know that all my sacrifice is going to pay off. I know that there is a day coming when I can eat all those pleasure foods I have been avoiding. And the best part is I’m not breaking my diet! Cheat day gives me the psychological advantage to continue to eat healthy between indulgence days. I don’t have to live without those foods forever. All I have to do is weight a little while.

Health Benefits

The other reason to have a cheat day has to do with the health benefits that accompany them. That’s right. Cheat days have health benefits. It is not all just indulgences.

How is cheat day healthy? As many of you know (particularly those of you who follow a low-carb diet), fat loss is a hormonal process. As you lose weight, you also decrease the production of weight-loss hormones. When you have a cheat day, you re-set all your fat burning hormones. This becomes very important when you are trying to continue to lose weight. In fact, not having enough cheat days is one of the reasons why people plateau and stop losing weight.

So enjoy your cheat day. And don’t cheat your self out of it!

One last thing. You may be wondering how often you should have a cheat day. You may also be wondering what and how much you can have on a cheat day. Keep coming back to this blog to find out.

You are ALREADY Motivated

July 2, 2014UncategorizedBuilding, coach, coaching, diet, dieting, exercise, Fitness, food, health, healthy eating, lose weight, Low Carb, Motivation, Muscle, N. L. P., NLP, Pounds, shred, workoutadvancedweightlossresources

The truth is we are all already motivated. The question is: What are we motivated to do? Some people are motivated to do healthy things, while some people are motivated to do unhealthy things.

What do I mean by this? For example, If you are someone who is prone to sitting on the couch and chowing down on unhealthy food, you do not have a lack of motivation. This is to say you have a reason for participating in unhealthy activities. And that reason is your motivation.

Another way to look at this is by asking: What are you getting out of your unhealthy habit(s)? And do not fool yourself. You are gaining something by sitting on the couch eating donuts. Identifying what you are gaining is the first step in fixing the problem.

What to do next is shift the focus. Instead of concentrating on all the things you are getting out of your bad habit, think of what you are going to lose if you keep up with this unhealthy lifestyle. Think of what your body will look like in the next five years. Become disgusted. That’s right. Think of the unhealthy activity and become disgusted. Then do it again and again. Think of the unhealthy activity and become disgusted.

Before you know it, instead of being motivated to do unhealthy things, you will find the motivation to avoid them.

Make a Declaration

June 26, 2014Uncategorizedexercise, Fitness, Low Carb, Motivation, NLP, paleo, Weight Lossadvancedweightlossresources

A client of mine recently fell of the wagon after only a few weeks on his diet program. Of course, I asked him what happened. He said that his mother invited him over for a Saturday dinner. When he arrived, he found that the meal was spaghetti. There was not a low-carb option. In addition, spaghetti was a personal weakness for him. It is no surprise that he broke down and indulged.

But this leads to the question: How could this situation have been avoided? Here is one thing to keep in mind: Not everyone knows we are on a specialized eating plan. This is particularly true for those who have just started. My client’s mother is not clairvoyant. She could not have known that her son needed to stay away from high-carb foods.

This is less of a problem for those of us who have been eating healthy for some time. For example, most (if not all) of the people in my social circle know that I have specialized dietary needs. They also know that I am committed to this kind of lifestyle. As a result, I’m usually in a situation where there is a low-carb option. But this was not the case when I first started. I had to tell my friends and family that I was on a new weight-loss plan. I had to make a declaration.

Of course some of my friends had seen me fail on diets before. Because of this, friends would invite me to places where there was very few low-carb items on the menu. In other words, they did not think I was serious. However, this happened less and less as time went on. The more my friends saw me make good decisions the less they invited me to places where bad decisions were the only option. But it started with a declaration.

My client’s situation may have been avoided if he declared in advance to his family that he was on a low-carb diet. He could have asked his mother to help him make a healthy decision. Would this have solved the problem. Not necessarily. His mother may have chosen to serve spaghetti anyway. But it would have given his mother the choice to either help or hinder her son’s goals.

When you first start a new weight-loss program, you need to stack the deck in your favor. Making a declaration will at least let people know that you are serious about your health goals. And in fact, staying silent about your dietary needs is really just another way of declaring, “I’m not really committed to make a change.”

Have a Shake for Failure (Why Diets Fail)

June 21, 2014Uncategorizeddiet, dieting, exercise, Fitness, Low Carb, Motivation, NLP, success, Supplement, Weight Lossadvancedweightlossresources

I’m all about getting results. I really do not care what method one decides to use as long as it is working (and its legal). So if you are one of those people who have lost a significant amount of weight and have kept it off though shake-supplements, then please ignore this rant. However, if you among the vast majority of people who who have failed at this kind of diet (like myself), then listen up.

As a side note, when I use the term “shake-supplement,” or “shake-supplement diet,” I am referring to those diets that use a shake or bar to supplement a meal. I am not referring to shakes as a vitamin supplement that one might have in addition to meals. I’m not necessarily endorsing those either, but I am certainly not referring to them in this article.

One of the reasons why diets fail is that people think of them as diets and not lifestyle changes. In other words, people think that they can do something different with their eating habits for a short period of time, get results, and then go back to the way they were eating. But what ends up happening is they just gain the weight back as soon as they revert to their old eating habits. In most cases, dieters also gain a few extra pounds and are worse off then when they started.

This is the mindset for many of those who are on a shake-supplement diet. They are not thinking, “Hey, I’m going to drink a shake for breakfast and/or lunch for the rest of my life.” That is not usually the attitude. Generally, this is something that people do for a short time to drop a few pounds. And guess what? It works! People will often drop 5, 10, 15, even 20 pounds! But they have not made a lifestyle change. As a result, as soon as they revert back to their old eating patterns, those pounds come right back.

Another reason why diets fail has to do with a manageability factor. Any diet that is really going to work has to be a diet that one can live with for the rest of one’s life.

So let us imagine that someone is using these shake diets with a long term goal in mind. I’m sure that is the case for at least some people who try these supplements. However, this kind of diet is simply unmanageable, and cannot it be lived out in the long run. What do I mean by this? Let me explain using some examples that I have gone though personally and have also seen with many people who have tried these diets.

Your alarm clock did not go off, and now you are late for work. You jump out of bed and do not have time to drink that morning shake. Furthermore, in the rush, you forget to pack your afternoon shake. Lunch time comes. What do you do? Don’t eat? Eat something bad for you? Neither option is good. If you eat something bad, then you are not really on the diet and its not going to work. If you decide to go ahead and starve, you will usually overeat as well as make unhealthy choices at dinner.

How often does this happen? What I have seen is that this does not usually happen during the first few weeks. But after that, it happens more than not particularly with those who are not “morning people.” Then, they are off the diet more than they are on the diet. Next, they are off the diet altogether. Why? Because this is simply an impractical way to live.

Or here is another example:

You have packed your shake for lunch and had your morning one as well. Your friend calls you up, and says, “Let’s go out for a bite, my treat.” What do you do? You may decline the offer for the first few of weeks, while your resolve is strong. Or you may go and decide just to enjoy the conversation but refrain from eating. Again, how long can this last? Are you never going to go out for lunch ever again? Or if you do, how long will it be before you break down and decide to eat something unhealthy in addition to the sake you just had? The answer is not long; just a few weeks. Then those pounds come back along will all the feelings of regret and self hatred. Why? Those kinds of diets are unmanageable.

Of course the shake diet is not the only kind of diet that fits into these paradigms. there are many diets that cannot be lived out on a day-by-day basis. If you are on one of those plans, quit!

I am so glad that I am not on a diet but have made a lifestyle change. Because of this, I can go out with friends and eat at almost any restaurant. Most places have a low-carb option. And if there is not a low carb-option I can easily create one. If I miss breakfast for some reason, not to worry (I’m not counting calories), at my next opportunity to eat, I can make healthy choices and not starve. The diet I am on is a diet (lifestyle) I can live with!

My Spare (Bike) Tire

June 20, 2014Uncategorizeddieting, exercise, Fitness, Low Carb, NLP, Weight Lossadvancedweightlossresources

On the very first blog I wrote for this sight, I mentioned that I was not though losing weight. Recently, I was reminded of this fact when I looked in the mirror and noticed my spare tire. This was slightly discouraging. I have been actively living a healthy lifestyle for over a year and a half. While I have seen a dramatic change, I’m not finished losing weight–but I really want to be finished!

However, I was only slightly discouraged. I emphasis “slightly” because while I still have a bit of a spare tier around my gut, it looks more like a bike tier rather than a monster-truck tire. I am closer to my weight-loss goals than ever before, and that is something to be excited about!

But this caused me to ask the question: How much weight should I lose? The answer to this is I don’t know. My goal weight right now is 220. I’m only 6-8 pounds away! But, do I only have 6-8 pounds to lose? I guess I will not know until I get there.

I mention this because 220 was not always my goal weight. Let me explain.

When I started this weight-loss journey, I weighed apx. 286 pounds. And it did not take me long at all to drop 25 of those pounds. When I was at 260, I was really liking the way I looked. But I realized that I needed to lose more weight. I thought if I was at 250 I would be in peak physical condition. When I dropped to 250, I realized I was not in “peek physical condition.” I also thought that every one would notice how much I lost. The truth is very few people said anything about it at all.

It was at this time that I hit a plateau. (I will talk more about what I have done to get off my plateaus in another blog). I pushed though and dropped 8 more pounds. At 242 I hit another plateau. I also realized I was not finished losing weight.

Though a series of activities I lost 12 more pounds! 230! I honestly cannot remember the last time I weighed that much. I have to admit that I was pleased with myself. People who had not mentioned my weight-loss before were finally saying something. It seemed like everyone was talking about it.

I was happy, but not 100 percent happy. I thought I needed to lose another 10 pounds. Well, I have lost 2-4 of those 10 pounds and I still have somewhat of a spare tire. But is that spare tire an 8-6 pound tire? Well, I will let you know when I get there.

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