PJ's Fitness Blog » Mental programming

7 Steps to Blasting Fat Forever

admin — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 02:46:35 +0000

Burn Fat Through Your Posture

admin — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 18:38:51 +0000

How would you like to burn more fat off your body just by changing your posture? Sounds too easy to be true, right? Well, it is probably the easiest way to burn fat I know of, but it is also true. You just have to know how and to understand why.

We have known for years now that testosterone (yes, women have it too) burns fat and cortisol stores fat. Those who have higher testosterone seem to be able to practically “wish” fat off their body, but those with high cortisol can’t seem to lose fat to save their life ( quite literally).

So if the object is to raise testosterone and reduce cortisol, how is that done? There are lots of ways, but for the purpose of this post, I’ll talk about the easiest way and that is changing your posture. If you stand up straight with your chest out, arms open, face smiling and chin up, you will both increase your testosterone and reduce your cortisol. If on the other hand, you crunch up, fold your arms, frown and assume a fearful or depressed posture, you will reduce your testosterone and increase your cortisol.

This can be done anytime, anywhere. It can be done sitting down too. In fact, most people who spend their days in front of a computer assume the fat-storing slouching position. They do this watching TV too. This posture, along with the fact that computer and TV screens affect our brain waves and put us in a metabolic dive, is a disastrous combination.

Try it for a week. Even if you don’t feel like doing it, do it anyway. Force yourself. Faking it still works!

Need more convincing? Check out this video:

Raw Brahs Retreat!

admin — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 16:10:10 +0000

What’s a Raw Brahs retreat and why am I blogging about it? Well, I’m glad you asked. It’s about an incredible weekend, designed to focus on yourself and transform yourself through learning the ultimate best ways to eat, live, be real, get fit, get healthy, and be raw!

By being raw, I don’t mean “in the raw,” A.K.A “naked,” but I do kind of mean that in a sense, because you will want to be naked in two ways:

First, you will want to be naked on the inside because you will learn how to finally bare your soul and not worry about being judged anymore or concerned about what other people think about you.

Have you ever envied people who you can tell are being radically honest and open, without anything to hide? They are totally relaxed in being who they are and the normal fears, masks and anxieties so common to everyday life are just not there. Those people are magnetic, aren’t they? They attract others to them because those around them want what they have. Life seems effortless to them in so many ways – and it is. Wouldn’t it be great to learn how to be one of those people?

Second, you will actually want to be naked on he outside more too, not during the retreat (please), but after you learn how to eat, live, release toxic baggage and exercise smarter. Once you put all that into practice and finally achieve the results you want, both inside and outside, you will feel and look amazing and will want to be naked more because of how excited and confident you are about your new and improved birthday suit.

How will this all happen? Well, thanks to the Raw Brahs talent of getting the right people together at the right time, they have assembled an amazing group of people to facilitate you in this transformation. Here is more information on this team of powerful, effective, raw and real instructors the Raw Brahs have assembled who will be guiding you through your transformation process.

RawBrahs - Inspiration for Your Transformation ~ Edutainment for Fitness, Food, & Fun ~ Expect Nothing, Experience Everything!

No one makes living a healthy holistic adventurous lifestyle look more fun or attractive than the RawBrahs, three super energetic brothers who are racking up fans on Youtube & Facebook with their zany raw lifestyle antics and stunts. Describing themselves as “solar-powered radically honest raw food enthusiasts” on a mission to connect all their brahs & sistas to our Father God & Mother Earth, Nathanael, Timothy (T-Mango), and Daniel (Danimal) have unleashed their killer abs and wild raw food skits on audiences who had no idea that living healthy can be such an adventure.

www.youtube.com/RawBrahs www.facebook.com/RawBrahs www.RawBrahs.com

There are no forms of “edutainment” that are better able to captivate & inspire this audience than these three paradigm-shifting brothers. They strategically use the simple concept of going back to the basics of health by inspiring viewers to drink fresh water, get fresh air & sunlight, eat local organic produce, practice functional fitness in nature, have a strong spiritual connection, and so on. They convey their entrepreneurial free spirits via a clever artistic twist of low budget video production with awesome music which they offer for free through YouTube to anyone in the pursuit to spark social & environmental justice. They are notably known for not only promoting organic, fair trade, local food, but making it seem so tasty, fun, & easy that children under 5 can do it.

Paul Risse from PaulRise.com & CleanseAmerica.com

A son of this nation and a child of God, Paul Risse began his journey with raw foods in Santa Monica, CA where he was a personal trainer for “ABC’s Extreme Makeover” through Body Makeover System. He was also a menu director, life coach, personal trainer and speaker for Loews Santa Monica Hotel and Spa through Body Makeover System’s spa retreat.

The next part of his journey took him to San Angelo, TX to be in his daughter, Kalee’s, life more consistently. In San Angelo Paul worked as a personal trainer and speaker for Community Medical Center. He became a certified raw chef and embraced living off the grid and eating a 100% raw foods diet.

Paul’s next move took him to Austin, TX where he continued his raw food journey by helping open Austin’s first raw food cafe, Daily Juice Cafe, and doing rep work for Rhythm Superfoods.

Stephenville, TX is where Paul’s home base is now. Paul partnered with Barefoot Market to create Stephenville’s first raw food, smoothie, and juice bar. Paul was called to start Cleanse Stephenville, which proved a tremendous success in transforming people’s lives and creating a strong community.

Paul’s next step is to inspire 1,000,000 Americans to do a 10 day cleanse through Cleanse America!!! Where this will take him with his free spirit lifestyle, only God knows, but the excitement and anticipation is palpable for sure.

Perzan Irani from Authentic Evolution Inc. received his bachelor’s degree from Emory University graduating with highest distinction in the top 5% of his class. He would later study psychology and existentialism at Columbia University in the City of New York while serving as a consultant to corporations, government, and the media. He was trained in Radical Honesty and Gestalt Therapy by Brad Blanton, Ph.D., author of the bestselling book Radical Honesty, eventually becoming a Radical Honesty™ coach and trainer.

He was trained in meditation and yoga science directly from Ram Lev, founder of The American Meditation Institute. While on a journey of personal transformation he studied Zen Buddhism and Eastern Philosophy at the Zen Mountain Monastery in the Catskill Mountains.

He has also graduated from Landmark Education’s The Forum and The Advanced Course, Art of Living’s Part I, Part II, and DSN Retreats, The Communication Workshop, The 8-Day Curse in Honesty, David DeAngelo/Eben Pagan’s programs: Advanced Dating Techniques, On Being A Man, Man Transformation, Become Mr. Right, Cocky Comedy, Body Language, and many other trainings.

Perzan currently lives in New York City and runs 2 ½ day intensive live programs for the educational organization Authentic Evolution Inc. (http://www.facebook.com/AuthenticEvolution). He also co-leads weeklong wellbeing retreats in Costa Rica several times a year with the health group known as the RawBrahs. In addition, he leads the Confidence Unchained Weekend Transformation Event for the company The Professional Wingman.

Winner of the Cambridge Who’s Who Award for Professionals and a 10-year veteran of the Human Potential Movement, Perzan is an acknowledged expert on interpersonal relations specializing in individuals, groups, and couples.

Using an eclectic approach that focuses on authenticity, Perzan has worked directly with hundreds of people in facilitating them to put their best foot forward. All the time.

PJ Glassey is an author, speaker, workout DVD creator, X Gym owner, Jesus freak, raw food enthusiast, brain trainer, yada yada yada. If you are a regular of my blog, you know me. If you aren’t, then click the “Meet PJ” tab at the top of this page to learn more. At this retreat I’ll be teaching my unique high intensity exercise methods designed to double your results in less than 1/4 the time of traditional methods with a higher level of safety than you ever though possible.

________________________________________________

So how about it? How much is it worth to you for a complete and permanent transformation? Is it finally time for a radical personal paradigm shift? If you are perfectly content with your personal, spiritual and physical life, then keep doing what you are doing, but if you would like to improve any part of that, this is the retreat for you!

Here are the details:

When: August 9-12

Where: Seattle, WA

How much: Your $1000 investment in yourself includes room, board, training, instruction and transformation!

Why: To reboot and upgrade to the person you always wanted to be!

To sign up, just email RawBrahs@gmail.com to grab your slot before they all fill up!

Lose Your Belly, Expand Your Brain

admin — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 19:06:31 +0000

How would you like to lose your belly and expand your brain at the same time?

A new study has revealed that meditation may enhance key structures in the brain responsible for learning, memory, and emotion control. This adds gray matter, but also reduces the belly due to an increase in willpower and a resulting improved ability to resist cravings normally caused by emotional eating.

One of the key structures referred to above is a part in the front of the brain called the prefrontal cortex (PFC). I have talked about this part of the brain before in older posts, because it is vital to your ability to control emotional eating and your ability to stop eating when you should. The PFC is the part of the brain that is used for:

Executive decision making, like the CEO of a company. An example of this is knowing when to stop eating and deciding which foods to buy at the supermarket and which foods to leave on the shelf. Properly assessing risk/reward is another important ability that falls within this category.
Forethought, like the founder and chairman of a company. This involves planning ahead for food the next day, scheduling workouts, setting goals, seeing the end result in the future, visualizing success, etc.
Willpower, like the vice president of a company. This is the part that carries out the executive decisions and follows through on the planning of forethought.

The PFC develops differently in everyone, but can be matured and honed through proper brain training techniques. We all start out life without much PFC development at all. That’s why kids do such “stupid” things and can’t seem to think past their noses sometimes. Brain development starts in the back of the brain and moves forward as we age. We get impatient with kids sometimes because we measure them by how we are now, as adults and we forget we were just like them when we were that age.

Girls finish brain development faster than boys. That’s why boys’ car insurance rates are higher until they are 25 year old. Insurance companies know that on average, most boys have a more developed PFC by then, which means they are ramping down their idiotic activities significantly. The whole brain is constantly developing our entire life by the way (if we treat it right), and brain training is a sure fire way for anyone, no matter what stage they are in, to speed that process up.

For those of us who are adults and have a more developed PFC, Meditation is a vital skill to learn. Meditation is great for kids too. It’s just a challenge to get them to do it because as you saw from the bullet points above, it’s hard for them to appreciate the benefits enough to do it without having a well developed PFC already. Kind of an unfortunate catch-22. Meditation clears out space in the PFC so it can operate properly. Meditation also develops and matures the PFC and other parts of the brain by laying down more gray matter. That makes you smarter too.

The best way I have found to meditate is through breathing properly and intense focus on certain words that take my brain to the place it needs to be – namely, good thoughts and feelings. The words I use are found in Philippians 4:8. In fact, the whole chapter is a brilliant example of cognitive physiology designed to put the brain in the optimal state for change and improvement.

Proper breathing is easy. It’s just basically relaxation breathing. Here’s how: First, I sit or lay down and find a relaxed state and position. Then I breathe in to 3 seconds, hold for one seconds and breathe out to 3 seconds. When I breathe out, I whisper one of the words in Philippians 4:8. I continue this until I feel relaxed and peaceful. Somedays that takes me 3 minutes, other days it takes up to 5 minutes, but it’s always worth it because when I’m done, I’m thinking clearly, I have a renewed attitude, all the willpower I need, and

By the way, I want to explain what having enough willpower feels like. Most people see it as having self control and being able to soldier through struggles, working hard at overcoming temptations and expending all sorts of energy to do the right thing. This isn’t what having willpower feels like at all. Those feelings means you have run out, your PFC is full and you are fighting an uphill battle. What having willpower feels like (and a clear PFC), is the ability to see things clearly without effort. It means being able to make the right decisions easily. It means having the ability to see your end goal effortlessly. Having a clear PFC and having willpower makes things easy and effortless, instead of giving you more mental muscle to fight that uphill battle. You know you have properly tapped into your willpower when the battle goes away.

Lastly, the best time to meditate is in the afternoon or evening, when you feel like “rewarding” yourself with that comfort food or dessert. The reason you feel this way more often in the latter part of the day than the morning is because your PFC has been progressively filling up with stuff through the day. Stress (good and bad), decisions, lists, to do’s, etc. all pile up in your PFC as the day goes on. Meditation is a way to empty back out some space up there. Your subconscious does a good job of that too while you sleep, so that is why you feel more willpower in the morning. This is also why you should be sure to get enough quality sleep. More on that in a previous post.

Try meditation today to expand your mind and lose your belly. It’s easy, it’s quick, and it works!

Givers are Stronger

admin — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 05:55:18 +0000

Tis the season to give indeed, but did you know that this act can also help your workout? Scientists have discovered that your endurance will increase about 20%, right after doing something nice for someone.

Scientists looked at whether doing good deeds affects willpower and physical endurance. Volunteers were given a dollar and told to keep it or donate it to charity. The decision made, they were asked to hold a weight for as long as they could. To the surprise of the Harvard University researchers, those who had done a good deed were able to bear the load for almost ten seconds longer than the others.

In a 2006 study, Jorge Moll and colleagues at the National Institutes of Health found that when people give to charities, it activates regions of the brain associated with pleasure, social connection, and trust. The altruistic behavior releases endorphins in the brain, producing the positive feeling known as the “helper’s high.” This is why I tell competitive stairclimb racers that if they are being passed in the stairwell, they should pat the person on the back who is passing them and say things like, “Great job!” or “Strong work!” It helps the person passing them, but it helps the person doing the encouraging even more.

The same can be said for when the faster climber is doing the passing. I always encourage those I pass and give them a pat on the back too. It may seem like an energy waste to talk to the slower/faster climber and pat them on the back, but any energy that might have been lost in the breath spent on them and the energy in the pat is more than made up for with the chemical changes in the brain that will help performance. Plus, it’s just good sportsmanship and improves the experience for everyone.

Since the brain doesn’t know the difference between fantasy and reality, even imagining doing something nice for someone will help make you stronger and boost your endurance. The act itself is of course the best way to get the “helpers high” but if you are alone and in need of a quick boost during your workout or just want to change your mood quickly, imagine doing something nice for someone or simply think about a time in the past when you did something nice and re-live that experience.

Try it today! You will find that you are able to put more into your workout and therefore get more out of it with this quick and easy technique.

Love Can Make You Thin!

admin — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 08:10:23 +0000

You may have already heard me talk about how our endocrine system is linked to our metabolism and how the right attitude can burn fat. I have mentioned this in lectures, seminars, blogs, articles and newsletters. The state you are in most of the time can indeed determine whether you are chronically fat or easily thin without much effort. If you are fear-based and worry about things often, you are producing the chemicals that break your body down, create inflammation, and store fat. The same goes for anger and resentment. Holding a grudge or harboring hate can be very fattening!

Love and forgiveness on the other hand, can release you from this state and turn your body into a fat burning machine. It also helps your system run properly, keeping you well, sharp, focused and full of plenty of energy.

Changing your state from fear to love however, is often easier said than done. I have created several videos on this subject and list them below. These video were created for a focus group experiment that went even better than I expected. I will be updating them soon, to cater them more for the general population, but they worked so well with the focus group, I didn’t want to wait any longer to get them out to you, so here they are with the three starter vids here first. More are coming soon…

Dr. Emoto’s water experiment: http://youtu.be/33IiYb8htHk

Ho’oponopono 101. This is an ancient Hawaiian technique designed to clear blocks so you can make changes fast! http://youtu.be/PoF7FsIdK9Y

The power of your mind and the control you have to decide whether to be well, sick, thin, or thick (or even cure cancer? See for yourself): http://youtu.be/Y-Hh7b3Nxxc

I am so convinced of the connection to mental state and fitness, I am also involved in an upcoming worldwide event on September 11th, 2011 as a speaker and volunteer. This event will be available free of charge to all who are interested, both on the web and in person (if you are in the Seattle area). Check it out below! I hope to see you there!

Amplify Your Love by
Three Million Percent

The 10th Anniversary of 9/11 is right around the corner.
Take Part in a Global Event helping the world to Make The Shift from Fear to Love.
You can take part from wherever you are!

GLOBAL WEBCAST • SEATTLE HUB EVENTS • SATELLITE EVENTS
FREE TO ALL

www.onetheevent.org

You have heard about the power of positive thinking and the power of our intentions, and you may have also heard how people including scientists around the world can track the effects of human thought and feeling making an impact on the world around us.

One September 11, 2011, the tenth anniversary of 9/11 2011, you are invited to take part in a Globally Synchronized Moment of Love. This moment is designed to help us shift from a consciousness of fear based action on the planet to a consciousness where love, understanding and forgiveness will be the place we act from. The goal of ONE: The Event is for at least 3,000,000 people to open their hearts and share love at the exact same moment, 3:46 pm pst.

With the many escalating challenges, including economic, financial, geological and social, it is time for our family of humanity to CARE even more deeply, together.

This symbolic act of CARING extends into the hearts, minds and souls of all beings, as our basic nature beyond past conflicts. As we come together in this Moment of Love, we get to feel and know the results together into the months ahead.

Each one of us has a role in making this shift happen! Won’t you join us?

Our Global Webcast & Seattle events (University of Washington) Friday and Saturday September 9 & 10 features solution-minded luminaries addressing challenges in 12 Pillars of Human Endeavor. Since our webcast is interactive, you can join the conversation and share your ideas! Seattle participants can also enjoy free personal empowerment workshops.

Sunday, September 11 features the Moment of Love at 3:46 pm pst, ten years and ten hours after the first plane strike. In addition, forgiveness activities, live music, speakers, and experiences helping us make this shift will weave a tapestry of a powerful healing day that you can watch on the web or join with others in Seattle.

Click here to watch the short video, learn more about the amazing story behind this event, and pledge to send love on 9/11!

www.ONETheEvent.org

FEATURING :: PJ GLassey, Lindsay Wagner, Nassim Haramein, Masuro Emoto, Ocean Robbins, Brooke Medicine Eagle, Daniel Sunjata, John Perkins, Peter Ragnar, Diana Stobo, Dr. Vernon Sylvest, James Twyman, James O’Dea, Chief Sonne Reyna, Mikki Willis, Duke Duchscherer, Andrea Brenneke, Sylvia Clute, Greg Wendt, Soleil, Esperide Ananas, Melanie St. James, Jamaica Stephens, Dorian Kingi, Dr. Pat Bacilli, Joseph Jacques & more TBA.

—————
IF YOU WANT MORE

ONE: THE EVENT

FRIDAY + SATURDAY 9/9 + 9/10:
SPEAKERS • WEBCAST • WORKSHOPS • LIVE MUSIC • HEALTHY FOOD
University of Washington, Seattle • Kane Hall & Mary Gates Hall • 10:00 to 8:30 PM

OUR PROGRAM :: SPEAKERS, DIALOGUES, WORKSHOPS, SOLUTIONS, VISIONS, MUSIC
• Our awesome team is co-producing The Gathering of ONE: The Event. The WEBCAST & LIVE EVENTS are free and open to the public, and donations accepted! We are working with the framework of 12 Pillars of Human Endeavor, woven in to the talks, dialogues, community solutions sessions, workshops, live musical performances and networking time of this super powerful and fun event!

OUR GOAL :: ONENESS WEAVING
• Our goal is to weave together visions of harmonic possibility with existing solutions to global challenges, including YOUR input which you can give either live from Seattle or via our robust interactive webcast. Our goal is to help us transcend old paradigms of conferences and create something wherein individuals, organizations, speakers, workshop facilitators, producers, all feel an energy of renewal and connection, that will help catapult us all into the next wave of our awakening and world service—together as ONE.

OUR LINE UP :: AMAZING!
The lineup includes :: PJ Glassey, Lindsay Wagner, Nassim Haramein, Masuro Emoto, Ocean Robbins, Brooke Medicine Eagle, Daniel Sunjata, John Perkins, Peter Ragnar, Diana Stobo, Dr. Vernon Sylvest, James Twyman, James O’Dea, Chief Sonne Reyna, Mikki Willis, Duke Duchscherer, Andrea Brenneke, Sylvia Clute, Greg Wendt, Soleil, Esperide Ananas, Melanie St. James, Jamaica Stephens, Dorian Kingi, Dr. Pat Bacilli, Joseph Jacques & more tba.

SUNDAY 9/11: MOMENT OF LOVE, SEATTLE EVENT + WEBCAST
Memorial Stadium, Seattle • 12:00 Noon to 7:00 PM

ONE THE MOMENT :: SYNCHRONIZED LOVE ON 9/11!
• ONE: The Event’s ‘hallmark’ opportunity for the world is a GLOBAL SYNCHRONIZED MOMENT OF LOVE on 9/11, ten years and ten hours after the first plane strike in 2011. Jon Ramer’s band “Once & For All,” Singing Bear’s Band & The Human Revolution will be playing, among many others in this exceptional ceremonial, healing experience, celebrating our common unity.

OUR INTERCONNECTEDNESS :: THAT’S WHAT REALLY MATTERS!
• This Moment of Love and the entire weekend is an expression of Love and Universal Forgiveness, to assist us in releasing the past, examining what’s real, and expanding into our human possibilities for co-creating harmony on earth. Inspired and founded by Seattle firefighter Erik Lawyer, this event and its vision is dedicated to an awakening humanity at a time of need, where our spiritual, mental and emotional growth is accelerating, and where our physical connection to the earth and one another really matters.

Won’t you join us?

• Live and in person in Seattle, September 9-11, 2011

• From your home via the Webcast (click below)

Switch your thoughts to bust your cravings

admin — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 16:19:22 +0000

The easiest way to get your mind off that hot fudge sundae is to picture something else that is equally or more pleasant instead, like a loved one’s laugh or your favorite place to relax. It could also be a fun experience, favorite game, or a time when you felt unusually powerful or “in the zone.” Just picture something — anything — that elevates your mood, that isn’t food related and be sure to imagine it as vividly as possible, including as many senses as possible. Imagine how it sounds, smells, looks, and feels, both emotionally and physically. Research suggests that doing so can help stop a craving, fast.

In a recent study, college students were asked to vividly picture themselves engaged in a well-loved activity every time a food craving came up and to maintain the alternate image until the craving subsided. Comparing their results to control groups using other craving-quelling techniques like distraction or mentally challenging tasks, the pleasant scene group experienced a much more dramatic reduction in both the strength and vividness of their food cravings. Researchers suspect that because the students employed their senses when imagining the enjoyable activity, it was more effective in quelling their food urges and made the craved food seem less real.

I have taught for a long time, the technique of catching yourself thinking about a certain “bad” food and switching your thoughts to another “good” food that you also enjoy. Since the mind can only have one though at a time, this works great. By switching thoughts, you are effectively atrophying the old nerve pathway (old thought) through dis-use (use it lose it), while deepenin the new pathway (new thought) by using it. Remember, every thought, emotion, memory, etc. is just an electrical impulse traveling a certain nerve branch. If you use it, you deepen it. If you don’t, it atrophies.

Just switch your thoughts to bust your cravings. Any thought really – using any technique will work, but the more emotion you can employ, the better because your subconscious will hear that the loudest. It really is that simple.

Healthy Change in Three Simple Steps

superadmin7 — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 00:22:22 +0000

Why is change often so hard?

The answer is simple: We aren’t wired for change. Our brains are wired for security, routine, efficiency and consistency. Change is inefficient because we have to learn new stuff and create new neural networks. Change also represents uncertainty. Change breaks our routine too, and since we are creatures of habit with roughly 95% of the same thoughts we had yesterday, change takes extra energy and isn’t within our comfort zone.

Your brain and change

Our brains are designed to detect changes in the environment and then alert us to anything unusual. Error detection signals are generated by a part of the brain called the orbital cortex (OC), which is wired in with the brain’s fear circuits in another structure called the amygdala (AD). This explains why change brings so much fear and uncertainty.

It also explains why it is often hard to power through change with sheer will, because the OC and the AD compete with the prefrontal cortex (PFC), which is the part of the brain that stores our willpower reserves. The PFC also helps us make rational decisions. This is why when change is detected, we act more emotionally and impulsively than rationally.

Our habits and routines are stored in the OC and AD. Additionally, the OC and the AD feed the basal ganglia (BG), which is a big part of our subconscious brain.These areas aren’t just there to divert us from rational thoughts and make it harder for us to accept change however. They do serve a very useful purpose. By storing routines for us so we don’t have to think them through every time we need them, they help us react faster and save us time, energy and computing power.

When the brain detects that a behavior is changing, it sends out strong messages via powerful hormones and chemicals that are designed to keep us out of our PFC (the part of the brain that helps us change) and instead stay efficient with our same old routines that we find so easy, fast and comfortable. This phenomenon is especially true of deeply ingrained and routine behaviors. The OC and AD, assisted by the hormones and chemicals, essentially prevent the PFC from “thinking about it” and accepting change because it’s a logical, rational idea. Hopefully, this helps answer that question we have all had; “Why can’t I just do what I know I should to do?”

Don’t worry. We are done with listing brain parts and assigning initials, so stay with me here. We are getting to the good stuff now…

Since those “bad” habits we have now (and find so hard to change) got formed somehow, doesn’t it make sense that we can adopt new habits with the right strategy? Of course it does, and knowing how to rewire the OC and AD is the key and this post will tell you how to do that.

Energy and change

Our PFC (our thinking, rational brain) requires a lot of energy. Really, a lot. As much as 25% of your caloric intake is used to fuel your brain. This is why willpower often goes out the window when we are tired or have had a tough day mentally. Alternatively, since the BG ( a big part of the sub-conscious brain) runs in the background, it doesn’t require much energy at all. This further explains why routines are so easy, and is the preferred method when we are tired.

For example, do you experience the same routine when you get home from work each day? Is that when you consume most of the food you shouldn’t be eating and do most of your “laying around,” even though you know you should be exercising or getting things done? This is a classic example of the PFC checking out and the BG taking over.

Programing healthy habits

What if you could have a BG that was programmed with a routine involving healthy fat burning food and exercise? That way, even if your PFC has checked out, you still do what you should be doing, but automatically, without the need for herculean feats of willpower. That’s what athletes do, and frankly, it’s just as easy for them keep their healthy routines as it is for Johnny Six Pack to crash on the couch, turn on the TV and break out the beer and pizza.

How did the athlete get that way? Well, any activity that we do repeatedly, eventually gets pushed down to the BG to become an automatic pattern, so the PFC doesn’t have to waste its high energy resources on it any more. Learning to drive a car is hard at first, but after a while, it becomes second nature, even to the point where we don’t remember the drive home! This is because the BG can take over. Rent a car in Japan or England however, and you’ll find even a simple switch like driving on the opposite side of the road a very challenging task because the PFC has to stay engaged.

Cutting new circuits in the brain is like cutting through a dense forest rather than following a well worn trail. We have to go much slower, and put a lot more effort into every step. Changing any ingrained habit requires a lot more energy and attention than many people are willing to put in, so we do what we can to avoid change, even if this means staying fat and unhealthy.

The power of focus

So how do we reprogram the BG and rewire our subconscious brain to make new healthy habits easy and routine? It’s all about your focus. Where you focus your attention is where you make new connections. New connections form new neural pathways. New neural pathways result in new habits, which if repeated, get relegated to the subconscious brain as an automatic routine.

Step one – Be the boss of change

The first step is to tell your brain every day that change is good and change will make everything easier. You must decide that you want change, and state this out loud every day. Your subconscious brain is the boss of the automatic you. It also operates at the level of a 3 year old, so programming it is actually quite easy if you know how. Since it doesn’t understand the past or the future, speak to it in present tense terms. Something like, “Today I welcome change” or, “Change is exciting” will be quite effective. Opening your subconscious to the idea of change will cause it to tell the OC, AD and BG all to butt out and let the PFC tell it what to believe and what to do.

Step two – Actively expect success

Once your subconscious has been told that change is good, it is ready to accept new habits and routines without the fear or anxiety. This opens the door for the next step: tell your subconscious what to expect. Since the subconscious brain is the boss of the automatic you, all you have to do is to tell it what to expect, and that will be your experience. If you tell it to expect success, it will make sure you succeed. If you fear failure and focus on that instead, it will make sure you fail.

Your subconscious will manifest the dominant theme in your life. This is why proclamations and “Askfirmations“ are so effective. Proclamations and askfirmations are solution-based programming instead of problem-based (which only make things worse). Remember, if you expect success and embrace change as an exciting way to see new possibilities and opportunities for growth, it will make that happen for you. If you expect fear and failure, that is what your subconscious will continue to make happen by controlling all your conscious and unconscious actions.

Step three – Keep at it

The bottom line is, your brain will never “feel like” it wants to change, so it’s imperative to perform these two steps every day, whether you feel like it or not. Your brain may make it difficult for you, especially when it starts working and new pathways are being formed. Just plug ahead and keep at it. Eventually, repetition drives it home to your subconscious, and pretty soon you will have new automatic pathways that help you instead of hold you back.

“Winners must learn to relish change with the same enthusiasm and energy that we have resisted it in the past.” — Author and speaker, Tom Peters

Are Affirmations Better as Questions?

superadmin7 — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 19:31:23 +0000

My job changes every day. That’s one of the reasons I love it so much. New research comes out all the time, and each week I get to learn new tips, tricks, and techniques that help people reach their health and fitness goals. This week I learned that affirmations may be even more powerful when they are phrased in the form of a question, rather than a statement.

Affirmations 101

I have instructed many people on the power of affirmations and how they are a powerful tool for helping us reach our fitness, health and wellness goals. I use them myself, and I have seen them produce miracles in many lives. Affirmations are a proven, effective way to reprogram your subconscious brain. This is so important is because your subconscious brain is the “boss” of you. It will make happen whatever it believes, through controlling your conscious and unconscious actions every day.

Good, but not perfect

You can use your conscious brain to reprogram your subconscious brain using certain techniques, and affirmations are one of these very powerful techniques. Many people have trouble with affirmations however, because since they are traditionally phrased as a statement, they can cause a conflict if you don’t believe the affirmative statement you are making. Pounding away at it will effectively reprogram your brain over time due to the sheer volume of messages (it’s actually just a brainwashing technique), but it requires significant willpower to implement, because we are forcing ourselves to say something we don’t believe (yet).

Since most people feel this as an internal conflict, they stop doing their affirmations. Their mind fights against it and makes them forget, or they just don’t want to do it because the mental exercise is emotionally uncomfortable. Some even find that affirmation statements like “I am thin and fit” when they are far from it, even feels like a lie, which cause negative affirmations to follow, canceling out the positive ones.

Is there a better way?

I am always on the hunt to reduce the need for willpower, because I firmly believe that achieving true fitness doesn’t have to be a battle. This is why I was so excited to read the research study by Dolores Albarracin, published in Psychological Science, April 2010, Volume 21, Number 4. She discovered that phrasing affirmations as a question instead of a statement drastically increased success! When people asked - “Am I going to exercise today?” instead of saying “I will exercise today.” – they were much more likely to follow through.

She found that framing the desired outcome as a question presented a challenge to the person instead of a requirement that they might rebel against. By asking themselves a question, people were more likely to build their own motivation. The results of this experiment showed that participants not only did better as a result of the question, but that asking themselves a question did indeed increase their intrinsic motivation.

I will. Will you?

All it takes is switching two little words in your daily affirmations. Instead of “I will,” use “will I?” Try it and see. It makes a lot of sense to me, and it sure is easier in a lot of ways for many reasons, to perform daily affirmations without the tedious feeling of forcing a new belief. Will I be doing affirmations this way from now on? I think so. Will you?

Here is a hilarious video of the traditional way of performing affirmations. Watch it (it’s less than a minute) and get some laughter chemicals pumping and raise your metabolism a bit. Keep in mind, this technique still works, and is still the most effective in many cases, but I think professor Albarracin has done us all a huge favor with her breakthrough study.

I would love to hear some back-talk on this topic:

What affirmations can you to form into questions?
How is it working?
Will you share what you’ve found out in trying this?

Weightloss after Menopause (and Manopause)

superadmin7 — Sun, 23 May 2010 23:20:07 +0000

At a certain point in life, many people (even people who may have been fit all their lives) find a few extra pounds creeping on, or find it harder and harder to lose weight, seemingly no matter what they try to keep it off or take it off. Popular wisdom says “Well, that’s just how it is when you begin to get older.” “Things change, your body changes, better just deal with it.” But is that really the whole truth? Are we doomed to decline as we age? Or, is there a better alternative?

If you want to stay or get fit, yes, there is hope for women after menopause and for men who have gone through ‘manopause,’ - a relatively new term used to describe the hormonal changes men experience during middle age.

You can buck the trend

Normal hormonal shifts with age don’t have to mean weight problems unless you convince yourself that’s true. This age-related shift does indeed mean that your body will change - and new lifestyle habits will have to be adopted to counter that - but it doesn’t mean that you are doomed to be out of shape no matter what you do, or that you will no longer have any control at all.

Many middle aged people surrender to the idea that it’s hopeless, and just give up. Some even try to fight it for a while, but then succumb to the myths and tell themselves they did their best, but “you just can’t fight mother nature.” Well, these people just fulfilled their own prophecy, that’s all. They believed, at least on some level (conscious or not), that they would fail, and with that belief, they made it happen.

I am in the best shape of my life, and each year I get fitter, faster, leaner and stronger. I even look better! I can do things now at 44 years of age that I wouldn’t have even dreamed of at 22, and I was in great shape then (or so I thought)! In fact, I would love the opportunity to go back in time and take on that whipper-snapper and show him what real conditioning looks like. I also feel better, have more energy, and an improved mood and outlook on life, and the list goes on. The main reason for this is two-fold: (1) I never slowed down, and (2) I learned how to program my subconscious brain. If you want to make something big happen, it always important to ask…

Who’s the boss?

It’s actually your subconscious mind that is the boss of your body, and your subconscious will always make sure it is right. If your subconscious believes that you will be out of shape when you are middle aged, it will, behind the scenes, do everything possible to make that happen. If you’ve ever had that frustrating experience of thinking “Why did I do X (eat the chocolate cake), when I wanted to do Y (eat nutritious, healthy food today), you’ve experienced your subconscious mind at work.

Your conscious mind is of course powerful as well, but the subconscious always outranks it. Think of it this way: Instead of being the boss of your body, your conscious mind is the tool that “programs” your subconscious mind. It’s kind of like the executive assistant to the real boss. The right suggestions, phrased in the right way, with enough consistency, will get through to the boss and change opinions. Then the boss can make the executive decisions that change the course of the company.

Your subconscious brain is way more powerful than we realize. In addition to controlling all your conscious and unconscious actions throughout the day, it also controls your metabolism to a very large extent. I have worked with people who are eating right, exercising properly, drinking their water, and doing all the correct things “by the book,” but because they see themselves as out of shape, or expect a certain outcome, their subconscious fetches that for them and makes it happen.

What your subconscious believes, you can achieve

How does your subconscious brain do that? Besides changing your actions, it can also change the very nature of the atoms that make up your tissues. Your belief system and faith in who you are and who you will become can either slow down your molecular vibrations or speed them up. I know it sounds pretty kooky, and I thought so myself when I first started learning this stuff years ago, but there is science to back it up, and I am now convinced this really is the case.

You can actually make things happen just by believing they will happen. It’s about faith, and it’s not all metaphysical either. Jesus, my Savior and hero, taught the importance of faith many times. In Mark 11:24 for instance, He says, “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” This is where I got the idea for visualizing your “after picture” to get results faster and train your brain for permanent fitness. I don’t believe He gives us things that aren’t right for us, but if it is good for us and we are within His will, He will give it freely to us, just like you would for your own child.

Have you ever talked to the skinny person that says without doubt, “I can eat anything I want and never gain weight?” I think we all have, and most of us feel jealous. Well, the fact is, those people don’t really eat that bad, but when they do, they don’t gain weight – just like they said. This is partly because when they eat a whole bunch of garbage, their particular body type and metabolism compensates for it later by causing them to eat less, or better food for a while, but the other part is that their FAITH in their statement keeps their metabolism elevated so they burn the junk food off. Their subconscious brain believes it and it makes sure it happens by talking to the parts of the body responsible for metabolism adjustment, resulting in secretion of the right chemicals and hormones, along with the atomic vibrations necessary to stay thin.

The reality of age and fitness

Now for the physiology side of things. As far as the research shows, your muscle mass should decline no more than 2% per decade after the age of 40. Some studies show even less of a decline! This means that when you are 80 years old, you should still have at least 92% of the muscle you had at age 40. If your strength and muscle declines more than that, it’s because you are slowing down and you have chosen to get old, not because of anything “mother nature” decided for you. Since muscle and metabolism are closely linked, keeping muscle is the best way to maintain your metabolism. The best way to keep it of course is to keep moving.

Learn to be a fit, older you

Below, I have listed only a few of studies that confirm the science behind preventing metabolism declines with lifestyle choices, but there are many more. I would encourage you to do your own research on PubMed or through Google. Educating yourself is the best way to drive this fact home in your own brain and to convince your subconscious that you can actually take control by programming it in the right way.

The bottom line is that whatever you believe will happen, will happen. Your brain is more powerful than exercise, proper nutrition, supplements, or anything else. All that stuff is important – don’t get me wrong. I’m just saying that while it does serve it’s purpose physically, it also helps the program the brain mentally, because while you are following through with the right habits, you are also changing your beliefs and programming your subconscious in a very effective way.

Proper brain training is the most important component to aging well and staying fit. There are sadly too few people (and almost no trainers) besides me talking about this, but I encourage you to check out a couple of my favorite authors on the subject, Dr Amen and John Medina. If you want training that incorporates these ideas, the X Gym is your place. For more info on this subject and specific brain training techniques, check out my book at www.crackingyourcode.com.

Resources:

American Journal of Physiology, E281, 633-639

Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, 82, 3208-3212

Am J Physiol Endocrinol Metab, 264: E450-E455

J Nutr Health Aging. 9(6):408-19.