Archive for the ‘Health and Fitness’ Category

I’ve known about Brad Pilon’s work for a while. He’s the fellow behind Strength Works, a Canadian-based fitness company and the weight-loss component he developed is a carefully designed and very flexible variation of intermittent fasting. It’s called Eat Stop Eat and you can find out about it HERE.

Anyway, Brad wrote a neat article recently and is allowing me to reprint it so here it is:

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Have you ever stopped to take an inventory of all the things you currently do for weight loss, fitness, nutrition and your health in general? If you do you’ll quickly find out what you’re doing for your body that is working and what you’re doing that might not be working so well.

You might be following a regular workout routine, and have some nutrition guidelines like ‘never drink calories’ or ‘always choose the low fat version’. But if you honestly take a really good look at everything you’re doing, can you honestly say which things are working and which things aren’t?

And specifically what is working for weight loss?

Weight loss seems to be more of a mental battle than a physical one. Sure there are some hunger cravings to deal with every now and then, but 90% of the battle is in your mind. If you can win the battle in your mind you can also win the battle around your waist – or butt – or wherever you store your fat.

The most important thing you can ever do to lose weight is to re-program the way you think to believe that not only is weight loss possible, but that it’s possible for YOU. Whatever thoughts you hold in your mind will become reality regardless if they are positive or negative.

I can best explain what I am talking about with a ‘Profound Statement’:

“Our Brains become magnetized with the dominating thoughts that we hold in our minds. And, by means which no man is familiar, these magnets attract us to the forces, the people, the circumstances of life which harmonize with the nature of our dominating thoughts” *

This is a quote from Napoleon Hill, and it explains EXACTLY what I’m talking about.

Because if you bend and twist this quote, you get this:

It is up to YOU to choose to believe that you DESERVE to lose weight.

And you can’t wait, not even another day. You need to choose to believe RIGHT NOW! Every day that goes by that you don’t take action, is a day that you learn to accept that you DO NOT DESERVE to lose weight. And if you don’t believe you deserve it, it’s never going to happen.

Positive thoughts alone will NOT create weight loss. You can’t ‘wish yourself thin’. You need a plan

And Eat Stop Eat is that plan.

Eat Stop Eat is a PERFECT map that lays out EVERYTHING you need to do to lose weight while maintaining your muscle mass.

And it’s much simpler than you probably think. It is not complex nor is it confusing.

Everything that you need to do (and everything you don’t) is clearly laid out for you.

But it’s up to YOU.

Everything you need is RIGHT HERE in Eat Stop Eat. It’s completely up to you to take action, TODAY.

So Eat Stop Eat is a belief that you deserve to lose weight, AND it’s the plan to help you get there, but if it were just a plan, it would be an average book at best. It will open your eyes to just how simple weight loss can be, and how you can lose weight without totally complicating your life. There is nothing preventing you from losing weight besides your own mind…

…And it’s time to change your mind.

Get Eat Stop Eat, change your mind and start losing weight today.

Your friend,
Brad

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Brad’s partner, John wrote an ebook about the different diet and weight loss approaches. I’ve just added it to the list of free gifts available to those who join Success Strategies. So if you’ve already a member, go back to the gifts page and pick it up. If you haven’t joined yet, look up at the upper right corner of the site – there’s a ‘Join Us’ box up there – lots of cool free information available once you’ve joined and confirmed.

All the Best
Al Vigoda

I spend a lot of time searching for and evaluating learning opportunities in the self help and self development fields. Looking for strategies to success, obviously. When I find good ones, I create a post, and sometimes an email or two, and let the folks who are connected to Success Strategies, either through successstrats.com or through the email list – or both – know about them. Sometimes they’re no cost resources. Sometimes there’s a charge. Sometimes I receive compensation when people buy. That’s business on the internet!

I have a pretty good network and I usually hear about things before they’re launched. But somehow I missed this one. And it’s being presented by a team I’ve worked with before, so how it slid by without attracting my attention, I just don’t know. Sorry!

Anyway, the Wellness Revolution has begun. But it’s not too late to get involved. And – amazingly enough – you can do that at no cost!

This is a great opportunity – a high-powered teleseminar with some of the biggest names in the exploding area of complementary medicine. Complementary medicine is the new combination of traditional medical practice with homeopathic/holistic health and healing. The presenters include New York Times bestselling authors like Dr. Christine Northrup, Dr. Bernie Siegel, Dr. David Simon and world-famous healers like Dr. Sue Morter, David Wolfe, Dr. Alex Loyd and over a dozen others – 21 leading international doctors, researchers, authors and health practitioners in all. You need to be a part of this with me. It won’t cost you a dime and you’ll even get f.r.e.e. gifts just for registering. So click HERE, sign up and pick up your gifts. The life that gets healed may be your own!

The first session was last Wednesday but don’t worry – The Wellness Revolution is a 21 day series (all at no cost) by the worlds greatest minds in achieving optimal health. No matter what your current health status is right now, what if one conversation changed everything for you, or someone you love? What if one conversation turned the key to lasting health by providing information you won’t find anywhere else? What if one tip you hear suddenly reveals the key to healing you’ve been looking for? Isn’t that worth a listen? Click HERE.

As of now, there are still a limited number of spots for the live calls, where you can send your questions directly to these leading doctors and healers while they are on the air. The Wellness Revolution team have made it very easy to access these calls at your convenience by keeping them available for 24 hours after they start – meaning you can dial in when the time is right for you. Unfortunately, you’ve already missed Dr. Christiane Northrup,sharing “Women’s Body, Women’s Wisdom: Creating Physical and Emotional Healing”. Checkout the rest of the speakers and make sure to sign up NOW to secure your spot.

Hey – did I mention that you will INSTANTLY receive a free audio gift (worth $97) when you register HERE? Oh. Thought I had!

All the Best
Al Vigoda

 I’ve talked about Carolyn Hansen’s great fitness and weight loss books plenty of times on this site.  See Use The Fire Within You To Lose Weight, for example.  I talk about Craig’s Turbulence Training probably too much (see Craig’s Six Upper Body Ab Exercises  – that was just last week!) and Craig Put This Together Just For You!, too.

 Carolyn has teamed up with Dr. Joe Rubino (yep – I’ve talked about him, too.  Check THIS out)  to create an amazing self-improvement resource event.  A huge self-help giveaway.  It starts Saturday and they won’t let me release the website address until Friday, so if you want to get this info as soon as it’s available, you’ll have to sign up as a Success Strategies member (see the top right hand corner – where it says Join Us in Success).  I’ll also post the info on this page as an ‘update’ – but you’ll get it faster if you sign up.

 I’ve contributed my new, 100 page ebook, Living the Optimal Life, to this event.  For those who bought it when it came out in February – sorry!  What can I say?  Carolyn twisted my arm.  She can be VVEERRYY convincing.  If you didn’t buy it, you’ll get it free if you join Success Strategies – along with a bunch of other free gifts.  So sign up, already!

 If you need more encouragement, sign up (if you haven’t already) to get the news as soon as it comes out.  Or check back on Saturday – the link will be posted right here: Updated Saturday: CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP!

As for Craig Ballentyne, he’s just producing too much stuff too fast for me to keep up with anymore.  Now he’s got a new book on Interval Training – and why it’s better than straight-up cardio for fitness and weight loss.  And, being Craig, he’s letting his friends give it away.  Quite the guy!

 So click RIGHT HERE and download your free ebook from Craig.

All the Best,

Al Vigoda

Craig Ballantyne, The Turbulence Training guy, sent me this email as part of a big sale he was having in the middle of May. Well, the big sale is over (it was a good sale but I posted about Craig’s last sale in April at Craig Put This Together Just For You and that was just a couple of weeks before this new sale, so it felt kinda overly commercial and agressively BUY-BUY-BUY to promote his great DVDs again so soon) but these exercises are really good, so I thought I’d share them with you anyway.

And the DVDs are great even without the big sale, so you can buy them HERE if you want to!

OK. Here’s Craig:

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The thought of having to do an additional 20-30 minutes of abdominal work after a regular workout can sometimes be enough for you to skip the ab training altogether. But, with these six upper body exercises, you’ll gain all the benefits and more of a regular ab workout, without the extra time. This 15-minute upper body workout will not only build your arms, your chest, and your back, but every one of these exercises is also going to work your abdominals. This workout will include 6 exercises, but they will be broken down into 3 supersets at 5 minutes each.

The first superset will pair chin-ups with spiderman pushups. Now, just because these aren’t specific abdominal exercises don’t think your abs will walk away unscathed. I remember training a client before and a couple of days after doing the chinup exercise she commented how shocked she was that her abs were so sore.

With proper form, the chin-up exercise can very powerfully target your abs.

For proper form, begin in the dead hang position. Now, keeping your body tight, brace your abs and pull your body up and chin over the bar, then in a controlled fashion, lower your body down. You will noticeably feel this exercise working your lats and your biceps.

Perform enough repetitions to take you to one short of failure. For example, if you can do 15 repetitions, then only do 14 and so on.

After the chin-up exercise, you will move into the spiderman pushup. In this exercise, you will get into a regular pushup position, and then as you come down bring your knee up to your elbow and back down. Alternate sides.

As previously noted, each superset pairing will be done in five minute intervals. Once finished with the first superset, move onto the next upper body combination of one-arm standing dumbbell shoulder press and heavy weighted dumbbell rows.

For the one-armed shoulder press exercise, place the dumbbell at shoulder height with your palm facing outward. Next, brace your abs and place your opposite hand on your side to ensure your obliques are working while pressing up with the dumbbell. Do eight repetitions for one side, and then switch to the other side.

Immediately after completing your repetitions for the shoulder press, move to dumbbell rows. This time you will choose a weight you can normally do 10 times, but now try to get 12 repetitions. However, be sure to use only good form.

By keeping your body and back in a straight position, you will end up working your abdominals very hard, especially as you get closer to failure and your obliques work against rotation. If you find that you need to take a 5-10 second rest after ten repetitions in order to use perfect form for the remaining two, then do that.

Again, you will do this superset for five minutes going back and forth between these two exercises.

To finish off the 15-minute workout, you’ll do two arm exercises that simultaneously work your abdominals. The first exercise is the lying dumbbell triceps extension. Now, in order to get a good ab workout from this exercise, when you’re at the bottom position, drop a little more and you stretch your abs. Then, bring the dumbbells back up overhead and repeat.

That little extra stretch at the bottom of the exercise will really work your abdominals to give you that six pack abs look, much like the stability ball rollout when you stretch out at the end of that exercise.

The final exercise is the one-armed standing dumbbell curl. For this exercise you want to begin in a braced position. Since you will be using a heavy weight, your abs will have to work very hard throughout this exercise. To get in proper position, if your right arm is working, then your left leg will be in front. You can do this exercise for 6-8 repetitions per side.

That’s the 15-minute upper body workout that will work your abs just as hard if not harder than any ab crunching workout you could possibly do.

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Wow. My abs ache just reading about this routine. Can’t wait to actually do it!

Check out more about Craig’s Turbulence Training programs HERE and check out the DVD set (21 workouts – plus some great bonuses!) HERE.

All the Best,
Al Vigoda