Healthy High Achiever Blog

Today, I was at a conference with Ryan Lee, a fitness industry expert who helps fitness pro’s build their business.

As I was learning about all the new fitness products under development in various markets, talking and listening to other professionals, I was reminded about the one thing that most lifestyle and fitness experts have in common…

…they have have a background in athletics.

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The next Performance Lifestyle Training is coming up on October
16th, 2008.

It’s the last training of the year and it will help you start 2009,
living better than ever and for all the right reasons. It will change
your body and life for the better, forever.

To learn more and enroll, go to www.PerformanceLifestyle.com.
————————————————————————–

You see athletics teaches you a mindset and it’s a learned mindset that is very different than the person who does not have this background.

If there is one thing that makes the difference between those people who’s lifestyle’s promote health and success and those who simply rely on diet and exercise programs to deal with the consequences of a poor lifestyle, which is
working against them… it is their mindset.

You see people with athletic backgrounds, for the most part learned more than the average person about lifestyle and fitness early on, and it often stays with them, particularly if they’ve made a profession in the lifestyle health and fitness fields.

This mindset is the reason why they don’t struggle taking care of themselves, living at or near their ideal weig.ht, or with exercising.

It’s also the reason why they are often very effective at goal achievement.

To them, they approach it all from a different point of view. A much more empowering point of view.

It is their lifestyle, they constantly improve it, and they wouldn’t think of living any other way.

Their lifestyle works "for" them, by choice! 

My lifestyle works for me, and yours can work for you at a much higher level than it is right now.  

Do you want to take your lifestyle to the next level?

Lifestyle coaching and training is the same thing young athletes get when playing sports and you can learn the same to perform better in you life and business, or sport!

It can all be learned and it will make a difference for you.

What’s your background?

The other day, right after a powerful workout session,as part of a 6:00AM group of busy professionals, I gave a short introductory presentation on Performance Lifestyle -how to get your lifestyle working for you, not against you.

In that 15 minutes we powered through a couple of ideas that had a big impact on everyone involved.

We talked about variety of subjects that I knew were on their mind such as protein, energy and achieving goals…

When the subject of goals came up, and given that I was talking to a group of professionals, I dropped what seemed like a pretty radical idea, at first.

But it sunk in quick…

Even the owner of the health club where we were training, came up to me afterwards and said "that makes so much
sense".

Here’s what I said…

"Weight loss and health are not natural goals"

I then went on to explain that overweight and health complications are’ symptoms of a lifestyle gone awry. In other words, a lifestyle that is overwhelming and exhausting…, not working for you, but rather against you. 

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Do you have a big goal(s) that requires more energy than you have
right now?

Are you experiencing overwhelm, exhaustion, or the overweight
condition?

Is your lifestyle working against you?

Then join me for the next Performance Lifestyle Training
on October 16th to look, feel and perform better and achieve
your goals even more successfully!
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…When you are living out of balance, overspending your energy, eating nutrient poor food, inactive or over active for that matter, you get symptoms.

And most of the time, those symptoms are lowered energy and increased weight for starters…

I explained that there is nothing wrong with wanting to lose weight and following a program to help you burn fat, but if you don’t get your lifestyle working for you, the problem will persist, even if you ultimately eat less (manipulate your diet) and exercise more.

We went on to talk about "lifestyle" and what it means as the way in which you achieve your goals.

The question I asked was this…

Are you achieving your goals in life, business or sport, in a balanced healthy way, or are you trading your health for success?

If you didn’t catch it, notice I asked, "are you achieving your "goals" in a balanced, healthy way?". I didn’t ask "are you achieving balance and health", because neither are natural goals.

This seemingly little distinction is HUGE!

It means the difference between struggle and flow, between distraction and focus, and whether or not you chase your
tail for the rest of your life seeking energy, your ideal weight and fitness, or not.

It could very well be affecting your personal and professional success in a big way.

You see, healthy high achieving people don’t seek to achieve health, they live healthy to achieve their goals and that’s why they live at or near their ideal weight all the time.

Their lifestyle is working for them.

A perfect example is the way the lifestyle of an athlete helps them achieve their goals in sport.

Unlike athletes though, achievers in other areas of life and business, they tend to trade their health, energy and fitness for success.

Their lifestyle is working against them.

So I introduced the idea of the Healthy High Achiever. I explained to the group, that healthy high achieving people achieve their goals in a balanced, healthy way with the energy and fitness they need to succeed.

They are motivated to get each and every aspect of their lifestyle working for them, so they can achieve their goals even more successfully.

And when they do, they don’t have spend their time trying to deal with distracting symptoms; they can focus on what’s important and exciting to them!

Do you want to learn what Healthy High Achievers know and live by to achieve their goals the way the do?

If so… join this group! !

————————————————————————–
The next Performance Lifestyle Training is coming up on October
16th, 2008.

It’s the last training of the year and it will help you start 2009,
living better than ever and for all the right reasons. It will change
your body and life for the better, forever.

To learn more and enroll, go to www.PerformanceLifestyle.com.
————————————————————————–

Live Like a Pro!

JAM

John Allen Mollenhauer is the founder Performance Lifestyle Solutions, the better healthier, more successful ways to achieve your goals in life, business and sport. As a former worn down workaholic turned Healthy High Achiever, John Allen (aka “JAM”) will teach you how to Live Like a Pro, optimizing your lifestyle the way athletes do for better results. He is the creator of the Healthy High Achiever - Unleash the Full Potential of Your Lifestyle to Perform, Look and Feel Better!

My dear friend Karen Hoyos, who is a beacon of light in this world and one of the most inspiring, and truly happy people I know, sent me this video this morning.

Why I am posting this video: (see below)

In the midst of the presidential election where we are hearing our share more than the usual of negative rhetoric and media, which is in the business of making us worry (so we’ll stay glued to the television), this video is not just a breath of fresh air but a shift in the possibility of our lives.

Karen Hoyos has taught me more about living in possibility than I have ever known and this video reinforced it all.

I for one, (with an engineer father trained to see the flaws in things most of the time and to no discredit to him, because when it comes to engineering, you want someone with this skill) have always been someone who sees opportunity in things usually related to achievement, but not always the possibility in matters of every day life.

There comes a point where seeing the flaws really limits your life.

To me this video has a big impact and I will play it again, and again.

Description:  In this 22-minute short film, "Celebrate What’s Right With The World", Dewitt Jones (world-class photojournalist for the National Geographic) asks: "Do we choose to see possibilities? Do we really believe they’re there?"

He assures us that there is always more than one right answer. Celebrating what’s right with the world helps us recognize the possibilities and find solutions for the challenges before us.

This inspirational, best-selling film utilizes stunning photography and powerful dialogue to help viewers approach their lives with celebration, confidence and grace.

“As I celebrated what was right with the world, I began to build a vision of possibility, not scarcity. Possibility… always another right answer.” - Dewitt Jones

Enjoy

Celebrate What’s Right With The World

In my previous posts, I’ve referred to refraining from calling certain steps you take in a Performance Lifestyle "excuses".

By the same token, I also refer to "true excuses" as those delusions in thinking which just don’t make sense.

This post is about revealing what a true excuse is and what it is not.

From the Start Where You Are post:

But keep this in mind… because a Performance Lifestyle gives merit to those steps you need to take to make taking other steps easier, refraining from calling them "excuses", even the challenges get easier, because you are able to perform better.

From the Does Michael Phelps Struggle post:

For anyone who is thinking, well he’s also got all the time and control in the world and millions of dollars in contracts, blah, blah, blah… (those are true excuses), all that has little bearing, because he can’t pay someone to sleep, eat or workout or swim… for him.

A true excuse is a form of immunity; "to excuse" means to grant or obtain an exemption for a group of persons sharing a common characteristic from a potential liability.

In other words, it’s coming to a judgment that is not really accurate about why you can’t or its not a good idea to do something, and this I can tell you is not serving you, because it is not true, there is not real data to support it.

Now saying something like "I need to take a nap" instead of working out at the moment, is not an excuse, because it’s grounded in a truth for you and it’s a good idea if you are tired prior to working out. Recharge your energy before you are ready to get active again, let alone engage in higher intensity training is a good idea.

Bottom line, an excuse can be picked apart easily as having little grounding in truth, and not serving you. What often gets past off as an excuse is something that is very meaningful and purposeful to your objectives or goals, that someone else has either trained you to believe our outright tells you is an "excuse" because of their agenda.

Be very careful about what you buy into. An excuse is thinking that is working against you; a step you need to take to move forward in a position of strength is not an excuse.

Action Tip

How you think and feel about yourself will determine your lifestyle ~ Aurthur Ciaramicoli Ph.D Author Performance Addiction.

Live like a Pro!

John Allen Mollenhauer is the founder Performance Lifestyle Solutions, the better healthier, more successful ways to achieve your goals in life, business and sport. As a former worn down workaholic turned Healthy High Achiever, John Allen (aka “JAM”) will teach you how to Live Like a Pro, optimizing your lifestyle the way athletes do for better results. He is the creator of the Healthy High Achiever - Unleash the Full Potential of Your Lifestyle to Perform, Look and Feel Better!

Do you think Michael Phelps (a pro) struggles to think and live the way he does?

The answer is no!

For anyone who is thinking, well he’s also got all the time and control in the world and millions of dollars in contracts, blah, blah, blah… (those are true excuses), all that has little bearing, because he can’t pay someone to sleep, eat or workout or swim… for him.

Plus he didn’t start out being able to focus that way, he’s simply playing at a higher level and has built up support over time. This is all part of living and growing in a Performance Lifestyle… making it work for you more.

It does not take big money, an obligation free life, or the ability to dictate your every move, any time of the day, to live a lifestyle that works for you. We all have different circumstances and I can assure you Michael Phelps has as challenging a schedule as you.

Like you, he can choose to respond to those circumstances any way he chooses.

He does so with passion and likely with any challenge he takes on, because he takes it on from a position of strength. it’s just easier to do so, because all aspects of his lifestyle, the way he thinks and lives, are coordinated around the outcomes he achieves.

Why is this any different from how you could live?

You don’t have to be a swimmer, into sports or even a fitness enthusiast to apply the same principles in your life and achieve your goals in a healthy way.

You don’t have to trade health for success which is what 97% of the population is doing.

I can assure you, the results you are experiencing right now are the direct result of your lifestyle, not the lack of regimented diet or exercise program.

You don’t even have to regiment yourself in a program like style. That’s a mindset for certain time, not every day living. Diet and exercise programs serve a different purpose.

But way before we start talking about challenging you too much, we need to first get your lifestyle working for you, not against you.

In the spirit of the Olympics  we are launching the next Performance Lifestyle training, so if there is anything to start thinking about, its YOUR LIFESTYLE, how you think and how you live.

Start where you are, it’s easier.

 Live like a Pro!

John Allen Mollenhauer is the founder Performance Lifestyle Solutions, the better healthier, more successful ways to achieve your goals in life, business and sport. As a former worn down workaholic turned Healthy High Achiever, John Allen (aka “JAM”) will teach you how to Live Like a Pro, optimizing your lifestyle the way athletes do for better results. He is the creator of the Healthy High Achiever - Unleash the Full Potential of Your Lifestyle to Perform, Look and Feel Better!

I was on the phone with Tom Terwilliger this morning, a former Mr Olympia contender and someone I used to see in magazines when I was an amateur bodybuilder years ago.

He is now a lifestyle trainer and coach and a leader in the fitness industry.

We were telling stories about our early days as bodybuilders, but more importantly about how we used to live to achieve the outcomes in the sport we were both fanatics about.

Here’s Tom as a professional bodybuilder:

Now you know how we talk about your real goals as those things you achieve in life, business and sport. Well our sport was bodybuilding at the time. Today we have different goals in life and business.

We were talking about was how we used to think and live to achieve the bodies necessary to compete in our sport… bodybuilding. It is a unique exception to how we describe goals in Performance Lifestyle training, because in the case of  bodybuilding, building your body, IS the sport.

By the way, the reason why most people think that building your body is the goal, is because bodybuilding, led by Arnold, was seen at the goal which was really his sport. Today Arnold trains so he can perform, look and feel better as he achieves his goals in life and business. Unless you are competing in contests, developing your body is not the goal; fitness is what enables you to achieve some other goal in life, business and sport.

Anyway, reminiscing about the past we realized more and more how our lifestyle pattern affected the results we achieved and how so few people every really understand "lifestyle" because they are not in the community where a particular lifestyle is being exhibited and reinforced.

Until you are part of a community, you can read til’ kingdom come, and never really understand how to tune your lifestyle towards getting the outcome you want.

I then brought up the story about entering a new world… and I used "knitting" as an example.

If Tom and I wanted to know and understand how knitters think and live, would we read a book on knitting, or simply try to knit? Can you imagine how that would turn out?

Or would we enter the new world of knitting (to us), by going to some knitting events and hanging out in relationship with other knitters?

In that process you learn the principles, practices, strategies, personalities, inside tips etc of how knitters think and live and, you would have a great deal more fun being part of the community.

This would help us build our knitting "identity" which is paramount when it comes to changing your lifestyle… thinking and living differently.

In short order, I can tell you we would discover a great deal about knitting, the rest would be up to the leaning curve and getting grounded in experience.

In that moment, we both got the idea that anyone can fast track their ability to change, by entering a new world and this is what we are suggesting you do, by being a member of the Performance Lifestyle community.

If you want to learn how people in a community really think and live, you want to hang out with them, be part of the community and start building genuine relationships.

I have done this my whole live and it’s why my lifestyle is the way it is. I am at home in the bodybuilding world, endurance world, vegan and vegetarian worlds, business world, technology world, marketing world etc… I have spent time in these worlds and what I learned is now part of my thinking and influences how I live.

Action Tip

If you want to live like a pro, and become a Healthy High Achiever, then be part of the Performance Lifestyle community. It exists worldwide!

Live like a Pro!

John Allen Mollenhauer is the founder Performance Lifestyle Solutions, the better healthier, more successful ways to achieve your goals in life, business and sport. As a former worn down workaholic turned Healthy High Achiever, John Allen (aka “JAM”) will teach you how to Live Like a Pro, optimizing your lifestyle the way athletes do for better results. He is the creator of the Healthy High Achiever - Unleash the Full Potential of Your Lifestyle to Perform, Look and Feel Better!

Where you are is where you are, you can change that, but you can’t start at any other place.

Starting where you are, you can be/become a Healthy high achiever.

By the way, I bounce back and forth between the words "be" and "become", because on one hand, you can start to think and live like a Healthy High Achiever right now regardless of where you are starting from. By the same token, I understand that we are all in a state of becoming as our awareness expands and we go to new levels. 

When and if you try to start at too high a level, you will fall back due to lack of mental, emotional and physical support. We see this all the time when people (particularly high achievers) try to go from couch potato (deep in a downward trend) to fitness boot camp over night or try to achieve significant goals in life, business or sport before they have the life structure set up and lifestyle in play to support them.

Some people with strong reserves can make that happen, but many can’t, and if they do, their momentum is often short lived for the reasons I mention below.

There is power in acknowledging where you are, but not accepting it as the way things are or always have to be. When you change your lifestyle (how you think and how you live) it’s the law of universe, that where you are will change too.

Is it hard to get into a Performance Lifestyle and Live like a Pro?

The answer is no, it really is simple and you can adjust your course this way, this minute. Though it can be challenging (not always easy) at times, for those who are living a downward trending lifestyle caught up in overwhelm, exhaustion, and fatigue.

Yes it is allot easier to live a lifestyle that works for you than to live one that works against you, but it can be challenging for the period of time it takes to learn the concepts and change your course… this is called transitioning, so don’t be in too much of rush.

Sometimes our habits of thinking are ingrained and we think that "who we are", but in reality it’s simply "where" we are and that change. You are not your thoughts.

A Performance Lifestyle is only challenging IF/ When:

1) You don’t know how to change course

2) You are facing your true condition in the process of the change

3) You don’t have a reason bigger than weight loss and living healthy to inspire you through the transition.

But keep this in mind… because a Performance Lifestyle gives merit to those steps you need to take to make taking other steps easier, refraining from calling them "excuses", even the challenges get easier, because you are able to perform better.

See the True Excuses post.

You can feel good even when you’re not taking massive action on the typical stuff, like working out.

You can’t fail, you’re not set up that way.

To take your lifestyle to the next level all you need to do is learn the defacto Performance Lifestyle formula.

 Live like a Pro!

John Allen Mollenhauer is the founder Performance Lifestyle Solutions, the better healthier, more successful ways to achieve your goals in life, business and sport. As a former worn down workaholic turned Healthy High Achiever, John Allen (aka “JAM”) will teach you how to Live Like a Pro, optimizing your lifestyle the way athletes do for better results. He is the creator of the Healthy High Achiever - Unleash the Full Potential of Your Lifestyle to Perform, Look and Feel Better!

See my last post: Living like a pro is easier!

I was on the phone with a friend and associate recently talking about how people perceive a Performance Lifestyle and the whole idea of "Living like a Pro" the way Healthy High Achievers do, when most people are just trying to "get started".

He said it seemed almost outside of his reality to even think of living like a "pro"… UNTIL, I said it was at least 10 times easier than the path most people are on. Needless to say, he was very compelled when he heard that. 

I was bold enough to make the point because I know the differences between Healthy High Achievers, how they think and live, and how those who experience the common struggle think and live, first hand and through observation for over two decades.

I also know that I can reduce the discovery curve from the 20 years (the time it usually takes for someone to discover how to live like a pro and become a Healthy High Achiever) to 3 months because I know the formula - the principles, the practices and lifestyle strategies that works for you, not against you. 

Of course, you learn to apply this formula, which makes the complicated subject of lifestyle simple, in a way that works for you. 

I said first, we have to deal with this whole point of "getting started". 

You are already started, it is just a matter of getting your lifestyle into alignment with the  fundamentals of successful living which enable you to manage your personal energy, including the quality of the food you eat and your activity levels for peak performance and healthy goal achievement. This is essentially what athletes do.

And you don’t even have to do that at a high level to get incredible benefits, and without even being on a regimented program.

Lifestyle skills always precede regimentation if you are going to be successful during challenge challenge periods.  

Once you understand these basic fundamentals the whole idea of changing your lifestyle changes. It becomes simple, the results predictable and the benefits forever cumulative. And because it’s your lifestyle, you can’t "fall off" the program; you learn form your experience and move forward.

What you find in a Performance Lifestyle, is that when you are having difficulty in a certain area, another fundamental needs attention, and soon everything else gets even easier.

So you don’t have to "get started" yet again, as if your lifestyle was nothing more than hoping from regimented program to another regimented program. This just doesn’t make sense.

FYI:

Your lifestyle promotes your health and success, when you know how to take your lifestyle to the next level, in small but powerful ways each day, you will find that you’re able to live at or near your ideal weight, perform better and achieve your goals with greater ease.

You then engage in regimentation (if you choose) during challenge periods, and that only happens a 1-2 times a year, when the time and circumstances are right for you. Otherwise, it’s getting your lifestyle working for you first, that matters.

This is the foundation.

Action Tips

10 reasons why living like a pro is easier.

1) Your lifestyle is almost always promoting your health, so you don’t have to think that much about it.

2) Your lifestyle is not causing the overweight condition

3) When you workout, it’s for fitness, not weight loss

4) You have more energy than most people because you regenerate.

5) You see your lifestyle as that which is powering your ability to achieve, so you are inspired to improve it

6) You are not held back by guilt and shame

7) You don’t fall for tactical weight loss methods (disguised as weight loss programs) that compromise your health and ultimately your success

8)) You don’t have to perform all the time and can slow down.

9) You accomplish more doing less and with far less effort

10) You grow personally from every experience.

These are by know means the top 10 reasons, but they are goods ones.

Live like a Pro!

The next Performance Lifestyle training, this October 16th

John Allen Mollenhauer is the founder Performance Lifestyle Solutions, the better healthier, more successful ways to achieve your goals in life, business and sport. As a former worn down workaholic turned Healthy High Achiever, John Allen (aka “JAM”) will teach you how to Live Like a Pro, optimizing your lifestyle the way athletes do for better results. He is the creator of the Healthy High Achiever - Unleash the Full Potential of Your Lifestyle to Perform, Look and Feel Better! 

Living like a Pro, is easier than living like an amateur.

It’s true…

When you look at the pro’s (* the most visible being athletes or many former athletes) and how they live, you will notice that they don’t struggle for the most part, when it comes to taking care of themselves - managing their energy, eating or exercise… When and if they do struggle it’s for far less time, and, they get far better results in terms of how they perform, look and feel.

They also live with relative ease, with more grace, in contrast to the average person who is struggling, trying to stick with rigid diet and exercise program’s alone that make far more out of stuff than it needs to be.  (Challenge periods notwithstanding)

You see the difference between the pro’s, whom we also refer to as * Health High Achievers in the top 3%, and achievers of all other types in the 97%, is their level of inspiration, their depth of "education" (awareness) and the kind of support they have in their life.

Yes, athletes have incredible talents in their sport, but so do you in your life and business. A big part of the difference is they live in a forward moving culture with a mindset that has "healthier living" as a given, not a goal, and that, is a culture the average person is not living in.

For example…

The amateur (no shame) is dealing with issues like "needing permission" to take a nap or acknowledge that they are not up for exercising the way they planned. Or, they’ll get depressed when they don’t eat perfectly according to the program they’re "on". They go into a shame spirals, and feel guilty. Imagine this, maybe you’ve experienced it?

I know, I experienced that earlier in my life and the reason why, is the culture I was hanging out in was "about" that. It’s the way they thought about stuff, it was the concept of things they bought into and it was reinforced. It was almost as if the "being stuck" and chasing your tail is what what gave the culture it’s reason for being.

Weight Watchers is a perfect example. "Let’s all struggle together!" - Great and valued organization, but I wouldn’t buy into those concepts.

How about getting "points" for eating nutrient poor food; that’s called chasing your tail.

Meanwhile, the pro’s for the most part, people who are in the know about healthy, successful living, aren’t caught up with any of this stuff.

Why? Because in the culture they live in, the conversation is different, the concepts are higher, better and more in the know. They aren’t focused on losing weight and getting healthy, that’s not the goal, living healthy at or near their ideal weight is a given. They are focused on performance and because they do, they make by far, much healthier more successful decisions every day of their life, without even thinking about it.

How would you like to make lifestyle choices and decisions you struggle with every day, without even having to give a second thought?

Healthy Healthy High Achievers, have learned and continue to learn over time, from the culture(s) they were in and are in, what works and what doesn’t and they develop lifestyles that work for them because they want to be able to perform well in their life, which is quality of life.

Looking and feeling better comes with it!

You only experience high performance in a sustainable way, when you are healthy. As far as losing weight, sure, pro’s may  need to lose weight from time to time, but its not a momentous event in their lives or something that consumes their focus. They know how to make lifestyle changes that create that result while their health and performance gets better.

They also know how to challenge themselves.

When you hear terms like "pro" and "high achiever" you might think people in the top 3% are constantly challenged and "efforting" their way through life taking on big goals. Nothing could be further from the truth!

You may feel outclassed, or that living like a pro is outside your reality. I can appreciate this. But let me ask you this… who would you rather learn martial arts from, a green belt or a black belt?

While the answer is clear, what you will also discover is these people aren’t that much different than you, they have simply developed their mindset further.

The reality is, it is the amateur who is constantly challenged and struggling, because they‘re miss the boat on so much about lifestyle that they are unaware of. It is negatively affecting them and they don’t even know it. That’s why they struggle.

You don’t have to be a pro, as in an athlete or the best in your field or anything of that sort… to live like a pro. But when you living like a pro you will perform, look and feel better and get far better results.

Action Tip.

Answer these questions for starters…

1. What culture of thought are you buying into?
   
2. Is the philosophy of that culture really moving your forward or keep you stuck?

If you are struggling, this is the place to start. 

Stay open minded…

 Live Like a Pro!

* (Note: Not all athletes are healthy)

John Allen Mollenhauer is the founder Performance Lifestyle Solutions, the better healthier, more successful ways to achieve your goals in life, business and sport. As a former worn down workaholic turned Healthy High Achiever, John Allen (aka “JAM”) will teach you how to Live Like a Pro, optimizing your lifestyle the way athletes do for better results. He is the creator of the Healthy High Achiever - Unleash the Full Potential of Your Lifestyle to Perform, Look and Feel Better!

This is a discussion of epic proportions! (only slightly exaggerating)

Here is my last post on this subject.

Your lifestyle is responsible for how you perform, the way you look and feel and whether you’ll achieve your goals in life, business or sport in a healthy and successful way.

Your lifestyle holds THE greatest promise for your health, your energy and fitness, and your success.

The challenge is, lifestyle represents one of our two greatest emotional stresses (how we think and how we live) because there are so many factors that influence it, some within our control and most, out of our control. Influenced by so many overwhelming ways, it is easy to get exhausted and make choices that are less than empowering and result in overweight.

Because we’re living in such a frenetic state, most of the time, we think that changing our lifestyle is hard, mainly because we don’t understand how. We don’t have the lifestyle skills that you hear me talking about all the time on this blog; the performance lifestyle skills that healthy high achieving people have.

These lifestyle skills are not obvious, they require learning and practice if you want to get proficient yet the result are obvious. You live at or near you ideal weight all year round, you exercise for fitness and you have the energy to achieve your goals in life business and sport without the distraction of having to deal with weight and health issues all the time.

It’s why you see fitness, health and well pro’s say over and over again… "it’s a lifestyle". They have learned and mostly through lots of trial and error.

Most people though, have not learned the lifestyle skills I’m talking about and that’s the reason why they go from weight loss, diet and exercise program to yet more weight, diet and exercise programs … to lose weight! They are always losing weight trying to deal with the most obvious symptom of an unsuccessful lifestyle.

We have literally been trained to go on weight loss, diet and exercise programs to solve what appears to be the problem… "overweight". Going on fat loss and weight loss programs, are how we’ve been trained to look at lifestyle change.

Today, it’s become vogue and routine to enter a fitness challenge or transformation challenge when we want to make a change. I think fitness challenges and weight loss challenges are great, they provide the opportunity for people to join others in making major improvements.

Essentially you get a lot of help from your friends, and nothing is more exciting than to get social recognition for making changes in your life. ~ John Allen Mollenhauer "JAM".

My friend Scott Tousignant is doing something like that right now with his 21 Day Challenge, for Unstoppable Fat Loss. He is enabling people to journal their actions to build new healthy habits over a three week period of time, that will hopefully last a lifetime, guided by daily interviews with lifestyle and fitness experts.

I have another friend Rob Poulos who’s doing something similar with his Fat Burning Furnace System for fast and permanent fat loss.

I point these guys out because they are myth busters and I know their weight loss programs are rooted in successful lifestyles practices.

But here is where the ground breaking discussion starts…

There are two ways to look at transformation and I’m going to suggest that neither one of them is the defacto way to change. The reason is, one takes more awareness and skill than the other (your lifestyle) whereas the other (a weight loss, diet or exercise program) requires more intensity and dedication for a period of time…

1. A healthy, successful lifestyle, is the way you live most of the time. When you focus on your ability to perform well by managing your energy, the quality of the food you eat, your activity levels your focus etc…, to maintain your quality of life in the process of achieving your goals, your lifestyle will promote health and success.
   
 
 
 
2. A weight loss, diet or exercise program is designed to challenge you and take you to the next level. Although when it comes to weight loss, it’s usually about getting back to what would be normal or natural, if you were to have a successful lifestyle. Diet and exercise programs are breakthrough periods as you strive for greater levels of excellence and development, and are not the way you live all the time.
   

You build challenge periods into your lifestyle depending on your objectives, but you don’t try to make the challenge your lifestyle. People try to do this all the time and it doesn’t work.

By their very nature "programs" are challenging, because you are essentially changing your whole lifestyle overnight to achieve a desire result. It means radically changing your routine and you have likely attached some emotional or social consequences to not sustaining changes for a least a period of time.

The rally cry is "it’s not weight loss program it’s a lifestyle" but what’s really being said is "go on my program for life" and that’s not a successful lifestyle.

Healthy, successful lifestyles are not as challenging in the sense that you have to accomplish an objective by a specific period of time, yet a lifestyle can be challenging nonetheless, because unless you see your lifestyle as the key to achieving a real goal in your life, your business or sport that inspires you to live in the best ways possible, it’s just easy, today more than ever, to get caught up in unhealthy, unsuccessful lifestyle practices.

The opportunities for poor lifestyle choices are everywhere!

So what’s the solution? A healthy successful lifestyle or a weight loss, diet or exercise program? 

The solution is to learn how to live a healthy successful lifestyle (what we call a Performance Lifestyle in this community), and then challenge yourself in various ways at various times, to take your lifestyle to the next level. For starters that may mean, going on a weight loss program, but then that will change to diet and fitness challenges that will help you eat even better, or take your fitness to a whole new level. There are challenges of all kinds but these are the two most common, of course, it’s because most people are overweight.

So the answer is both, but know this, your lifestyle determines your health and success. If you have an unhealthy lifestyle then a weight loss program will inevitably reinforce your problem.

What’s the key to health and success?

The key is learning how to optimize your lifestyle for health and higher performance to achieve your goals. That means developing a successful lifestyle…learning how to live, better. This is not common knowledge. When you do, you’ll find that it is relatively easy to lose weight, to improve your diet and take your fitness to new levels.

It’s allot easier to achieve your goals in life, business and sport, when you’re fit and powerful, but how can you be either if your lifestyle is driving you down hill?

When you don’t have to work so hard… when you don’ t have to overcome the downward trending effects of overwhelm and exhaustion that prevent your body from responding quicker; when your lifestyle is rockin’, challenging yourself successfully will become a regular thing in your life.

And given the world we live in, you don’t have to live like some purest to have a healthy successful lifestyle. But that’s a discussion for another time.

What doesn’t work is this:

a) Going on a weight loss program that is not grounded in healthy, successful lifestyle practices for the express purpose of weight loss

b) When you attempt to make your weight loss program… your lifestyle! This is what keeps people trapped. It’s why people are unsuccessful at really changing their lifestyle for the better, because they are addicted to tactical methods for weight loss, which if they stop, will only result in causing the most obvious symptom that they wanted to eliminate to begin with, overweight, to return. 

Low carb, high "animal" protein dieting is the perfect example of this… and there are others.

Action steps:

• Take advantage of my friends Scott Tousignant and Rob Poulos, and other great programs like Turbulence Training by Craig Ballantyne. You can get all their links over at www.FitforPower.com. I endorse their programs because they are committed to helping you do it right!
  

• At the same time, get into a Performance Lifestyle that works for you, not against you so that you’ll be far more successful taking your healthy and success to the next level. This key is your lifestyle. I have a new training coming up in September that will help you learn how to change your lifestyle successfully, not once, but any time you need to for better results. 
  

For right now…

1. eat a nutrient rich meal today,
   
2. take a power nap when you’re tired, and
   
3. workout for 10 minutes.
   
4. learn from every experience,
   
5. quickly ditch the guilt if you make a poor lifestyle choice
   
6. and keep moving forward towards goals worthy of your time and energy.
   
7. …

Live Like a Pro!

JAM

John Allen Mollenhauer is the founder Performance Lifestyle Solutions, the better healthier ways to achieve your goals in life, business and sport. As a former worn down workaholic turned Healthy High Achiever, John Allen (aka “JAM”) will teach you how to Live Like a Pro, optimizing your lifestyle the way athletes do for better results. He is the creator of the Healthy High Achiever - Unleash the Full Potential of Your Lifestyle to Perform, Look and Feel Better!