Healthy High Achiever Blog

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!

"Healthy High Achievers" are people who achieve their goals in life, business and sport, without trading health for success. Rather, with their personal wellness, energy, health and fitness powering the way.

Healthy "High Achievers" aren’t necessarily people whose goals are big. They can be and often times are, but you can have a paper route and still be a high achiever. A high achiever is someone who does things fully engaged, expects and achieves above average outcomes, and thinks bigger than others about the impact of their intention in the world. They bring character and passion to the service of others and it shows.

"Healthy" High Achievers are a rare breed. They are the top 3% of the population simply because they see things differently than most people. They see their lifestyle as the key to their success first and foremost, not success as the key to their lifestyle.

They’re core definition of lifestyle is grounded in personal wellness, health, energy management, fitness and goal achievement concepts, not money or material wealth alone.

They like to earn money, and be financially successful as this is important to a successful lifestyle, they just don’t like to trade their health for it. So they make sure the way they structure their lives, live their lifestyles and achieve their goals is in alignment… working for them, not against them.

Healthy High Achievers, stay out of the downward energy trend - overwhelm, exhaustion and the overweight condition. That trend hinders their quality of life, ability to achieve and experience the outcomes they want in life… for themselves, their families and the people they relate with.

"Healthy High Achievement" is a way of life, and learned in what we call Performance Lifestyle training. It starts with the training and essentially never ends as there is no end to "living" up to your full potential.

Healthy High Achievers, once they learn the performance lifestyle principles and practices, continue to learn and apply. New situations, require new lifestyle strategies. And since mastery is both an art and science they learn from every experience free of guilt and tension, for the most part.

Healthy High Achievers are excited about learning how to live better. They learn all health and wellness concepts in the context of personal performance and success because this is normal, natural and what they are focused on.

John Allen Mollenhauer is the Founder of 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. He is the creator of the Healthy High Achiever - Unleash the Full Potential of Your Lifestyle to Look, Feel and Perform Better!

You know, I get this question all the time and it’s not unusual because a Performance Lifestyle is a new concept. New concepts require explanation.

So today I am going to give you the "plain "explanation.

Simply put…

A Performance Lifestyle goes beyond health and fitness (sleep, eating and exercise) to also include personal wellness, energy management and goal achievement concepts to round out a successful model for living.

All concepts are taught in the "context" of performance and success, which are what people are focused on. Health and sustainable success go hand in hand, they are one and thus, should be taught and learned that way.

The main reason people don’t focus on their health, is because they are naturally not focused on their health. Weight loss and Health are not natural goals.

Goals are those things we achieve in life, business and sport. Having to regain your health… and lose weight,  are distractions from your natural inclination.

If we are to take action consistently, and sustainably and achieve our real goals, we had better take a lifestyle approach that maintains personal wellness, high levels of energy, is fueled by quality food, reinforced by strength and endurance, and is effectively focused.

None of these concepts is optional if we want to be effective and happy in life. Quality of life at the core, is the ability to enjoy the activities in life with little to no limitation, able to function at a high level.

That is why we call this Performance Lifestyle. It bridges the gap between health and success.

When you have these respective areas of your life working for you, your lifestyle works for you, and propels you forward in a
position of strength.

John Allen Mollenhauer is the Founder of 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. He is the creator of the Healthy High Achiever - Unleash the Full Potential of Your Lifestyle to Look, Feel and Perform Better!

One of the things I take very seriously, is understanding what things mean. In other words, what the words and phrases we use actually mean. Wellness is one of those terms that eludes most of us, because it’s far more expansive than health or fitness and when it comes to achievement, once you lose wellness the achievement is far from satisfying or sustainable.

There is a big difference between performing well, and being able to perform "well".

Wellness, is the integration of many different elements (social, emotional, mental, spiritual and physical), that expand ones potential to live (quality of life) and work effectively and to make a significant contribution to society. - Ref: Charles B Corbin Concepts of Fitness and Wellness.

Wellness reflects how one feels (a sense of well being) about life as well as ones ability to function (perform) effectively.

I bet you were expecting me to talk about the physical right off the bat, right? Well, our physical bodies are important without question, but the physical comes up more when we talk about health, energy management and fitness.

The foundation of personal wellness is social (interpersonal), mental and emotional and spiritual… it has more to do with how you think and the benefits supportive community  you are also contributing to, than it does working out or eating the right foods.

And anyone who thinks they are going to to be physically well, lacking psychological strength and emotional fitness is kidding themselves. It’s really hard to do much when you are not feeling well.

Think about your experience. Do you experience much success taking care of your self, let alone business when you don’t feel well? Likely not…

Yes, feeling well is the opposite of illness, but that’s only one definition and a limited one at that. In a deeper sense it’s about those aspects of our lives that are not that noticeable, notably our relations with other people, finances, where we live, etc.

In a Performance Lifestyle, one of the mainstay tactics of Healthy High Achievers is their ability to take a step (s) back to gain perspective and deal with structural life problems or issues that are causing challenges further up the chain; for example; in your lifestyle which will ultimately affect your ability to achieve your goals and sustain success.

Wellness is our personal foundation. Conceptually is represents the present state of things in our lives. Are you addressing the present state of things in your life?

Are you feeling overwhelmed? If you are, that’s the sign to take a step back begin taking action accordingly.

Wellness is not some "feel" good term it is at once the foundation and the result of our health and success and our ability to perform.

John Allen Mollenhauer is the Founder of Performance Lifestyle Solutions, the better healthier ways to achieve your goals. As a a former worn down workaholic turned Healthy High Achiever John Allen (aka “JAM”) will teach you how to Live Like a Pro; how to look, feel and perform better by optimizing your lifestyle the way athletes do. Achieve your goals in life, business and sport and take your life to the next level!