Burn Fat, Build Muscle

Burn Fat, Build Muscle

To lose weight, you must burn up body fat. Body-fat is most effectively burnt up with aerobic exercises. Intermittent sprinting is the most effective exercise to burn body-fat. Cycling and swimming are your next best choices. 

We have only examined the mechanics of sprinting because it is the easiest to implement. In order to go sprinting, the only capital investment you need is a 50bucks pair of sneakers.

 

To go cycling, you need a bike. Besides, the initial capital investment; bikes periodically breakdown. Over time, the repairs might add up to a substantial expenditure. Alternatively, you could purchase gym membership. 

Again, this is just swapping, one expenditure for another. In the long run, a personal indoor bike will prove cheaper than gym membership. One advantage going for a gym membership is the variety of bikes they offer. 

In addition, a gym membership lays to rest, all the worries of maintenance costs. You have to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of both options, before deciding, which option is most suitable to you.

When deciding, do not forget to consider the time cost. How far away is the gym? If you spend a quarter of an hour to get to the gym and a quarter of an hour to return from the gym, that amounts to half an hour wasted in the traffic every day. 

If you train for 5days per week; it will amount to 2.5hours wasted in the traffic every week. In a year, you would have spent 130hours in the traffic. Time is a valuable, non-replenishable asset. If you opt for gym membership, factor time, right along with the monetary costs.

 

Swimming is your third best option after sprinting and cycling. You can go sprinting at anytime, day or night. On the contrary, you can’t go swimming whenever you please; unless, off course, you have a pool in your backyard. 

For the sake of argument, I’ll simply assume you do not. In which case, you’ll have to align your aerobics time with the opening hours of the nearest swimming pool. In addition, to the charges of using the pool, there is the back and forth time-cost spent in the traffic. 

 

Comparatively, intermittent sprinting sessions are the most effective exercise to burn body-fat. Sprinting is the most effective aerobics-exercise; both in terms of costs and results. 

In spite of the above-stated advantages of sprinting, if you prefer cycling or swimming, then by all means, go for it.

Shape Up by Shedding Fat

Procrastination is the opposite of consistent self-discipline. Procrastination is the reason people fail to achieve their fitness goals. Procrastination is the reason people fail at anything.

 

Procrastination is deferring an action to a future date.

 

The Popular Myth: You procrastinate because you are lazy, shiftless and weak-willed.

The truth is you procrastinate for two reasons:

1)    Lack of a pre-planned thought control mechanism in the face of an impulse,

2)    Lack of training and energy to implement the thought control mechanism.

 

YouTube reveals something about your own behavior you should have noticed by now. Something which keeps getting between you and the things you want to accomplish.

If you know how to use the “save for later” function in YouTube, you tend to gradually accumulate a cache of hundreds of videos you think you’ll watch one day. This is a bigger deal than you think.

 

Take a look at your queue. Why are there so damn many documentaries and dramatic epics collecting virtual dust in there? By now you could draw the cover art of “Fight Club” from memory. Why don’t you watch it straightaway? Why do you keep postponing it?

It is no longer a mystery to psychologists, why you keep adding videos to your ever-growing collection of dramatic epics. You do it, for the same reason you believe you will eventually get around to doing the work; meticulously accomplishing every goal you have ever set for yourself. Needless to say, you rarely do.

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In a 2008 University of Denver study, researchers Loewenstein and Clarkson had participants pick 3movies out of a selection of 21. The selection consisted of an assortment of low-brow and high-brow movies. 

Among the low-brow, you could find action flicks such as “Kill Bill” or “Collateral”. Among the high-brow were movies such as “Million Dollar Baby” and “Aviator”. 

In essence, the researchers were offering the participants a choice between movies which promised to be exciting and forgettable or engaging and requiring effort to appreciate. 

After making their selection of 3movies, the participants were required to watch one movie, straightaway. They then had to watch another in two days and the third movie was supposed to be watched two more days after the second one. Most participants picked “Million Dollar Baby” as one of their selection of 3. 

They knew it was a splendid movie because the reviews world-wide were nothing short of glowing. The movie had been nominated for the Oscars, Golden Globe and MTV awards. 

Even though, it was in their selection, hardly any of the participants watched the movie on the first day. Instead, they went for the low-brow movies on the first day. 

Out of 600participants, only 44 went for the high-brow movies on the first day. The rest went for comedies or action flicks like “300” or “The Departed” when they had to watch a movie forthwith.

When participants crafted their plans for the future, high-brow movies were picked 63percent of the time as the second movie to be watched and 71percent of the time as the third movie to be watched. 

The researchers decided to repeat the same experiment. Only, this time, all three selected movies had to be watched back-to-back. “Million Dollar Baby” was 13times less likely to be chosen at all. 

The behavioral pattern of the participants, confirmed the hunch the researchers had had all along. People will go for the junk food first, but plan healthy meals in the future. 

Shape Up by Shedding Fat

Over the decades, a wide-range of studies has proven; that you tend to have time-inconsistent preferences. 

Given the choice between a fruit or cake one week from now, you will opt for the fruit. When the week comes around and you are again presented with the choice of either a slice of Italian pie or an apple fruit, you are statistically more likely to go for the Italian pie.

 

This is why your YouTube queue is full of great films you keep passing over for “Collateral”. The YouTube-movie choices, you make, of what to watch right now, or what to watch later, is like chocolate pastries versus cucumber sticks. 

When dealing with the present moment, you go for what tastes good. When planning for the future, you reserve the healthy and nutritious meals for later. 

As marketing psychologists, Julia Bergman has pointed out; this is why grocery stores display candy on the shelves right next to the checkout. 

 

Present bias is the scientific term for this tendency. Present bias is the failure to recognize; that what, you want now, isn’t what you’ll want later. What you want; tends to change over time. 

This tendency is persistent. Have you ever figured out; why you buy grapes and spinach, only to throw them out later, because they rotted, before you came around to eat them? Now, you know. It is because of present bias. 

Present bias is the reason, why you have made the same resolution for the seventh time in a row; but this time is different. This time, you mean it. You are going to work off your body fat. You are going to sculpt a six-pack set of abs so ripped, they could deflect spears.

Shape Up by Shedding Fat

You buy a nice journal. You buy a track suit, running shoes and workout DVD. You actually follow through and workout for the first few days. 

Then, one day, the alarm goes off. You know, you are supposed to go for a run; yet, you hesitate and falter. In that exact moment of hesitation, a choir of voices sings their suave and persuasive rationalization for you to hit the snooze button and return to sleep. It’s the standard procrastination sequence. 

The cue to do as planned is activated. The cue is usually your alarm. It goes off. Rather than do as planned, you hesitate. Then the rationalization hamster kicks in. Your brain rationalizes the planned activity, away. 

Another day, you are out with friends. You can have some chicken wings or a salad. You opt for the chicken wings. You thought each deferment was a one-time thing. Off course, it’s not. 

You assure yourself, that you will re-start training on Monday. Monday comes. You re-start training, but quickly fail once more. The same pattern goes on, week after week. By now, it is a pattern you are familiar with _ the death of your will-power _ death by a thousand paper-cuts.   

 

Procrastination is all-pervasive. It spares no aspect of your life.

 

You never buy Christmas presents; until, the last minute. You postpone filing your taxes; until, the nick of time. You defer seeing the doctor for some health condition, you have; until, the pain becomes unbearable. 

You plan to start a business; yet, you never begin. You plan to vote; yet, there’s always a reason, why you can’t register forthwith. You have been thinking of changing your engine oil; yet, it only remains a thought. 

You have a plan to deal with those piles of dishes getting higher in the kitchen sink. What is stopping you from inserting your laundry in the washing machine and pushing that “start” button? Instead of doing sit-ups as you planned, you have opted to play “Far Cry”. 

When will you start work on that manuscript, that dissertation or the proposal for that grant? Will you get on it, when the deadline creeps close enough to punch you in the nose? You have grandiose plans to learn a foreign language. 

You’ll start next week. Wait a minute! Wasn’t it Brazilian jiu jitsu, you had planned for next week? Your shelf has a growing stack of books you plan to read one day. 

Before you start though, it is imperative that you flip out your phone and check your skype, your email, your Facebook-feed; just to get it out of the way. Before you move an inch, you need a cup of coffee to stimulate your brain to optimal performance. 

Starbucks is just a stone’s throw away. As the aroma of the Arabica beans caress your nostrils, the idea of watching an episode of the “Game of Thrones” becomes quite appealing.

Shape Up by Shedding Fat

At the advent of each year, you promise yourself sweeping transformations. The improvements to your life would be dramatic, if only you could buckle down and put forth the effort.

You try to put forth the effort. You download a to-do-list app for your phone and purchase a daily planner. You write little reminders on post-it notes and stick them on your refrigerator, doors, bathroom mirrors, practically everywhere. 

You transform yourself into a productivity warrior, fully equipped with state-of-the-art gadgets to make you super efficient. By themselves, these tools fail to make you more efficient because the problem is not that you are a bad manager of your time. 

The problem is that you are a bad tactician in the mental battles; which you fight several times a day.

 

Running around and purchasing all these cutting-edge productivity tools, proves one thing only. You have not yet identified the enemy. 

I told you the enemy at the beginning of the chapter. Now again, I tell you. The enemy is a THOUGHT IMPULSE. And these impulses occur several times a day.

 

Procrastination is such an omnipresent aspect of the human experience, that there are over 500 books for sale, promising to snap you out of your bad habits. 

Last year alone, 130 new books were published on the topic. Procrastination is a problem that has accompanied man throughout his long struggle from mud houses to steel-framed skyscrapers. 

Just like we have the blueprint to build skyscrapers, we also have the blueprint to eradicate procrastination. So, why do you have a hard time defeating it?

Shape Up by Shedding Fat

To explain, consider the power of marshmallows.

 

Throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s, personality psychologist Walter Mischel carried out “The Marshmallow Experiments” at Stanford University. The experiments were conducted on nursery school children, aged between 4 and 5years. 

Each child was made to sit alone in a room. The researcher would enter the room and offer the child a giant marshmallow or a cookie. The child could have the marshmallow straightaway or he could wait for 7minutes. 

Then, the researcher left the room. Before leaving, he promised to give the child 2marshmallows, upon returning, if the child had not eaten the first marshmallow. To get the payoff, the child had to sit alone in the room, with a tasty marshmallow and a bell on the table.

7minutes might not seem like a long time but in the mind of a 4year old, it might seem to be 7hours. At any moment, throughout the 7minutes wait, the child could simply grab the marshmallow on the table and eat it. 

If the child opted to eat the marshmallow, he was required to ring the bell; so that, the researcher could end the experiment. Some children made no attempts at self-control and munched the marshmallow straightaway. 

To no avail; some kids tried to wait for 7minutes. They resisted the tasty marshmallow on the table, for as long as they could, before surrendering to temptation and eating it. A few waited through the entire 7minutes. It was an agonizing wait. 

Some made silly noises, twisting their hands and feet, while looking away. In the end, they were awarded the payoff of 2marshmallows. In the end, more than half the participants in the experiment failed to resist.

Initially, “The Marshmallow Experiments” were only about delayed gratification, but over the decades, this same experiment has given scientists piercing insights into metacognition _ thinking about thinking. 

Shape Up by Shedding Fat

Personality psychologist Walter Mischel spent the next 4decades tracking and recording the lives of the original children in “The Marshmallow Experiments”. The results were stunning.

 

The kids, who, for 7minutes, successfully waited for the reward of 2marshmallows, went on as adults, to earn more money than their peers. They never ran into problems with the law and kept their hands off recreational drugs. They paid their mortgages on time and maintained a healthy body mass index. 

 

“The Marshmallow Experiments” revealed that the kids, who were able to delay gratification in exchange for a bigger future payoff, were not necessarily more intelligent than the other kids. Neither were they less gluttonous. 

They simply had better mastery of the skills required to trick themselves into following through with a plan. 

These kids watched the wall, instead of looking at the marshmallow. They tapped their feet to prevent the aroma of the treat from getting the better of them. The kids, who succeeded; all did the same thing. Through one form or another, the kids diverted their attention away from the treat.

 

And therein lies the solution to procrastination. You must learn to mentally control, where you put your attention. My friend, control where you put your attention; and you will defeat procrastination.

 

In the experiments, the younger children fared worst at metacognition. As any parent would confirm, little kids are not renown for their legendary self-control. 

Some of the older boys in the experiment used ingenious techniques to sabotage their negative impulses. These boys went on as adults to squeeze more out of life. 

Shape Up by Shedding Fat

My new weight allowed me to drop a dress size every 7days. Luckily for me, I didn’t have to go out buying new dresses, each time, I lost fat.

This was only the beginning. You are deeply mistaken, if you think my fat-loss journey ended there.

I stumbled upon a 160year old idea known as “flavor-pairing” ritual. Ever since the concept has been refined in the country, which holds the record for longest-living and disease-resistance.

“Flavor Pairing” can actually transform the female body into a fat-torching furnace that burns hotter with each passing moment.

While at the same time generating a “rebound weight-gain defense system”,

Making it almost biologically impossible for the fat to wickedly reappear like it always does... you know what I'm talking about...

For years, I blamed my genetics because NOTHING had ever worked. And I had tried a ton of different recipes.

My long succession of failure ended with the “flavor pairing ritual.” It worked.

My friends and acquaintances were awed by the 67lbs fat-loss in an incredibly short time interval.

At almost 40 years old, I eliminated 100 pounds of confidence-stealing, energy-sucking and potentially life-ending body-fat.

And finally got to live my “happily ever after” reversing all signs of hypertension, diabetes and depression.

I shrank from a whopping 42 inches all the way around - down to only 26” inches!

Things weren’t always this way. I use to be lean. Participating in sports was obligatory during my college days. That’s what kept me fit.

The blatant fact is every woman false victim to the shadowy Metabolic-Villain that forces the 3 hormones that kept you fit, youthful, healthy and happy, when you were younger.

This metabolic-villain is quite persistent. It is responsible for your lifetime struggle with body-image.

If you neglect the metabolic-villain, it will lock in your weight-management hormones to “storage-mode”.

And even though none of this our fault because nobody, not even our doctor warns us about this when we’re younger...

Unless, of course, you are one of the lucky 8% blessed with near-perfect-genetics...

Shape Up by Shedding Fat

As women, we are ALL VICTIMS of this fat-hoarding 30-year sentence.

Once your twenties are over, the fat will begin to accumulate around your waist.

After puberty, the efficiency of your metabolism will slowly begin to degrade. This continues even after menopause.

In fact, it only accelerates after menopause.

All was lost for me; until, I discovered the “flavor pairing” ritual.

I could have never discovered these kindergarten-simple “Flavor-Pairing” rituals from a tiny island 6000 miles across the ocean...that not only had the power to transform my body -

But bodies and lives of over 16,787 other women just like you, in the last year alone.

You are literally only one unusual step in an unexpected direction away from knocking over the one big fat-loss domino that’s standing between you and a toned body.

Just like Susan did at 53 years old....

Susan had tried everything else without success.

Only the flavor and carb-pairing ritual helped her channel a fat-flushing current through her metabolism.

It forced 48 pounds of fat from her body, while allowing her to recover the youthful glow of her twenties.

Susan lost 48pounds. She did it at age 53.

Kelly lost 52lbs!

This technique really does work. It will even work on ladies with stubborn belly-fat.

Like Kelly who lost 52 pounds, using the salty-sweet flavor-pair that revs up fat-burning by over 200%...

It even works on working moms, who are in their forties like Sarah. By using this technique, Sarah melted away even more weight than I did in her first 3 weeks.

The results are even more astounding, when combined with the metabolism-reset tea.

That’s how Sarah was able to lose 48lbs.

Not only is this weight-loss doubling method 100%-Biologically-Guaranteed to work for women between the ages of 20-65 years old....

But, it is also 100% all-natural and safe.

Shape Up by Shedding Fat