Tip # 4: Take your Nuts with you, wherever you go!
Total estimated time taken out of your day = approx. 10 minutes (as detailed in my previous blogs) –
Represented by:
Time to perform Tip # 1= 5 min
Time to perform Tip # 2 = 3 min
Time to perform Tip # 3 = 2 min
So, hopefully you are trying to incorporate the first 3 tips I have shared with you in my previous blogs. Also, hopefully, you are slowly being convinced about my subject heading.
With this tip (#4), adding nuts to your day is a fantastic ‘snack’ option. Like I have mentioned in a previous blog, ‘snack’ does not need to be a euphemism for junk food. Snacking can be healthy too and should be encouraged for many good reasons.
What do you need to do?
Eat nuts but don’t go nuts on it!
All you need is a handful. Actually, we all have different size hands so I will be more specific – eat less than or equal to 30g of nuts. Some good nuts to choose from include: walnuts, almonds, cashews, peanuts and macadamias.
Quick snacks on the run should still ideally provide high-quality protein with a controlled amount of carbohydrate. This handful roughly provides between 4g and 7g of Protein and Carbohydrates and vary from nut to nut.
Time taken to perform this Tip # 4 in the mornings is approximately 1 minute. Yep, only 60 seconds. So, the running total for the 4 tips so far is approximately equal to 11 minutes. Eleven minutes out of your busy day!
Just to eat right.
A good snack. Berries are a wonderfully tasteful treat.
Good Fats.
My aim is to show you how my Top Ten Tips to eating right should take you less than 30 minutes of your day. Why is this eating tip worth your time and of great value to your body, you may ask?
Well, it provides ‘good fats’ to your body. Yep, not all fats are ‘bad’, but you know that. Your body needs fats to survive and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. There are some vital minerals and vitamins that are fat soluble only.
For example, vitamins A, D, E and K are some such vitamins. So, these essential vitamins are only assimilated in to your body as nutrients in the presence of fat.
Even for those of you reading this blog that have started or are planning to commence your ‘get fit for summer’ training program, understand that losing fat is assisted when you provide the body with fat. Good fats, that is.
That’s correct – you need fat to burn fat!
Good fats provide many benefits such as omega – 3 fatty acids that elevates good cholesterol or High Density lipo-proteins (HDL). Why is this important? Well, this lowers your risk of heart disease as blood is more malleable, that is, blood is made thinner, hence flows better to keep you alive.
Good fats from nuts also provide joint protection. This is vital for those of you who work out in the gym with weights – like me. Having nuts in your diet allows better recuperation for inflamed joints, stiffness and swelling. You’ve got to be nuts not to include them in your diet after reading this.
It should also be noted that these good fats are found in cold water fish such as salmon, tuna and mackerel and plant-based foods such as flaxseeds and soyabeans. Reach out and grab them and add these sources to your diet.
To dig deep, you have to dig deep.
Nuts come in many sizes.
The average person does not eat adequate daily amounts of these good fats, probably less than 1g per day. Carrying around two or three servings of nuts with you in your busy day does not take much time to consider and provides great value to your body, mind and vitality.
Nuts come in many sizes but are essentially small and convenient enough to eat ‘on the run’. Here’s an old Uni riddle: What do you call nuts on a wall? Yep, walnuts. So go for walnuts. There’s no excuse!
We’re on track to prove that Eating right actually takes less time than you think. So far, a grand total of 11 minutes out of your day to apply my Top Four of my Top Ten Tips to get you in Tip-Top Shape this summer.
You’re now Aware. Apply Action. Adapt accordingly.
My Triple A philosophy to self-development.
Thank you for reading.
Until next time,
Do you strive to better yourself in every way? Are you a Leader?
And what class of foods would fall in this group – yep, you’re not wrong: vegetables.
This includes all the green vegetables, all shades of green. Some good examples include – broccoli, spinach, asparagus, cabbage, long beans.
Obviously, the darker green it is, generally, the better for you. I should also include fruits that are in the shades of yellow to orange in this tip also.
Total estimated time so far (previous top 2 tips) = approx. 8 minutes.
Add: green vegetables (this tip) = approx. 2 minutes.
Estimated time taken out of your day = approx. 10 minutes!
Why is eating greens (or yellow or orange fruits) important to your life? What value could it possibly pass on to you?
Well, besides being natural sources of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and other nutrients, they tend to keep you fuller – for longer. This helps you curb your appetite throughout the day and from snacking on ‘junk food’. Yellow, orange and green fruit and vegetables offers your body and mind multiple nutritional benefits.
Educating a top national sprinter of the importance of proper nutrition for recovery & optimal performance
Lets have a look at a few of these fruits – bananas and oranges for example. Their yellowish-orange pigmentation have been shown to slow down the ageing process and also reduce risks of some types of cancers. Bananas are loaded with potassium and magnesium which reduce the risk of muscle cramping.
This is especially important for anyone who trains with weights in the gym. Potassium and magnesium assist in the muscles extending and contracting properly and are essential for maximising muscle performance.
Obviously, not all yellow-orange fruits and vegetables have the same sugar content and don’t all have the same impact on your insulin levels. Lets keep it simple, if your body transformation goal is to lose unwanted fataround the butt and belly then:
** stay away from high – sugar or High Glycemic Index (GI) fruits and vegetables.
Some examples include: pineapples, yams, corn and carrots.
Instead choose options which include low to moderate GI, that is foods that have more complex carbohydrates and does not ‘spike’ your sugar levels and keeps your insulin steady. Some examples include: grapefruits, mangoes, oranges, paw-paws, peaches, pumpkin, capsicum and tomatoes.
A good teacher is hard to find but finding a good student is even harder. Plan the work – to work the plan. Photo: discussing fine points of one of my programs with retired legend of rugby – Phil Waugh.
Eating in a way that does not encourage fluctuations in sugar and insulin levels is critical to body transformation and weight management. Like I have mentioned before, the key to body transformation is hormonal management – specifically, insulin management.
Make time to eat properly
When insulin is under control, your body’s drive to store fat is minimized and under control too.
So, there you have it! Tip # 3 of my series of Top Ten Tips to being in Tip-Top Shape come summer. The awareness of these top 3 tips is one thing.
Application is the other pillar. Adaptationis yet another. The philosophy of my blog.
So, as you can see, to implement these top 3 tips, it should not take you any more than 10 minutes out of your day. Now, of course you can spare 10 minutes.
My goal is to not only inform you but also to show you how Eating Right actually takes less time than you think. Matter of fact, one of my goals is to show you how the application of my Top Ten Tips should not take more than 30 minutes or 1800 seconds out of your busy day.
Make the time to eat properly.
It might not only add years to your life, but along with consistent weight training and regular cardiovascular training, may just add more life and zest in to your years.
Its your choice. Your life, after all.
Good luck in your decision.
Until next time,
Cheers & ahoy!
The old Cap’n Viking Pirate Muscled Prophet … & eating well and time
Planning my meals and cooking meals in advance (in bulk( allowed me to build a Physique worthy of standing against the best in the world. Efficiency in the preparation and timely consumption of meals is critical to achieving the physique your aim to create.
World Natural Bodybuilding Championships. Side Chest pose. Managing your meals allows you to build the best physique you can. Attention to detail and time, matters. Placing: 4th.
Life is also complex. One of the skills is to make this complexity a little less complex. Simplify the complex. De-clutter. Simplify life. Most of us would agree on this too.
Life is also an exercise in Risk Management. Anyone that thinks otherwise needs to put their thinking hat on for a few minutes. Look back at your life. Look at your life so far to this point. Look at all the decisions you have made either consciously or subconsciously to minimise your life risks. How many?
Many.
I believe one category with high risk to a growing number of human beings today, partly because of the increasing levels of obesity is cardiovascular disease and other stress-related disorders.
As I see it, it is not enough to just eat the right foods and keep cholesterol levels low. It is also not enough to exercise regularly, not enough still, to take regular holidays to ‘get away from it all’.
Nope, not enough.
How can we lower that moderate to high risk of cardiovascular and stress-related diseases? As I see it, to protect ourselves and lower these real Life Risks, we must learn to ‘switch-off’. Like I tell most of my apprentices in the gym and in life, we need to learn to “quiet the mind”.
Easier said than done.
We need to learn how to ‘turn off our engines’ in order to lengthen the effective useful life of our time on this planet. What I mean by this is that we need to switch off our production of the “Fire within”. What Fire Within, you may be asking?
You see, we are many things. One thing I know is that we are not in control of ourselves as much as we think we are. We are hormonal creatures. Because of this, the Fire Within is a term I use for the production of the hormone – “adrenaline”. I also refer to this as the “Energy Hormone”. The hormone that gives you that sense of Vitality. The hormone that is triggered whenever we a faced with a ‘flight or fight’ response to a threat. That fire within needs to be turned off, when no longer needed.
This hormone, this Fire Within needs to be tamed. To be controlled. Better. Many people need to learn to become less dependent on this energy hormone for their everyday living. As a keen observer of human behaviour, I believe that like many other things people struggle with managing, in life – their diets, their money, their insatiable desire for ‘newness’, their constant dis-satisfaction with the old etc, many people do not know how to ‘switch off’ this vital hormone – the giver of vitality or life and also – THE TAKER!
Not turning the Fire Within OFF, allows emotions such as anger, frustration, irritation, challenge and excitement trigger this energy hormone: adrenaline. I see many people incapable of managing these psychological triggers of this deadly hormone. Incapable of bringing this hormone under control. They let these emotions get the better of them.
Effective stress management is what is needed. Some rules of the brain to consider –
Step 1: Quiet the Mind.
Step 2: Repeat to Remember.
Step 3: Remember to Repeat.
Effective stress management requires that we be healthy in mind and spirit, not just in our physical bodies. What I am talking about here when I refer to effective stress management, it is to “quiet the mind …. And spirit”. This is what will truly allow you to manage one of your life’s greatest risks: adrenalin mis-management.
Eating well and exercising is not enough.
Many individuals seek adrenalin ‘highs’ and seek increasing levels of excitement and joy to enjoy the thrill of challenge. They never seem to get enough. Constantly seeking more and more different ways to experience the adrenalin rush. I believe these people may find it much more difficult to manage adrenalin which could likely increase their life risks.
Ask yourself: are you one of these types of people?
Like any surfer would know, you cannot keep riding the peak of the wave forever as there will always be a trough. A low point. Adrenaline “junkies” need to train and re-train themselves to experience life without the constant novel stimulation. They need to come down from the “mountain-tops” and enjoy the peace and calmness of the valley. This is where true rest and recuperation/re-charging and healing can occur.
Please do.
Your life depends on it more than you think. Turn off the Fire Within.
The hustle and bustle and frantic pace of modern living does not allow us the luxury of natural recovery. We are robbed of it. This comes at a cost: an ever-increasing state of mental diseases or stress-related diseases. A costly price to pay for not managing the energy hormone, better.
Because of this theft brought on us by modern-day living, we find ourselves planning these ‘vacations or holidays’ in to our lives, through deliberate design. But, you cannot escape YOU – you cannot run away from your mind.
Even Jesus Christ, the greatest psychologist that ever lived, thought it was very important, too. Rest, that is. There is a passage in the bible where he did request of his disciples to follow him to a quiet place and get some rest (somewhere in Mark gospel, I think).
Think about it: Jesus Christ thought it was necessary all those years ago.
Now, from a Christian – religious point-of-view, if Jesus Christ thought it was necessary for him and his disciples to periodically get some rest, then, who are we to think we can exist without it?
Practice switching off the Fire Within before the flames burn out your life before your time.
Pour some water to put out those flames. From time to time.
Don’t just treat the symptom (vacations/holidays). Focus on treating the cause: Quietening your mind. And spirit.
The title does not refer to what some of us did in our youth with beer and the various other types of alcohol. No, I am talking about: water, and consuming more of it.
When you wake up, go to the toilet and relieve yourself first thing, drag yourself from the bathroom to the kitchen sink and pour 12 glasses of water (approximately 250ml per glass) in to a larger flask or water bottle. The water bottle should be able to hold 3.0L of liquid, in this case – water or H2O (for the chemistry inclined).
Approximate time needed to do this:3 minutes or 180 seconds.
Can you take 180 seconds out of your ‘busy’ day to do this very important task? You bet you can! This is the 2nd Tip to “Tip-Top” shape and all it takes is 3 minutes.
So, back to my previous blog, when we add the 3 minutes to the time it took to do the first habitual tip (which was less than five minutes), you have an accumulated total of 8 minutes. Yep, eight minutes to invest to a more healthier – YOU.
What to do after you’ve filled the water bottle? Put it in the fridge to cool. Why? Because, you are going to take it with you to work and be ready to drink from it throughout the day until you finish it.
Why is this tip valuable to your body and worth your time investment?
Water makes up more than sixty percent of your body’s mass. It is vital to your health and vitality and without sufficient water intake, you could put your life at risk. If you didn’t know this, sometimes when your body tells you that it is hungry, a lot of times, it is actually asking you for more water. It is telling you, you are thirsty.
Why? Well, if you are not aware of this, the body does draw a lot of its water from the food you eat.
So, when you constantly sip water throughout your work day, in addition to its health benefits, you will feel fuller. And when you drink before, during and after every meal, it reduces your appetite, especially during the rest of your day.
There are many studies done on what the recommended daily amount of water an average person requires and generally, there is a consensus that a person should drink anywhere between 8 and 10 glasses (250ml) per day. Great!
The question I would like you to ask yourself is this: are you currently drinking that many? Be honest. I am certain that many (maybe you included) are not drinking anywhere near the recommended daily allowance.
If you’re staying physically active (and I am presuming most of you reading this are active), having a little bit more (12 glasses) is wiser, giving you a little buffer for the additional energy output you expand during exercising.
Most of you know that the moment you realize that you’re thirsty, it’s a little too late. The body, by that stage has already lost approximately 4-5% of its total water. Now, you should note that your energy output is heavily dictated by the amount of water or hydration level you have at any point in time. Losing just 1 percent of your body weight in water (approximately 1kg to 2kg) can decrease your overall energy output by as much as 20 to 30 percent.
Now, that is a significant reduction in potential energy output. It will affect your vitality. You will notice this lack of energy in your training sessions. You can see that dehydration puts unnecessary stress on your body, on your organs. Your body goes hunting for water in other places – within the body itself. Where do you think it will find water? Yep, you guessed it – your kidneys, your stomach, colon and also, where you least want to lose it – your hard earned muscles.
All that muscle you have been working hard in the gym for months. Years, perhaps. Being catabolised. Not good. Not what you desire. You want to work hard to build muscle and then hang on to whatever muscle you have. Muscle is precious. Preserve it as best you can from it been cannibalized by its own body.
From a health point-of-view, your organs are put under unnecessary stress than it already has and does not work at its most effective and efficient selves. Your brain requires adequate water to allow you to focus and think at its optimum. A lack of water can also relate to recurring headaches and migraines. I have seen a reduction in these ailments over the years with my clients, the frequency and intensity of such drops.
From a muscle point-of-view, muscles that don’t have sufficient water will mean that your lifts in the gym due to a reduction in your strength levels. This would mean a less than your best effort which would translate in to less potential for muscle growth. No growth means no progress. No progress ultimately leads to an empty, unhappy feeling in your gut. This remains true not only for muscle but for almost all areas in our lives – not experiencing a step-by-step progression towards whatever goal you are working towards.
No progress – you get de-motivated. Progress – you feel motivated. The latter feeling is preferable, I believe.
We are all ‘goal-seeking’ animals, so make this 2nd Tip of my Top Ten Tips to a healthier you a part of your daily life. Take action and start making this habit a part of your life. Today. In a week, see how you feel.
It takes approximately 8 minutes of your day to carry out these two habits. Give your body, your life what it needs. Simply, because you’re worth it. The compound effect of making these two tips habit is contribution to a better quality of life in your future.
You’re now Aware. Apply Action. Adapt accordingly.
In my experience, eating right can actually save you time. Save you, life.
It is winter in this part of the world (I’m live in the beautiful city of Sydney, Australia). Stop, project less than 12 weeks from now, when the next season arrives – ahhh, Spring. Picture this: people are getting out their spring/summer clothes from the cupboards and are feeling a little down because they can’t squeeze in to them like they remembered they did last year. It can be quite de-motivating for some.
Maybe , you’re in that spot of bother right now?
In this first blog of an 8.5 Reasons why Eating RIGHT should not take too much of your time.
My Tip # 1: Never Skip Breakfast!
In one of my earlier blogs, I state that imagination is key to the achievement of any worthwhile goal or goal you place value on . So, if achieving a more sculptured (tonned body) is what you desire you need to learn to use your imagination.
Yes, use your imagination to visualize (now) how you would like to look by summer. This is a very important step – ‘seeing’ yourself as you imagine yourself to be. Having a clear understanding of your destination (refer to earlier blog: “Don’t be a rudderless ship”).
The more vivid the picture of your destination is in your mind and the more it connects with your heart, the more drive and focus you will muster.
Champions practise a lot of visualisation and simulation. To create magic, you need to fuse the worlds of sanity (where you are) with insanity (where you dream/imagine you are, before you are). That is difficult. That is one of the key keys. Don’t stop. Trying. Believing. Keep on … keeping on. You’ll get there. Everyone always does. Especially, if you do it with your heart. and …. with LOVE.
And, with the help of “Coach Mo” (incidentally, that little voice on your shoulder, we can call Coach “Mo”) to start your steam train again …. Hoot … hoot … slowly towards your goal). Just like a steam-train, getting started in your body transformation goals, getting those wheels cranking at the beginning of the journey is the difficult part.
But when you pick up [Mo]mentum (Coach Mo), you, just like that steam train can smash through whatever obstacles that lay in your path. To smithereens! Because you have Big Mo (momentum) on your side.
Here we go again.
Its easy to put off things, to procrastinate. Don’t. Don’t leave it for September, it will be too late. That’s when the majority of people start panicking and joining gyms. Start now. Find your plan (or get help from the relevant professional) and work your plan. You don’t want Spring and then Summer time and Christmas to roll around and you not feel happy about the way you look in you clothes, now, do you? Or you can just buy bigger clothes to hide it all.
Up to you.
You’re the Captain of your ship through the seas of Life. Set you goal towards being your BEST and put a quality plan in place (includes your health & overall well-being) and set sail … Towards your destination.
Making better use of the 86,400 seconds given to us every day
I have said this before: no matter what your exercise goals are, eating healthy (well-compositioned meals), can help you achieve them faster.
And right now, time is ticking and time is your friend as we have just started Winter and have a little under 10 weeks to Spring. But, the question you’re probably thinking is how are you supposed to spend time preparing healthier meals. You barely have enough time to hit the weights, how are you realistically supposed to find time to watch what hits your plate? Right, I hear you …. that is why I wrote this blog to convince you to help you, help yourself more effectively.
Eating right is actually easier than you think.
How so?
Well, in my more than two decades in the health and fitness industry and helping hundreds of people around the world. It is one truth I have discovered. They have learned that, too. You can save more of your life. Here’s how …
I believe that spending a few minutes a day making the right decisions about your nutrition could save you from spending twice the time in the gym or four times as much time on the treadmill or aerobics. How so, Paul, you may be asking? I don’t have the time, you may say!
I argue that it typically takes less time to prepare a healthier meal than it does to work off the extra calories you would eat if you didn’t spend time watching your diet.Makes sense? Yes, it does!
Think about it.
You have 86,400 seconds of your life everyday to live, the way you choose to. But, my question is why would you spend more of those seconds sweating and exercising (and for many enthusiasts doing group classes – smelling intense body odour in small bacteria-infested rooms).
I pity these folks and their poor, poor nostrils. If you do like it, God bless you. Applying my tips could mean you spend less time doing those classes. Smelling those arm-pits. That would be good for you and your nostrils, wouldn’t it? Also, I see so many people lining up outside cafes and stressing about what they are going to have for lunch. How about I say, we take that wastage of time and thought pattern with my tip here?
Achieving a well-balanced physique should be understood for what it is: a masterful fusion of art and science. One should improve once’s “BODY Smart”knowledge. this takes time and deliberate practise.
Your daily eating habits
Ok, it isn’t always easy predicting how much time you’re going to have each day to pay attention to your nutritional habits. It isn’t easy. I realise that. Still, there is a smarter way you can make sure you’re getting the most from what ever number of seconds you can use each day.
What if I told you that there are ways to change your daily eating habits without making major sacrifices in your diet. What are you thinking now? For many people, they have tried everything, and ‘nothing works’ is a common frustration. What if I told you that these changes are very real and can be implemented in to your “all-day” eating routine. And the great thing is that you could implement these changes anytime you wanted to?
In the next series of blogs, I will be sharing with you my top 8.5 tips to successfully making changes to your daily eating habits with sustainability in mind. Changes that you can sustain forever. These Valentine Top 8.5 Tipsonly takes a few hundred seconds (a few minutes) to master, but I believe, when implemented, they can take months of unnecessary hard work off your schedule, provided you follow them each day.
This is the real challenge for you:Unlearning old habits that are not aligned with your new, ‘imagined self’ and learning these new habits, my Top 10 tips. Successful change is and can only be brought about through improvement in your self-regulatory behaviour . This is heavily dependent on the power of your imagination.
Changing habits – releasing bad eating habits and adopting some good ones is like facing an internal Predator. You need to ‘face the Lion’ within you. Having a conversation with a lion.
Spring/Summer/Christmas?New Year, here you come – You, only better!
How much time do you have a day to apply these tips?
How much time can you spare? Can you spare 30 minutes in your day or 1800 seconds of your 86,400 seconds? We will do a little maths exercise and count the amount of time each of these tips will take out of your day, starting with Tip # 1 in this blog. Doing all 8.5 of my tips would take less than 30 minutes tops each day. Yet they can give you everything you need to maintain a balanced diet. That’s not much time, is it?
Can you allocate that time to YOU? Simply because your life is important and you would like to do everything you can to not only add years to your life but more importantly, add Life in to your years.
It’s going to save you spending your valuable life, your valuable seconds, thinking and exercising unnecessarily to undo what you unknowingly – did in the first place!
How good is that?!
These tips are not meant to create more stress in your life, it is meant to help make your life a bit more manageable, a little less stressful, when it comes to eating a balanced diet with sustainability in mind. It is about making the best of whatever time you have. Allow me to show you how.
My Top 8.5 Tips will cover all main meals – breakfast, lunch and dinner and snacks in-between. We will begin with the first meal of the day – breakfast. So, I will go through your day, from sunrise to sun-set and piece together a sustainable, efficient and effective schedule for melting off fat, building muscle and having increased daily energy towards reshaping your body, not tomorrow or next week.
Right now.
Spring/Summer/Christmas/New Year’s here you come. You – only better!
Sunrise – you rise.
Education through a perception of the truth. Increasing your awareness, taking sufficient and appropriate actions and adapting accordingly is key towards self-improvement. Funny thing is that the process also applies to relationships and response. In the photo, Former Australian Wallaby Captain listening intently to learn key principles of my philosophy in to being your BEST, ALL the time, not some of the time. Great student. Great Champion. Great friend. Vv
Tip #1: DO NOT Skip Breakfast.
It should consist of a mix of the 3 basic macro-nutrients: carbohydrates (oats), protein (eggs – 3 eggs/1 yolk) and a little fat (avocado, peanut butter, almonds).
Estimated time spent: < 5 minutes.
Why not skip Breakfast, you may be thinking?
It is one of the best advice our parents and grandparents have given us when we were children. Missing this very important meal creates more hunger later on and increases your risk of ‘bingeing’ and taking in more calories than you truly need in later meals. With no food in your stomach, your body’s response is to take in whatever calories you ate the night before – and whatever you eat later on and … bingeing at lunch and like many reading this – at dinner. Just before bed.
Result? Guess what? All these ‘extras’ TURNS INTO UNWANTED BODY FAT!
Yes, around the gut ( as some call a ‘spare tyre’) for most men out there after they turn 30 and deposits around the butt and legs for the ladies. Very de-motivating indeed. Not exactly what you want, is it?
So, I insist, make this first tip if you’re skipping breakfast a part of you life. Make it your first habit to master: take 4 minutes when you wake up and eat a meal for breakfast but make sure that it combines all macro-nutrients. You will get sustainable energy all day long and lower your desire for extra calories from other food to provide energy later.
This is a very good rule of thumb you should apply for every meal during your day. Ask yourself – do I have a good mix of carbs, protein and a little fat.
Use what I’ve told all my past customers – my “eyeball method” or ‘I see with my two eyes’ method. Look at your plate, ensure the macro-nutrients take up space on the plate in this ratio:
P:C:F = 0.4:0.5: 0.10. ( where P = Protein; C = Carbohydrates; F = Fats)
Steve Reeves was a Master Poser. He imagined and built the Best Built & Aesthetically beautiful body in the world through synergistic awareness. He understood that optimum health of body & mind required the fusion of art and science. Become a scientific artist of YOU … of your life.
Homework: Lets keep adding the time needed to apply each tip I share in successive blogs and see if it requires you to spend less than half an hour of your day.
Let me prove to you using numbers (minutes spent) that Eating right actually takes less time than you think over the next month or so. Let you in on a secret: I love Physics and Mathematics. They were my first majors in my first University Degree almost 30 years ago now.
Let me show you how these little but significant 8.5 Tips can and will encourage an optimum environment that is a fusion of art and science, allowing for Synergy. This synergism is KEY: it is in the combining of the elements that creates a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.
Repeat. Make it habit. Make this one change. Repeatedly, with enhanced self-regulatory behavioural change. Repeat.
Believe.
My triple A approach to the development of Self.
Ahoy & all the very BEST… allow me to guide you through my Top 8.5 Tips over the next few weeks.
Cheers & ahoy!
The old Captain Viking Pirate …. & Life Tips
SYNERGISM: The Critical Mind-set to success. Understanding that it is in the combination of key elements to create a whole greater than the sum of its parts. Create the BEST you firstly, through 1) Education and then 2) motivation.
When my children were born, I was fascinated with their eating behaviour. They ate every 2 to 3 hours without fail, around the clock. As most of you would know (especially parents), the first few years of a child’s life can cause huge sleep deprivation on parents (especially mums).
I asked the question why society teaches us that the main times for food intake should be breakfast, lunch and dinner. Why don’t we just follow what we have all gone through in our first years. It seemed like we were biologically born to consume food every 2 to 3 hours. It seems that society’s expectation is forcefully applied to us as ‘normal’ eating behaviour because that’s just how it has been for centuries. Probably helps us all become better employees when we are older – less time eating, or for breaks and more time devoted to working.
Apparently, great for productivity and the “bottom-line”.
The thing is that the body works more efficiently and effectively with energy pumped in to it regularly and this is where snacks come in.
If you’re like most people and being ‘busy’ and busier than everyone you know, then you would probably only make time to eat three meals – breakfast, lunch and dinner. Whether your goal is fat loss, muscle gain or a combination of the two, the smarter way to get your daily energy intake is to spread them throughout the whole day. It’s the way our bodies are made to work.
We need to work with our body, not against it.
I’ve always told people that body re-engineering or transformation is mainly about hormonal management, through management of raw materials going in ( your body and your mind). Frequency of meals is a key factor to success in your body transformation.
You see, anytime you eat, blood is rushed in to your stomach for digestive aid. If you eat huge meals (as most people do three times per day), your energy and vitality levels get affected and fluctuate. Many people feel intense sleepiness in the office after a big lunch. The more food your body has to process, the more blood it steals from other areas of your body to aid in stomach digestion. The same can be said for digestive enzymes.
Losing blood from other areas of your body could affect your metabolic state and so slow down the distribution of energy within your system (hence the sleepiness feeling after a hearty lunch). This leaves you feeling less sharp and tired you struggle to focus.
Having large meals also triggers a higher insulin response which inhibits fat burning as it alerts the body to desperately store unwanted body fat. So, an answer to reducing your meal sizes is to go back to eating with more frequency just like you did when you were a baby, being luckily breastfed or bottle-fed every 2 hours. You need to eat more often and so increase your meals from 3 to 6.
How do you do this? Simple: eat more smaller, well-compositioned meals.
Try preparing or having at least three snacks ready to eat between your three main meals, spreading your calories throughout the day. On the face of it, it may sound like you will be eating more but spreading out what you eat can actually cause you to eat less. This is what I tell most if not all my clients – “I’ll show you how to eat more to change your body shape … and lose weight”. They then say, “but shouldn’t I be eating less?”
Another mis-perception propagated by the weight-loss industry.
You see eating six to eight smaller, well-compositioned meals instead of three large meals, keeps you blood sugar levels in a good range and does not encourage sudden fluctuations. For your body, this equates to a constant flow of readily available energy which reduces your tendency to eat more.
Eating smaller meals more frequently also allows you to feel fuller, longer and does not encourage you to over-eat in your main meals. More importantly, keeping your blood sugar levels in a good range, does not trigger the hormone – insulin, which when triggered forces your body in to ‘starvation’ mode that encourage fat retention and storage.
The key to body re-engineering and transformation is fundamentally hormonal management.
So, snacks are necessary but when people talk about snacks they think of ‘junk food’. It does not have to be. When possible choose snacks that are a combination of the three macro-nutrient groups: protein, carbohydrates and fats.
Some good examples of:
Protein sources: lean meats including chicken, beef/kangaroo, ham and fish, tofu.
Fat sources: most nuts like almonds, cashews, peanuts and avocado, ricotta cheese
Each snack can combine all three, for example, two pieces of chicken breast (120g) + avocado (30g) + long beans (120g). Keep nuts to 30g or less per snack intake.
So pack your snacks in lunch boxes just as you or your parents did when you were a kid and have it ready to eat at work. It will save you time (waiting in line to get a sandwich) and will help improve your overall sense of vitality throughout the day.
Adding snacks to your life should help you take one step closer to the body you want. Little habits like this, when practised deliberately – daily, over time is where the real miracle is.
A little change within has a greater change – without.
Try this one change in your day. See how you look in two months.
Great sets make great workouts. The more shapely, smooth and safe one’s sets are, the more structurally sound they will be, like good engineering foundation to a building – the better one’s workout will be. Simple right?
Not so fast. Lets break it down.
A great workout needs to transcend ego training. It needs to rise above fear but stay within the safety umbrella. It needs to progressively take you beyond your tolerance levels. Your self-imposed limitations. It must, within the limits of personal experience in the gym and domain knowledge, allow the person to feel what I call the ‘essence’ of each exercise. The aim of a good workout is to gain as much as possible as economically as possible, within a specified time-frame.
A set could be short, right and nice. Some people prefer that.
A set is a little miracle and a critical link to a successful workout. A miracle because of the way it makes you feel, when you do it right and nice. A number of repetitions make up a set. A set in weight training refers to the way we move a weight from somewhere to somewhere else. It metaphorically tells a short story – of what is, of what happens, of who did what and of what is done, when it is done.
All sets have a definite finishing point. It carries a trainee from calmness to acstacy, from being dry to sweaty and pulsating. From nothing to something.
A set in bodybuilding is as critical to a workout as a river is to a whole catchment. Namely, everything. The part serves the whole, it is what the whole comes down to. You see, sets alone or sets of exercises laid out in no particular order may get you sweating and burn calories but does not fit in to an organized pre-designed plan: 2 sets of 10 reps of squats. 45 reps of dead-lifts. Huh? Why? For what purpose? What goal?
Oh, I get it. Sets are part of a story.
I like to think of a workout that a person carries out is a short-story. His/her story through physical expression. Meaning needs to arise. How does meaning arise? It may happen because a suitably experienced personal trainer puts the sets and exercises into an order that allows meaning and purpose. Why do we need meaning/purpose (refer to my previous blog: don’t be a rudderless ship for some insight).
There is in each and every one of us humans, an innate need for story, for storytelling, for relationships between disparate things. For causality. We all like to make sense of and recognise patterns in everything in life, including the performance of sets of exercises in the gym. A set in a workout needs to be structured with the correct number of repetitions, weight, tempo to allow the gym trainee to see and allows us to discover meaning to patterns – and for storing and repeating them in body, mind and spirit for the future.
When you see the interrelationship, when you observe and feel the connection between the set and the workout – it is like pure art. It is like beautiful music. Like sex. What you get is sets performed – simple, compound, complex and compound-complex. Interspersed with rest periods and water/liquid breaks/chat breaks/toilet breaks.
Like sex. Orgasmic, really.
Even when you think you understand the interrelationship between the set and the workout. You don’t. You realize you don’t understand the chemistry and mystery behind it that give meaning because every time you perform each set, keeping all variables constant, the feeling and result is different.
How is that so? One can learn patterns by which this simple-complex system, the set, works. But how you get different results, different effects from the same cause is as mysterious as the soul of a man or woman or the origins of the universe. It comes down to the different mental states people are in at any point in time. A mystery at the best of times.
A set as I like to define it is a “15 to 45 second focused moments”.
People can understand a whole workout program without ever knowing the ‘essence of the exercise’ when performing a set. I have seen this in people who have trained with weights for many, many years. When you perform sets of exercises in the proper manner, you have rhythm and when you do it well enough you not only get meaning but you make music. It is music in motion! Great sets make great workouts.
Great workouts include long and short sets. Long and short ‘focused moments’. Complex and simple and complex-simple.
Workouts of the rich and famous have gotten ridiculously short and everyone seems to be after the shortest workout in our every-increasingly busy, instant gratifying western societies. Workouts that include only short sets for an even shorter workout is to say the least, hypocrisy personified. People want to get all the health benefits of working out but don’t want to put in the work. Everyone wants to know how much less and less they can get away with fewer exercises when the are in the gym.
“Here it is”, an newspaper article or tv broadcaster would say “get the body you want by only spending 5 minutes in the gym once a week”. How ridiculous is this? Do you think Michael Phelps got the results he desired by spending only 5 minutes in the pool? Do you think Tiger Woods got the results he got by spending only 10 minutes out on the golf course? There are many more examples in every field in life. They got that way because they spent countless hours deliberately practicing certain habits within a structured and planned program over many years. Not 5 or 10 minutes!
Well I have news for you. There are many ways to perform a set, and a serious gym enthusiast should employ most of them, if relevant. Just as a golfer would use different golf clubs for different strokes, a gym trainer would use different sets. Some of your sets should be short – yes; some should be long; some may even be what I call a ‘midget-set’ – a sub-set of a set. Each set has a unique tempo to it depending on where they fall in the workout and purpose.
The point is to mix them up.
Mix them up within an overall workout goal and plan. You need meaning and purpose in your workouts to get the most out of them. Mix them up, like an ecosystem or local community, a workout thrives on diversity and mastery of execution. Just like a democratic society.
You see, I have had many, many workouts and have done many, many sets and spent many, many hours in the gym with deliberate practise over the last 23 years or so. One thing struck me as odd and interesting – some workouts took less than twenty minutes and were very short, some took almost all morning. Usually, these long workouts happened because I did not have any particular time set in mind to do them. Instead, I made a conscious choice to take the time. In the shorter workouts, I didn’t take the time. I got lost in the workout, enjoying the highs and lows of each set, sculpturing away.
Each workout still done with pleasure.
Each set and workout had no fixed intrinsic amount of interest. Instead each set and workout were interesting and pleasurable as long as I chose to focus and give my attention to them. Its similar to a surfer being out in the surf or a golfer out on the golf course for hours trying to hit a small ball in little holes. Or a swimmer doing laps in the pool or a person knitting a patterned jumper or a man spending hours servicing his car. Or a tennis player playing tennis. Why do they do it? How long?
Same answer as each of these activities would give – as much time as you care to give it. Not an infinite amount of time, but more time than you first imagined.
So, put away the clock and time-piece and lose yourself in your sets – your workout. “Feel” each repetition of each set of each workout. Make the last rep as good as the first. Give more meaning and purpose to your workouts.
Make music. Allow yourself to make music with motion. Find your rhythm.
Give each type of set a chance – a voice, sometimes without the constraint of time. Give your least favourite exercises a try – an avenue to be heard.
You may just like what you see and feel (and hear).
This is what I call a democratic workout. Try it sometime.
The one thing I know about going anywhere, is firstly, you have got to decide on where it is you’re headed. Usually before you depart. This increases your chances of heading in the general direction of your destination and – getting there!
Knowing where you want to or desire to go is very important in all areas of life – physically, financially, spiritually, relationships etc. The one thing that my successful clients have all got in common is a ‘sense of purpose’ in why they are going through a body re-engineering program and getting help from me.
I work with my clients to put together a picture of how they would realistically see themselves looking like. Once done, I design daily habits to help them achieve their goals, using my framework to body transformation – a Game Plan.
They get critical goal-achieving acts to be performed daily. These were habits that were not fun but necessary to achieving their goals. I differentiated them from acts which were merely tension-relieving and got them to FOCUS on the former. Once I devised the plan to make it happen, they developed the attitude of “I’ll do what’s necessary to get what I want”.
They had purpose.
You see, what I have learned in over 20 years of helping people in the gym is that purpose is the engine that powers our lives. What we’ve all got to do is work at increasing that ‘engine size’, maybe from a 1.8L to a 4L or 6L?
Everyone has purpose, yes. For some it is surf, and others the internet, still others it is to eat, for others it may be just to get through the day and for others still, it is revenge or getting even. In very challenging stages of your life, the response you need – purpose – is the healing portion that enables each of us to face up to adversity and strife. A winning positive mental attitude.
Don’t give up on life when the going gets tough and you’re in a little rutt. Always think that its only temporary. Don’t think that you no longer expect anything from life. Instead, think in the reverse: think that life was expecting something from you. That life is asking of every individual, including you, a contribution and it is up to YOU to discover what it is. What it should be.
Someone really wise once said:
“Where there is life, there is hope.” “Where there are hopes, there are dreams.” “Where there are vivid dreams, repeated, they become goals.”
So true.
These goals then turn in to action plans and game plans – life plans. When these goals are connected to the heart, when it becomes an inner commitment, the achievement of the goals is almost automatic.
I see that with everyone I have successfully helped – it means something to them, your goals has got to mean something to you, too, in whichever area of life it may be.
This is one of the critical reasons for over 80% of my clients who have achieved their body transformation goals. They had their heart in it and realised their desires through the game plan I set for them and worked the plan. This is critical – working the plan!
As the saying goes, if you fail to plan, by default, you plan to fail.
What kind of goals are you committed to?
Have you asked yourself “what do I stand for?”. What would I defend to the end? What would I want people to say about me when I am gone? What do you want your children to tell their children about you?
It seems that for many people, millions of people – getting through the day is their -goal and getting to the ‘end of the week’. You hear radio announcers re-iterating this pathetic line, tv hosts reminding you of the ‘slug’ of the ‘daily grind’. What a load of you know what!
Setting such goals results in people generating just enough energy and initiative to get through the day. Their goal is to watch television – soap operas by day, game of chance shows in the evening, cops and robbers, home renovation shows and situation comedies by night – seemingly having no goals of their own. They sit in a semi-stupor night after night with tunnel vision and watch TV actors and actresses enjoying themselves earning money, pursuing their careers and their goals.
Do you go to work everyday waiting to see what happens? And do you spend all your time making someone else’s goals come true?
Purpose, my friend – purpose.
Do you know where you are going in your life? Do you really know? If you do, then, I would say that you would be in the less than 5% of human beings who do. Congratulations!
The vast majority however, I would say, sadly, do not. Like a ship with no rudder, left to the changing tides of the sea of life, with increased risks of getting no where or possibly getting ship-wrecked.
Aim to be one of the 5% if you’re not there already.
Start by setting lifetime goals and then breaking them into bite-size chunks for 1 year or 5 years, a 6 month or just a season project. Once set, spend more time on high-priority goal-achieving activities, daily. Just like my clients who successfully got the body they desired, they stuck to the game-plan through deliberate practise of daily habits.
Most people spend more time planning a party, studying the newspaper or news and/or making a Christmas list, than they do planning their lives.
Don’t be one of the 95%.
Find your purpose – your life direction.
Take the time and exercise the discipline to decide on your destination and to chart a course. Captain your ship through life with proper sails and rudders and accomplish more in a few years than most would accomplish in a lifetime. Just like my clients accomplish in a few months what many gym enthusiasts fail to achieve in years.
How?
The 5% of human beings that have done it have developed their game plan for LIFE.
Find your superpowers. Know your superpowers. Work to your superpowers (strengths)
Stereotypical mis-perception.
A common mis-perception prevalent in today’s society of a person lifting weights in the gym is a steroid-buffed buffoon who hogs all the lifting machines. He (or she) grunts like a pig so loud lifting gigantic weights – a maverick risk-taker with a highly inflated view of their own self-worth.
Women and some men are still petrified about this even in today’s modern world and so they steer clear of the weights room. Very sad indeed. The consequence of this is that many people don’t believe they have what it takes to start and stick to a weight-training program because they’re not like that stereotypical mis-perception.
My family gym was for everyone – from all walks of life, from all backgrounds, all races and ranged in age from teens to 90 year olds. Everyone abided by ‘old-fashioned value’ – respect, patience, care, compassion, trust, tolerance etc Here I am with one of my blind members (and her guide dog) who visited my gym 3 days per week for 7 years. Many other gyms descriminated against handicapped population. Not mine. My gym was an ALL inclusive Family Gym.
Take this supplement/drug and you can look like me.
Now, I am not saying that such gym-goers don’t exist, they do, but they are the minority. They have their place in the health and fitness industry. They are great for the supplement and drug industries. “Take this supplement/drug and you can look like me” sells. Its big money.
I can tell you that in my 20 plus years of training in gyms, the only people I have met like that are few and far between, mainly in magazines and some tv and big screen movies starring the one and only Arnold Schwarzenegger. The majority of people now don’t look like that.
One of my good old friends at the gym
Real Gym enthusiasts.
Real gym enthusiasts are real people just like you. Mums and dads and brothers and sisters and uncles and aunties. The only difference between them and the majority of people who do nothing or just go for aerobics classes is that they have, for one reason or another, decided to lift weights.
There is no qualification process, no entry requirements – just a decision to go to a gym, followed by action.
However, there are certain qualities that successful body sculpturers/builders/gym goers tend to have. Fortunately, they’re not uncommon and all of them can be learned.
Friends that workout together … stay together? Some of the family of gym members that called my gym ….. our gym .. their gym. Lovely people in a lovely phase of life.
Main Traits.
After 23 years and counting, here are the main traits that all good gym enthusiasts have as I see it:
1. Determination – above all else you need to have the stamina and drive to finish what you start and the desire to look a certain way – either for you or for your loved ones. However, I am just guessing here, I would say that for every 100 people who sign up to a gym, I reckon, 95 lose hope and belief in themselves and where they are going within the first 3 months of starting. Hey, a good example is those who start something as part of their New Year’s Resolution. Are you one of them?
2. Humility – not a quality you associate with a regular gym-trainer, is it? I say this because of the awareness the person needs to have to be able to accept that he/she is not perfect and that he is doing something about it. He/she is going to the gym to help make themselves closer to what they imagine themselves to be in the mirror. A better version of themselves and being their best for themselves, and for others.
Its means being honest with yourself and accepting that you don’t know everything. Its knowing that you don’t know much about body re-engineering and managing your risk levels, bringing them down to an acceptable level. You could either try seeking help from a trained professional or doing your research on your own and taking on all the associated risks if you decide to train on your own.
You’ll also have to be a person who likely has a mind open to learning new things, in a field that is not your strong point, every single day. But remember: arrogance is an injury waiting to happen and a workout killer!
3. Decisiveness– nothing gets done unless you make decisions. We all agree on that. Building and re-engineering a physique, a new improved physical version of yourself is a repeated process of action through a structured program, deduction through pattern recognition of observations made (how much weight, reps, rest times, energy etc), information gathering, feedback, followed by decision-making.
If you’re taking this journey on your own, you take responsibility for your own decisions and once you do this, you take control of your physique transformation and not blame anyone or any external factor. If you’re a beginner and smart enough to seek out an experienced professional, even better.
One of the highest risks is getting injured. Believe me, after 23 years of gym training I have been made aware of preventable injuries unfortunately suffered by many gym goers.
4. An analytical mind– you need to be able to evaluate every aspect of your workout, at every stage of your development. You must analyse whether things are working as they should and how you need to improve them. There are a lot variables – reps, sets, rest times, tempo, breathing and execution techniques etc. The list goes on. The best trainers/coaches have minds that think laterally and are not afraid to change workouts to adapt to the person being trained.
My Family of friends in my gym I owned and managed for 7 years. All working towards being the ‘best the can be’
the right time in your life.
Ask yourself if this is the right time in your life to undergo a physical transformation for the better. Say for example, you’re in your mid-50s and you have been thinking about reducing your waist line so as to lower your ‘life risk’ such as increased risks of heart-related ailments.
Is it something you have been thinking about for such a long time and have not done anything about? Stop looking for excuses and the situation you’re in, simply be honest with yourself and ask yourself “are you ready?”
Gym Extended Family Members enjoying a day of Lawn Bowls. We had some great lawn bowls events over the 7 years.
It is never too late to start.
It is never too late to start. I have helped hundreds of people get started, people of all ages including many in their 50s, 60s, 70s and even 80+ year olds. Their quality of life improves out of sight and they breathe vitality – the essence of life, back in themselves.
Recently, after achieving his original physical goals and more, a 72 year old client of mine said that the five months he spent with me was the best investment he had made in his life – and he would know as he spent a big part of his life investing in large property deals in his line of business.
He was a brave man, open-minded and determined enough to not only desire a better way to live his life but also adopt and adapt daily habitual changes that would help him get the desired results in the short-term but also for the next 30 years or so.
Collage of some bodybuilding poses .. presenting my physique art to the audience in my gym
Start a strength, health & fitness program.
So, start a strength, health and fitness program. Even if you’re not, take a leap of faith and believe in yourself, believe that you can do it. Like I have said in earlier blogs, it may not only add years to your life but also life in your years. It does not matter what age you start or how out of condition you are – just start. Your life depends on it!
The sad truth is I would think that probably over 95% of gym goers stop going after a few months of starting, but that means that 5% continue and do succeed. You need to ensure you’re in the successful 5%. Adopting the four traits I have listed above and a ‘can-do attitude’ is what it takes.
How can you increase your chances of success in your program? Do yourself a favour: find yourself a trainer/coach that gives results – WITH CARE. This may not only be the best thing to get you started but also stay on track until you build up enough momentum to keep going on your own, progressing with safety.
I love listening to stories that people share. Everyone has a story in them. I have heard many stories from the hundreds of people that I have had the opportunity to help over the years. This blog is one such story.
A courageous story of finding the strength within and overcoming fear and the journey towards a better quality life. A few years ago, a member of my gym asked if I could get his wife to come and see me about ‘fixing’ her back. She had been suffering for about 20 years. He was very happy with the success he was getting in one of my programs and he asked me to call his wife as he had failed to persuade her to come see me. I did something a little different. I wrote her a little message on my business card saying “please come in and tell me your story”. I gave her a date and time.
To my surprise she turned up.
Typical of a lot of women, she was a little scared of gyms with a view that it was a place only for men, people who wanted to put on huge muscles and was an unfriendly, male-dominated domain that was not welcoming to women. I knew it was difficult because she had a belief fueled by mis-perceptions.
We sat down and I listened to her story to that point in her life. She had suffered from excruciating back pain and had been in and out of many different professionals for almost 20 years. Visits alleviated pain temporarily but her quality of life had been hampered by the pain and was slowly deteriorating. Her whole family suffered with her too. I discussed my philosophy to training and the framework I would use to help her. I asked her to give me 3 weeks of her life. She needed to see me for half an hour twice a week. A total of 6 visits.
She hesitantly agreed.
She had demonstrated a great deal of courage, just to consider trying something different but also something she truly feared: being in the gym. At this point in her life, she had tried almost everything and nothing was working and she desperately needed a better result. A pain-free existence.
My objective was to help her experience a better quality life, a life without daily back pain and life she could only dream about. I had less than 3 weeks to produce a result. A miracle, but I could not do it without her help. She faced a challenge and I reassured her that we would face it together. The first thing I needed her to do was to stop naming and talking about her pain. This would stop giving them power over her – sucking away at her life through her attention and fear of them.
I got her to imagine the end result (pain-free existence) and feel its reality. I needed her to change her belief and managed to convince her that “according to your belief, is it done unto you”. I then got her to tie this new belief mentally and emotionally within her being. With this renewed belief in herself, my program and me, we went to work. She got to do things that she had been advised not to do for almost two decades.
Let me give you an example: She was afraid to bend and reach for her toes and had the belief that it would make her back problem worse. She did things in the gym with me in her first week that she had feared. By the end of the second week, she told me that the pain in her back was gone. I expected it but not that soon. In the third week, her two teenage children attending university came in to the gym to personally thank me for what I was doing with their mum. It was the first time in their lives that they did not hear their mum complain of her back being sore. They had seen and heard her suffer in pain all their life. Every single day!
I was touched.
I told them the real miracle was that their mum was prepared to do the things she was afraid to do. The healing power was brought about by a changed mental attitude. She essentially cured herself with a little help from me. As I had been there before, I was only a tour-guide but she did the work and journey all on her own. The real courage she demonstrated was the open-mindedness and flexibility to adopt a new way of thinking and acting. That was my true challenge, not the weight-training part.
To cut a long story short, this lady who was afraid of even bending down to just touch her ankles went on to not only do it but she also ended up being the strongest woman in my gym. She dead-lifted 140kgs for 6 reps on a good day. And she was in her mid-50s with no prior training experience. She remained pain-free for the entire time she trained with me – over two years! She got her life back. Her quality of life improved greatly.
When I think back about her miraculous transformation, I knew from the time I first met her that she was a naturally strong woman but she had lost her faith in herself. Her belief in her own inner-strength. This is an example of the many little miracles that I have seen people produce, in their own little way. In their lives – changing their lives and changing the lives of others. Just like the many others, she was empowered. She was back in control.
The law of life is belief.
All religions of the world represent forms of belief and these beliefs are explained in many ways. This client of mine went from thinking why she was getting certain results to asking herself how she was creating the pain she was experiencing in her life. She tried to understand how her beliefs and philosophy generated what happened in her life and to cease to continue believing what did not serve her. I got her to shift her focus consciously and intentionally to what she did want (pain-free back).
She did it.
You too, can achieve your own miracles. Little miracles happen everyday and its all around us. What you focus on is the KEY to everything! For any outcome, whether internal or external, there’s a certain way of thinking and acting that will get it for you. Its like weight-training, if you want strength, you need to train a certain way, if power is goal, then a different way of training is necessary to achieve the goal desired. There is a different path for different goals.
Your task is to find this new way of Thinking and Acting. You then have to be flexible enough to adopt the way of thinking and acting that will get you there. Finding that new way is the easy part. The difficult part is the applying and adapting.
My tip to you: watch “inside” to manage “outside”. There is a saying that goes “it is done unto you as you believe”. What do you believe about yourself, life and the universe? What is the belief of your mind or put simply, what is the thought of your mind?
All your experiences, all your actions, and all events and circumstances of your life are but the reflections and reactions to your own thought in your thought factory.
Changing lives. Empowering people. One life at a time. 
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