Healthy High Achiever Blog

By John Allen Mollenhauer, Founder, Performance Lifestyle.com 

The secret is out. I’m talking about the real secret of highly attractive who look, feel and perform better than most.

You may not know this about me, I have been an amateur athlete most of my life (mainly for fun), and even though my professional life has spanned entrepreneurial interests in and out of the health and fitness industries, much of my career has had nothing to do with health or fitness other than as a means to look, feel and perform at my best.

At one point, for nearly 8 years, I worked in high tech during the Internet Revolution and lost sight of the relationship between living an athletic life, my health, performance and success, and it cost me big time. You now know that I made the connection once again and that’s why today, I own a company called Performance Lifestyle Solutions, and founded www.PerformanceLifestyle.com to help other people avoid that dreaded downward trend that can drive you into the groud, overhwhelmed, exhausted and overweight.

Many health and fitness professionals are amateur or in some rare cases, former champion athletes. That is one of the driving reasons why we are in the profession of helping others improve their lifestyle and it’s also the reason why we all admire these people. They look, feel and perform better. We know what having a healthy high performing lifestyle does for us and we’re passionate about helping others get similar results.

Performance minded, we live and work in ways that respect, maintain and promote our health, our energy and fitness, because we know that everything we do and if we are going to do it well, depends on it. This results in a high level of attractivenss. I’m not just talking about "look", I’m talking abou feel and perform. When you connect with someone who not only looks healthy, but also feels it and has high levels of energy to performs well on top of it all, their attraction factor goes UP!

• My friend and mentor Alex Mandossian, one of the true champions of business and marketing, was once a professional cyclist and a national squash champion.
• Another friend and mentor Joel Fuhrman M.D was on the world championship figure skating team.
• My friend and mentor Michael Port, is a black belt in Tae Kwan Do.

This list could go on and on…

Why am I telling you this?

I’m telling you this because life and business success, are influenced by the athletic accomplishments of yesterday. I don’t just
mean, earlier in your life, I literally mean "yesterday".

• When you challenge yourself physically, you challenge yourself mentally.
• When you condition yourself physically, you condition yourself mentally.
• When you are healthy and fit physically, you are healthier and more mentally fit!

The parallels are endless and the mindset you learn in athletics is what inspires a Performance Lifestyle.
When you have a lifestyle that promotes health and success, you’re whole way of life changes, and so do your results.  

Athletes, otherwise known as healthy high achievers, all have healthy - high Performance Lifestyles. It’s what enables them to live and work they way they do. It’s what makes them so attractive.

They are high achieving largely because of their mindset and lifestyle and that is why they are in the 3% club.  If you don’t already know, the "3%" are the most fit people with high levels of health and success. These are the people who are admired for their health, energy and fitness, their ability to perform, their confidence and accomplishments.

They are the people whom we look at and wonder "how do they do it?" Now you know, they have Performance Lifestyles, the secret is out of the bag!

If you’re living on the downward trend of overwhelm, exhaustion and overweight, its pretty hard to be healthy and successful.
As Alex Mandossian says "health and fitness, in my opinion, are two keys of winning in business", or in any area of lives.

You see, with being athletic, there comes a mindset, it is called the Performance Lifestyle mindset. Your mindset affects how you think, live and work. People with Performance Lifestyles, think and live like athletes in almost everything they do, even if it has nothing to do with sports. If it requires energy, action and performance, they see it like playing a sport.

It’s not that winning is everything to healthy high achievers, it’s just that playing to win on all fronts of your life, not only works, it’s more fun.

It is the key reason why athletes avoid driving themselves into the ground and look, feel and perform better than the rest. It’s the reasonwhy they take care of themselves at the level they do and with such passion.

Do you want that mindset? Do you want to begin to unleash the full potential of your lifestyle to achieve better results in your life
and business? You don’t have to be a champion in any sport to do it. I’m not. You’ve read my story.

I now live a Performance Lifestyle because it enables me to look, feel and perform better than when I was all caught up being a
burnt out workaholic. I’m more confident and I’m accomplishing more than ever.

The same thing will happen to you. You don’t have to be an accomplished athlete, but beginning to develop this mindest is really powerful. You can do relatively easily. I’ll show you how.

If you haven’t read the special report, here’s the link www.performancelifestyle.com.

If you want to change your lifestyle successfully, unleash it’s full potential. This is the way to go. The inspiration, education and support you need to succeed, await you.

All you have to do is participate, and play. Join me for the next Performance Lifestyle Training and group coaching.

By Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS

Turbulance Training

I’ve been meaning to write this email for a long time. Today I’m going to give you the story of how I solved the problem of getting an efficient and effective fat loss program finished in 45 minutes. Essentially, how I invented Turbulence Training. And then I’ll end with a sample TT workout for you…

But first, let’s take a trip down memory lane to the winter of 98-99. I was but a lowly grad student, studying the effects of androstenedione (the supplement taken by the might Mark McGwire during his record-breaking home run quest in ‘98).

In my study (which was published in the Canadian Journal of Applied Physiology for any science nerds like myself out there), we had guys use the supplement and go through a couple of weight training sessions. By February of ‘99 I was stuck in the lab, analyzing the blood samples using some fancy radio-active isotopes.

And when I say stuck in the lab, I mean STUCK. I’d get there at 7am, and record my last data point at 11pm. Sixteen hours of mad science. And if I wasn’t there, I was downstairs in themedical library, studying papers on testosterone and training.

Now coming from a very athletic background, this sedentary lifestyle didn’t sit well with me. But there I was, studing for a degree in Exercise Physiology and left with no time for exercise. Or so I thought. Fortunately, I actually had a 50 minute window once per day of "down-time" while the lab’s gamma-counter analyzed blood samples.

That left me 50 minutes to get to the gym (5 minutes across campus) and get a workout in the remaining 40 or so minutes. I knew that if I applied my studies to the workout, I could get maximum results in minimum time.

As a former athlete, I knew that I had to find a way to stay fit and to avoid the fat gain that comes with working long hours in a sedentary environment. And I also had to stay true to the high-school bodybuilder I once was, so there was no way I was willing to sacrifice my muscle to one of those long-cardio, low protein fat-loss plans that were popular at the time.

Instead, I had to draw on my academic studies and my experiences working with athletes as the school’s Strength & Conditioning Coach. I knew that sprint intervals were associated with more fat loss than slow cardio, and I knew that you could also increase aerobic fitness by doing sprints (but you can’t increase sprint performance by doing aerobic training).

So clearly, intervals were (and ARE!) superior to long slow cardio. I had seen first hand the incredible results of sprint intervals in the summer and fall, as the athletes made huge fitness improvements and shed winter fat in a short time using myT interval programs. I knew that intervals had to be the next step in the evolution of cardio.

The biggest benefit of intervals? A lot of results in a short amount of time. I knew that I only had 40 minutes to train, and therefore I could only spend 15-20 minutes doing intervals.

Now onto the strength training portion of the workouts. I knew that a high-volume bodybuilding program wasn’t going to cut it - I just didn’t have time. But in the past year I had read so many lifting studies, that I knew exactly what exercises I needed to do to maximize my lifting time in the gym.

Those exercises were standing, multi-muscle, movements such as squats, presses, rows, power cleans, and plenty of other standing single-leg exercises. I knew that those exercises would bring me far more results than those people sitting on machines would ever achieve. And I also knew that I had to lift heavier than the average Joe or Jane Gym-goer lifts. I just knew that doing lighter weights and high-reps wasn’t going to cut it. And a research study from 2001 later showed that I was right - when women did 8 reps per set, they had a significantly greater increase in post-workout metabolism than if they did 15 reps per set.

So I had my plan. Bust my tail over to the gym, through the cold, dreary Canadian winter afternoon, and do a quick but thorough warmup (specific to my lifts - none of that 5 minutes on the treadmill waste of time).

Turbulance Training

Once I got through the warm-up, I did as many sets as I could in the remainder of the 20 minutes for strength training.
At that point, I knew that supersets were the only way to go if I wanted to maximize the number of sets I could do…so the non-competing superset of Turbulence Training was put in place.

By non-competing, I mean that the 2 exercises in the superset don’t interfere with one another. So you can use upper and lower body exercises together, or pushing and pulling exercises. Just be careful not to use two grip-intensive exercises together in a superset - otherwise, one exercise will suffer, if not both.

And then I followed up the strength training with intervals, as I knew these had to follow the lifting, otherwise it would not be the correct exercise order. Remember, intervals first leads to premature fatigue. Lift first, cardio later. Forget that old wives tale about doing cardio first to burn more fat. That’s junk.

You know, I remember the exact day and exact workout that this all came together into the Turbulence Training program. It hit me as I was finishing my intervals. I knew I had found something that was like fat loss magic. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a way to put it in a pill. But I’ve been able to put it down on paper in all of the TT manuals.

The exact workout I used that day went like this…

Warm-up
1 set of Bodyweight Squats
1 set of pushups
1 set of Squats with the empty bar
1 set of light dumbbell chest presses
1 set of moderate weight barbell squats
1 set of moderate weight dumbbell chest presses

Strength Training Superset #1
Barbell Squats paired with Dumbbell Chest Presses
3 supersets, aiming for 8 reps per side per set

Strength Training Superset #2
DB Rows paired with Barbell Forward Lunges
3 supersets, aiming for 8 reps per set

Stationary Bike Intervals
After a warmup, I did 6 intervals of 45 seconds work and 45 seconds rest, finishing with a cool-down.

And from that point in time, I’ve tried to share this and all the other Turbulence Training workouts with as many men and women as possible. The same men and women that I would see day-in and day-out performing the same ineffective slow-cardio fat loss programs, and not making a darn change month after month. And every day they would see me, soaked in sweat, feeling great and looking lean, and finishing another TT workout.

Eventually I noticed these other men and women weren’t around as consistently as before, and then soon enough they would drop out completely - after all, they weren’t getting results with their slow cardio and aerobics classes (yep, those were still around in ‘99!).

And so here we are today…thousands of TT users later, with national fitness magazines like Men’s Health, Men’s Fitness, and Shape spreading the good word about Turbulence Training.

Thousands of TT users, dozens of personal trainers, and even several national fitness magazines all agree with me,

Turbulence Training is the #1 way to fast fat loss.

Thanks for being a part of the TT Lifestyle Revolution, and for sharing this new and improved fat loss training and cardio system with the world. So when you see someone frustrated with their ineffective fat loss program, tell them there is a better way. It’s
research-based, efficient, and most of all, effective. And yes, it goes against the crowd. But it works.

And it’s now better than ever,

Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
Author, Turbulance Training

PS - Don’t know where to start?

If you are a beginner, start by reading Dr. Mohr’s nutrition guidelines…eating properly will be the biggest factor in your early success. Beginners should also start with the Introductory TT workouts to prepare their muscles for the upcoming intense
training.

For others, it’s best to start with the Intermediate Level TT workouts. If those aren’t enough of a challenge, you can move onto the Original TT workout and follow the 16-week advanced program right through.

If at any time you need a break, try the TT Bodyweight 4-week plan. And then finish off with the bonus programs to cap off a full 24 weeks of Advanced TT fat loss workouts.

Turbulance Training

About the Author

Craig Ballantyne is a Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist and writes for Men’s Health, Men’s Fitness, Maximum Fitness, Muscle and Fitness Hers, and Oxygen magazines. His trademarked Turbulence Training fat loss workouts have been featured multiple times in Men’s Fitness and Maximum Fitness magazines, and have helped thousands of men and women around the world lose fat, gain muscle, and get lean in less than 45 minutes three times per week.

For more information on the Turbulence Training workouts that will help you burn fat without long, slow cardio sessions or fancy equipment, visit Turbulance Training

By Rob Poulos
Fat Burning Furnace

I was puttering around on the internet this morning and I saw something that caught my eye.  It was the latest data
regarding our current life expectancy as humans from the World Health Organization, along with a history of how that’s changed over the years.

This info went all the way back to the Neanderthal period (the guys from the Geico commercials) u.p to present day humans.Those poor Geico guys only lived to be 20 years old on average, while today’s humans can expect about 75 years of life.

But did you know that today’s people have an average healthy life expectancy of just 67 years?  In other words, this is saying that you can expect 8 years of your life in poor health.  8 years!  That’s 2900+ days of poor health.  I don’t know about you, but that’s not something I’m looking forward to.

I sure think we can do better than 67 years of good health on this planet.  And you know what?  We can.  This number is an average.  Like anything else, you don’t have to be average if you don’t want to be.  The average person doesn’t exercise properly, if at all.  The average person doesn’t know how to make the right foods selections and maintain a healthy diet. The average person doesn’t apply themselves mentally and emotionally to maintain relatively stress f.ree living.

If this sounds a little bit too much like you, the good news is you don’t have to be this person any longer.  While it is a shame that today’s health, fitness, and diet industry is simply confusing more people than it’s helping, there are a few people and organizations out there that can provide a realistic, effective and efficient approach to breaking past the average healthy life span and living those years full of energy, strength, and vitality.

I get questions from my Fat Burning Furnace students all the time, after going through the FBF materials, about how they can’t believe how little exercise I recommend.  And even though I’ve told them up front that they can let go of the aerobics or traditional cardio, many still have trouble doing that.  And what I tell them is directly related to the subject of life expectancy and just how much time we really have in our lives.

I tell them that having a lean, strong, and healthy body is great.  It’s one of the most important things we can attain. Period.  But, how much time is it worth to you?  That’s the question I asked myself over and over when seeking out my own methods and developing the FBF system.

Most people, after years and years of trial and error, come to realize that spending several days and hours a week working out is just not worth the trouble.  And carefully measuring your food, counting calories, and depriving yourself of nutrient rich foods like whole grain carbohydrates is also something that shouldn’t be necessary to enjoy a healthy and energy filled life.  And it isn’t.

What we really should be focusing on is how much time and effort is minimally required to get the results we’re looking for. Think about that.  Not how much, but how much is minimally required.  Remember, we’ve got just 67 healthy years as a starting point…If I valued my time on this planet, this is what I would be searching for.

If it really took hours and hours a week and all of that crazy nutrition manipulation to burn fat, build muscle, strength, and cardiovascular health, I’m not sure I’d do it.  Not for very long anyway.  I’ve tried that approach, for years, and if you have you know it’s no fun.  And it’s just not realistic given the demands our lives place on us in today’s world.

But as I’ve mentioned before, you don’t have to worry about that kind of stuff anymore.  The principles in my FBF system allow you to approach your genetic potential for a lean, strong, and healthy body in just minutes each week and with very simple lifestyle changes.

I’ve been using the FBF principles for a while now.  I work out twice each week.  I even take a week off entirely every few weeks or so.  I don’t count calories.  I don’t deprive myself of the foods I love.  If it’s my daughter’s birthday, I eat a piece of cake.  I just work the FBF principles and continue to stay in great shape day after day, week after week, year after year.

I work out so little because of the way the workouts are performed and created, and I eat with such flexibility because I stick with the FBF lifestyle, which gives you the power of flexibility and variation that is lacking in most programs.

What I’m saying is that I’ve discovered what is minimally required to give me the health and body that I wanted.  And many of my FBF students are doing it as well.  Sure I could add another day a week to my workouts, but at this point it would actually be detrimental to my results.  I could also start messing with my diet in all sorts of crazy ways, but that would just make my body angry and cause me unneeded stress.

So, I ask you, are you trying to find what’s minimally required to get you the results you want?  If you truly value your time and the other worthy pursuits in your life, I’m suggesting that this is exactly what you should be doing.  

If you don’t, you may just end up being an average 67 year old with 8 years of poor health to look forward to.
Here’s to getting lean, strong, and healthy for life,

Rob Poulos Zero to Hero Fitness

P.S. If you want to find out more about what’s minimally required for a lean, strong, and healthy body, tap on the
link below:

Fat Burning Furnace 

By John Allen Mollenhauer, MTCP, CPT CNT
www.PerformanceLifestyle.com
 

It’s your lifestyle!

The only reason why you have to transform you’re body is because your living on the downward trend. That means you’re living out of balance and poor lifestyle decisions are being made as a result of overwhelm and exhaustion.

When we talk about Performance Lifestyle, where talking about whether your lifestyle is working for you and the achievement of your goals or working against you. If you’re not living in relative balance, and taking care of yourself at a high enough level, you’ll inevitably lack energy; the energy to take care of yourself and achieve your goals in a healthy way. You’re living, overwhelmed by too much going on, too many demands on your energy, too much food, maybe even over training, etc… It all leads to overweight!

The Performance Lifestyle starts with a thriving environment and it ensures you’re driven effectively, charged, fueled, and fit for the challenges in your life and business. That includes the successful management of your energy, your food quality, and activity levels at the core and this is essentially, what athletes pay attention to most.  

Athletes are incentivized to take care of themselves at a high level because they are always preparing for events that require health and performance. The question I have for you is why are you any different?  Aren’t you always preparing for events - personal, professional, social etc?

If you don’t manage your personal energy and you’re eating nutrient poor (as most of the population does), if you are physically inactive and you don’t condition your body to be able to perform, its incredibly easy to see why we downward spiral with limited energy and then resort to body transformation programs to solve our problem. Problem is, they don’t solve it!

Nobody, not even the best of the best can sustain themselves, experience quality of life and be legitimately happy and productive for the long haul, let alone maintain their "look", feel good and perform well in the face of today’s incredibly demanding schedules, if
they are living in chronic overwhelm, and exhausted. This is why coordinating all aspects of your life to support the fast-paced lives we live today and learning the core personal energy management strategies are the foundation of a Performance Lifestyle. The quality of the food you eat and exercise essential parts of the lifestyle formula, but secondary.

If I had a dollar every time someone asked me what the best "energizing foods" were, I’d be many times wealthier than I am right now. When’s the last time you ate a healthy food, unless your blood sugar was low, where all of a sudden you had boundless energy? It doesn’t happen! Depending on the food and your energy level, maybe you got a little boost, but if you were fatigued to start, you’re still fatigued after you eat. Foods don’t’ really energize, they fuel you. Recuperation energizes you!

The above insight alone makes the case for the Performance Lifestyle. If the way you’re living is driving you downhill, energetically, the very aspects of life most directly associated with health and fitness, (eating and exercise) are simply less effective in solving your problem (lack of energy, overweight etc) and this is the trouble with most body transformation or weight loss programs.    

To most people body transformation is something different from having a successful lifestyle with a primary focus on energy management. The way most people are "trained" is to simply eat less and exercise more and take lots of supplements, but the same downward trending lifestyle stays in place. This is why they don’t maintain longer term. They don’t have a healthy performance lifestyle to start.

For example, here’s the stereotypical definition of body transformation people buy into. It is great if you’re a bodybuilder but not so great if you’re a business professional, working parent etc and want to live a healthy high performance lifestyle to achieve your goals and simply look and feel better.     

I Googled "body transformation program" and here’s what comes up #1: http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/bodytrans.htm. Now I am a former competitive bodybuilder. I was fourth place Mr. New Jersey in my early twenties, a mere 15 years ago, and I owned a hard core bodybuilding gym at one point, before I got into the health club business.

So I know this world of body transformation very well and it’s effects. I lived it full time and I can tell you this is not a healthy successful lifestyle unless you’re obsessed with bodybuilding, fitness, or weight loss and you make that, your way of life. Even still it’s not healthy. Read the link.

Is it any wonder why people get trained in this way of life as the way to lose weight and change their lives for the better? The results of these transformations, sell magazines. Contrast is a powerful marketing principle and it works here too. That’s why most people default to unsustainable body transformation solutions rather than get their lifestyle, healthy and high performing. It’s also the reason why so many people are unsuccessful when it comes to transforming their body. They can’t live like that!

Tactical solutions like those in the bodybuilding link above permeate virtually all weight loss solutions on the market today. They are not lifestyle solutions that promote health and success and the market is full of them. They will keep you stuck.

So you have two options:

1) You can go with the tactical solutions that sell you nutrient poor diets, high in protein, and synthetic supplements or,

2) You can set yourself up in a lifestyle that is healthy and successful. You can move forward in a position of strength, no longer on the downward trend, with your lifestyle "firing on all cylinders". And you can take it to heights you never imagined to look, feel and perform better.

One lasts you months and you just follow it; the other requires some lifestyle training and coaching but lasts you for years.

Which one do you want?

BOTH paths to body transformation require effort, yet at the same time, they are fundamentally different. One comes with a program mentality and the other comes with a lifestyle mindset, which is more inclusive and lasting. And true of the latter, you experience health, success, and freedom.

If you think you’re going to be free eating a low carb, high protein diet that is nutrient poor, taking short-term gain synthetic supplements and exercising your tail off at high levels of intensity year in and year out, you’re going to "hit the wall" and "fall off the wagon". It is just one more thing you have to worry about as you head back to a downward trending lifestyle.  

Do you want that?

I didn’t think so.

If you want to take your energy, health and fitness to new heights, you can get involved in a fitness challenge (which I support 100%), but first get your lifestyle working for you, and you’ll be ready to fully engage. You never have to "worry" about sticking to a diet or exercise program again when Your lifestyle is working for you all year round.

The Performance Lifestyle is the way to transform your body, because it is all about your lifestyle, getting off the downward trend and fast tracking your health and success by living better. Healthy High Achievers worldwide have Performance Lifestyle’s. We’ll show you how to implement the lifestyle formula and help you unleash your full potential. 

See Part III to Unleash the Full Potential of Your Lifestyle

I just got an email a little while ago talking about yet another “total” body transformation system that’s going to take you from "flabby to fabulous in record time!"

Now I have no issue with people wanting to transform their body or any health and fitness professional showing them how, but I do have an issue with gurus saying they have the puzzle all figured out, meanwhile their talking about tactical solutions to manipulate weight loss… so you can "look like a celebrity.”

Do you really think you’re going to "look like a celebrity," in record time? What do YOU think this is about; do you think it’ll be the result of true lifestyle changes or dietary manipulation and a tanning bed?  

It’s amazing the smoke and mirrors we have to dodge these days to get to the fundamentals that keep us looking, feeling and performing well all year round.  Meanwhile, these same people are saying “enough already with the hype!”

Let’s get real; most of these body transformation systems work. Yes, I said they do work. Unbelievably, achieving "results" is simple; you can do anything differently and you will experience a different “result”. When you do anything that’s different and do it intensely, like changing your diet or exercise levels, I promise you, you will see different results. This is good to know because whether or not you’re going to get a result is not the question.

The questions are about whether the results are

a) Truly better?

b) Just different?

c) Sustainable?

Body transformation programs are succesful only when based on a strategy that promotes health, better performance, and sustainable success. You can take an approach that yields these outcomes, just as simply and as quickly as you can an approach that is tactical and manipulative, unhealthy and unsustainable. Either way, you will look feel and perform better in the short term, only one approach outlasts the other.

Which approach do you want to take? Do you know how to tell the difference?

Body transformation programs are not successful lifestyles in and of themselves even though millions of people have made them a way of life. In some cases they are "chase your tail" lifestyles lead by guru’s profiting off your lack of experience and desire to get results fast, at virtually any cost. You never solve the real problem and have to keep starting again when you hit the wall.

In other cases, you are so focused on "sticking to the program" you actually reinforce the very problem the program is trying to solve, and continue to chase your tail. The problem is, "results" are being sold like widgets these days, and life has other plans. 

The results that many body transformation programs offer are not truly better, they are just different, they are not sustainable and the long-term effects are unknowns.

Don’t get me wrong, many body-transformation programs, even if they aren’t the healthiest or for the long term, are often good for people because they can inspire lifestyle change in the right direction, and this is a good thing. I am very fond of some pro’ whom I disagree with in terms of overall approach or some aspect of it, because I love them as entrepreneurs, as people with heart and with good intentions in the world.

But just be careful.

For example, if you’re transforming your body, with a high "animal" protein low carb diet and lots of synthetic
supplements, there could be many negative consequences. Most plans that promise weight loss and celebrity makeovers
are based on this "model". That’s right; it’s a proven business model for weight loss. 

There are cases though where body transformation programs are bases on sound fundamentals; these are the ones you
want to seek out. These are the true lifestyle fitness challenges like that offered by the Monkey Bar Gym, and
various dietary programs bases on the principles of nutrient density; "Eat to Live" is a prime example. 

Where does the Performance Lifestyle Stack up? 

Given these insights and the obesity trends http://www.mytrainer.com/obesitytrends/ in the market, the fact that we’re not solving the real problem, making it more about "before and after" pictures than health and higher performance, I decided to attempt to
package up the real thing - the fundamentals of a healthy high performance lifestyle into a "formula" anyone can put into play.

I realized that the #1 reason why people don’t understand lifestyle, is because they don’t understand lifestyle, so we made it easy! Let’s face it, we need things to be simple today and what better model to use than the time-tested and proven model of healthy high performing athletes. It’s amazing, how so many millions of people try to stick to obsessively unnatural
weight loss programs, when they could simply model the lifestyles of the people they admire. You don’t have to be an athlete to do it!

Optimizing your Lifestyle, and unleashing it’s full potential is about mastering the fundamentals of successful living first, so you don’t stay stuck in this pattern of "hitting the wall" and "falling off the wagon", again and again and have to trade your health for success. It’s about developing a lifestyle that works for you and the achievement of your goals. 

Athletes don’t have to transform their bodies over and over again. They have healthy lifestyles that enable them to look, feel and perform better and achieve their goals virtually all year round.

If you are looking for the body transformation program that works ALL the time… healthy high performance living has been time-tested and proven for decades if not hundreds of years! What I’ve done is capture the core essentials of this lifestyle to create the Performance Lifestyle Formula(tm).

Get the Lifestyle Formula into play first and you’ll be able to decipher the difference between a body transformation program that works and one that will keep you stuck. You’ll also get better results with a lifestyle that’s now reinforcing your health and success.

See part II of this article series on body transformation programs.

Be careful about reading health and diet books. You may die of a misprint. ~Mark Twain

Let’s get straight to the point; what does it mean to “eat better”?

For more information to www.NutrientRich.com

For some people better means eating a low carb - high fat - high protein diet; for others, eating better means not eating anything that raises your insulin; and still for others, it could mean eating what they have always eaten, just now they take supplements and have a “salad” each day on top of it all, or they eat "everything in moderation”.

The examples could go on forever; the question is whether you are truly eating better, poised for significantly better results, or getting caught up in what are really "diet traps".

Many people know they need to and want to eat better to get healthier, fit etc, only they truly don’t know what that means or how to do it. They are diet trapped and stuck! They make small and misguided changes, usually motivated by weight loss alone, that continue to keep them stuck in eating patterns that don’t promote their health or success.

Does eating better mean…

    * I have to eat only veggies and fruit?
    * I have to eat bland or boring foods?
    * That I can never “indulge”?
    * I have to stop eating certain foods?
    * I won’t be able to fit in with everyone else?
    * …

These are just some of the thoughts that have been on people’s minds for a long time. I had these questions on my mind too, until I discovered the idea of eating Nutrient Rich, and designing my own eating plan comprised predominantly of foods that are great-tasting, health-promoting, and so good they don’t even have to be viewed as “healthy” – a term that only exists because today we are eating predominantly nutrient poor diets.

Nutrient Rich foods are foods you can eat in their natural form, or prepared in even greater tasting ways that are simple quick and easy, even gourmet; more meals and menus than you could ever get to in your lifetime; delicious foods that promote health and success; foods that you’ll come to know very well, as Nutrient Rich.

Nutrient Rich has added new meaning to eating better. It means eating foods that have all the nutrient you need to succeed and having a body that functions in a healthy high performing way, instead of having a nutrient poor body, struggling with weight and health issues.

It means eating the worlds healthiest foods, foods that are normal and natural, and all the amazing things you can do with them from snacks to a five-star meal. As the author of The Nutrient Rich Revolution for virtually every food you’re eating today, there is a more Nutrient Rich version. Once you know about and how to eat Nutrient Rich a whole new world of eating opens up!

But sadly, many people can’t see a reality where foods can be great tasting and health promoting at the same time. The reason is they are stuck in a matrix of eating albeit great tasting foods that are nutrient poor.

According to Joel Fuhrman MD, "93% of the foods the average American eats, is coming from animal products and refined foods".
These are foods that may be rich in some nutrients but as a whole are nutrient poor, or "nutrient barren", missing countless nutrients, not to mention whole nutrient categories.

Only 7% is coming from produce; the Nutrient Rich whole foods which are vegetables, fruits, legumes (beans) whole grains, nuts and seeds and any of the thousands of meals that are closely derived from these foods.

If your diet is predominantly nutrient poor, you have a guaranteed formula, for diet, weight, and long term health issues!

 Now before you think I am promoting a vegan or vegetarian diet, let me make it clear that I’m not. Whether or not you eat meat or ultra refined foods for that matter is up to you. You can eat whatever you want. A Nutrient Rich diet can include animal products and refined foods as part of your total dietary intake.

I’ll teach you the finer points as we move forward together.

The Nutrient Rich approach to eating stands on its own and is different for each and everyone one of us, depending on where you are in your transition to eating better, your activity levels and your goals.

What I am saying, is that we need to literally flip the 93%/7% equation, so that we’re eating 80-90% or more whole Nutrient Rich foods, smaller amounts of animal products if you eat them and even smaller amounts of ultra refined foods, and then discover how to do this in ways that are on par with the meals and menus we eat today.

If you’re going to be healthy, and have a high performance body, don’t eat less of foods that aren’t serving you to begin with, eat better. Eating Nutrient Rich is the way to eat for success!

For more information to www.NutrientRich.com