THE FOUR ELEMENTS!!
THE FOUR PILLARS
1. Nutrition
2. Weight training
3. Cardio training
4. Mental training
Nutrition
Nutrition sits on top of the list for obvious reasons:
You can’t out-train a lousy diet. You could burn an enormous amount of calories in training, but it’s ENTIRELY possible to only break even or even blow past your calories burned if you’re indulging in calorie-dense junk food.
Even if you do have your calories set properly, it’s not just a matter of calorie QUANTITY, your success is also a matter of calorie QUALITY!
That means whole, natural food, not packaged, processed, artificial, refined junk.
If in doubt, start improving your eating habits as your first priority – it will pay the greatest dividends for the small effort you invest. For example, one dietary change, such as cutting out sugary soft drinks could produce 20.8 pounds of fat loss for the average person, even if that were the only change made.
For greater success in following your nutrition plan, just add the 5th element!
Weight Training
Weight training is second on the list – YES, above cardio. Sorry, but aerobics alone don’t cut it. In fact, if you could choose ONE form of training to start with, it would be weight training or at least some type of resistance training (body weight resistance, or other weight resistance works too).
Why? Well, most people don’t realize that weight training burns a ton of calories. Sometimes more than cardio.
Weight training also helps you maintain your lean body mass while your calories are in a deficit for fat loss. You almost always lose muscle when dieting without weight training. Bad news, because lean body mass is a major driver of your basal metabolic rate (and you don’t want to end up a “skinny fat person” do you?)
If you don’t have the SECOND ELEMENT in place – start now! And once again, adding the 5th element only makes this element work better as well.
Cardio Training
Cardio training is the THIRD ELEMENT and yes, it is important. It helps burn more calories above and beyond what you burn during your weight training, so you could think of it as a “fat loss accelerator.” And of course, the health benefits are endless.
So, if you want to burn off fat and stop feeling winded just climbing a flight of stairs – be sure your training regime has BOTH types of training – cardio and resistance.
Mental Training
The FOURTH ELEMENT is mental training.
You probably realize instinctively, if not from direct experience, that your mind is powerful.
What most people DON’T realize is that almost all your behaviors are activated subconsciously. You are literally running on auto-pilot every day – for better or worse.
What determines your automatic behaviors (also known as habits), positive or negative, is the programming in your subconscious mind. You started getting programmed as a young child through your parents and social conditioning.
You continued to program your own mind by what you put in it, or allowed to be put in, based on your environment, culture and social affiliations.
Negative mental programming causes self-sabotaging behavior like skipping workouts or binge eating. It also causes fierce, unstoppable motivation, healthy eating and disciplined training.
The difference is all about what’s in your head and what you’re putting in your head every single day.
The good news is, your brain is like a computer and it can be reprogrammed with “mental training” techniques such as visualization, affirmations, goal setting, goal cards, vision boards, visualization photos, audios and many others.
So there you have it – a quick crash course in the first FOUR ELEMENTS.
The Importance of Synergy
One reason so many people fail at their fat loss, health and fitness goals is that they are missing one of these four elements.
In fact, the classic approach to is to pick just ONE THING, put it on a pedestal and call it the magic solution, or to pick one thing to blame obesity on, and call that thing the bad guy.
That “one thing is the problem” approach is a prescription for disaster.
The only true solution is a synergistic one that includes all four elements, which hold you up like pillars or legs of a chair. Pull away one, and you’re wobbly, pull away two and you collapse.
When you have all FOUR in place and then you add the FIFTH ELEMENT, you are ROCK SOLID.
Diet alone won’t do it. Exercise alone won’t do it. Setting goals, visualizing and watching The Secret 100 times WONT DO IT.