I wasn’t a boy scout when I was a kid, which may explain why I can’t tie a knot to save my life.

It may also explain why I don’t like to go camping, couldn’t start a fire without a flame thrower, and pretty much couldn’t survive one day in the wilderness…

…oh who am I kidding, I couldn’t survive one day without internet, my iPhone or cable TV.

But there’s one thing that they learned in boy scouts that could really help you lose weight and that’s their motto.

Always be prepared.  At least I think that’s their motto…if it’s not, let’s pretend it is.

Always be prepared is a statement that you need to etch into your brain and remember if you really want to lose some fat.

Always being prepared means that you’ll always know what your plans are for your meals and snacks.

Always being prepared means that you know what days you’re going to do a fat loss workout, what time you’re going to workout and where.

Always being prepared basically means you cover all your bases so you don’t have ANY excuses as to why you can’t get in your workout or have to resort to eating some comfort of convenience food.

For me, always being prepared means that every night before I go to bed I get my breakfast smoothie ready for blending in the morning.

That way when I come into the kitchen, I grab it out of the refrigerator, blend it up and drink it on the way to my training studio.

It can also mean packing a lunch for me to eat at my desk…although that never happens and I usually end up calling my wife and asking her to bring me something.

It also means making sure I have healthy snacks at my desk so that if I have to go run errands I’m not tempted to buy some junk food in the check out.

What does always being prepared mean for you?

Does it mean that you eat a healthy snack before you go to a party that you know will be littered with unhealthy foods and booze?

Does it mean packing a gym bag the night before so you remember to take it with you?

Does it mean waking up 15 minutes earlier in the morning so you can get your workout in before your busy day?

I’ve heard from clients that they went to breakfast meetings and were tempted with muffins, coffee drinks and other not-so-good for you treats because they didn’t eat anything before the meeting and didn’t bring anything with them.

That’s not being prepared and their boy scout troop leader would not be happy.

I’ve also heard clients and subscribers say that they didn’t get their workout in  because they didn’t have time.

I don’t know why they thought that excuse would fly with me because all my workouts can be done in 4, 10 or 15 minutes!

Think about it because it just might mean the difference between your weight loss success and weight loss failure.

It could be something as simple as packing a lunch the night before, and setting your alarm for a few minutes earlier so you get your workout in before you have an excuse not to.

What is it?  What’s holding you back?

Think about it…write it down…do it!

Have a good day!

Ed

P.S. - After I emailed you yesterday about that subscriber who bashed my abs workouts, I got quite a few emails telling me that person was stupid and that my workouts are great.  That made my day!

I even got an email from someone telling me that they lost 8kg (about 16 pounds for us non-metric system folks) in 2 months just by following the information in my newsletters…they didn’t even buy my Fat Loss To Go program and they still lost all kinds of weight just by putting into practice what I give you each and every week in this newsletter.

That really made my day!

Thank you for all your support and kindness.

I recently received an email from an angry subscriber telling me that the abs exercises and abs workouts I give in my YouTube videos and in these newsletters are largely worthless.

He didn’t go into specifics and didn’t even tell me which ones he’s tried, but I can guess why he thought that.

It’s a frustration I know a lot of people have when they try some of the abs workouts and abs exercises I design.

All too many people think that abs exercises will shrink their belly…fast.  Sorry, but you can’t spot reduce and it abs specific exercises won’t do too much in the way of losing stomach fat.

They’re very, very important, but very overrated.

You can’t spot reduce.

In case you can’t tell, I don’t instruct many people to do crunches.  They’re a decent exercise, don’t get me wrong and they do have their place, but they’re largely ineffective and useless when it comes to getting a workout done in 4, 10 or 15 minutes.  There are far better abs exercises that yield much better results in a lot less time.

Having said that, not many people know how to do abs exercises that don’t involve crunches, properly.

The other thing that many of my clients and subscribers have issues with when it comes to abs exercises (that don’t involve crunches) is that they don’t “activate” or “brace” their abs before and during the exercise.

They just haphazardly go through the motions and expect the exercise to work.

Working your abs is a lot different than working your biceps, for instance.  Well, not a lot, but it is different.

If you want to work your biceps, you grab a dumbbell, and do some bicep curls.  If that weight is heavy enough and you’re using decent form your biceps will be worked and you’ll “feel it”.

However if I tell you to get down and do a Plank, Mountain Climber, or other crunch free abs exercise and you don’t use excellent form and don’t actively brace your abs, you probably won’t even tell it’s working your stomach.

Another common mistake I see people making is sticking your butt in the air, letting your stomach sag and not bracing your abs when doing a Plank variation or other stability exercise.  My boot camp ladies will tell you that one of my favorite phrases is “keep your butt down” and “no pyramids” when they’re doing Planks.  It’s very easy to stick your butt up in the air while doing planks because that makes the exercise A LOT easier.  There’s less work for your abs to do if you look like  giant triangle.

The same goes with letting your stomach sag.  Have you ever seen an old horse?  You know how their stomach sags really low to the ground and their back is “U” shaped?  That’s the way a lot of people do their planks.  They don’t keep their stomachs tight and braced and let their stomachs sag like an old horse.

Stop doing that!

Not only does it make the exercise less effective, but it will kill your back.

When it comes to the Mountain Climber variations that I love so much, and love to make people do, the same rules apply.  Don’t stick your butt in the air.  Your body should be in a straight line from shoulders to toes.  Your hips shouldn’t sag and your butt shouldn’t be up.

You also need to focus on your abs and keep them tight and actually concentrate on flexing them every time you bring your knee to your chest.

My clients will be the first ones to tell you that I’m always harping on them making sure they keep their tummies tight when doing an exercise that should be working their abs.

I can tell if they are or are not bracing their abs and keeping them tight.

You NEED to focus on this until it becomes a habit for you to maintain tension in your abs when doing abs exercises, or pretty much any exercise I prescribe.

Not only is it important for the effectiveness of the abs exercise, but it’s also important for the strength and health of your stomach and back.  If you don’t brace your abs, you’re much more at risk for back pain…and you don’t want that.

So remember to always focus on keeping that tummy tight when doing any of the abs exercises I prescribe.  It could make or break the look and feel of your stomach.

Have a great day!

Ed

P.S. – If you want to take a look at some of the videos that subscriber was bashing, check out my YouTube site at www.YouTube.com/ELSwellness.  I’ve got 45 videos up there and many of them focus on the abs specifically.

What happens when you have 6 clients in a row from 6am until noon, then sit on your booty for 3 hours?

You become a tight, fried, irritable, yet exuberant personal trainer who just had an awesome day…is almost finished up with a huge project that is different than anything else on the market when it comes to fat loss workouts, and is ready to drop the baby off at the in-laws for a date night with my beautiful, yet neglected wife.

I haven’t been this pumped yet so drained at the same time in a long time.

It feels awesome.

Now I’m going to do a 10 minute bodyweight circuit consisting of the following:

1A) Push-up Plank Extension – 10 each arm
1B)  Burpees – 10
1C)  Forward Lunge – 10 each leg
1D)  Reverse Lunge – 10 each leg
1E)  Spiderman Push-up – 15
1F)  Pike Push-up – 15

I’m going to do that circuit as many times without stopping for 10 minutes.

Wanna try?  Who knows you just might like it!

Have a great weekend!

Ed, the Fit Dad

I didn’t upload pictures of my cute little munchkin from Halloween so here it is.

If you can’t tell she was a kitty and let me tell you, she was the cutest damned kitty you ever saw.

I don’t care what your kid was dressed as, mine was cuter.  She said “Meeeeow” and “trick or treat”, although she didn’t get to do too much of that.

We had a great time dressing her up and getting to see my little niece who was dressed as a sock monkey.  She came close to being as cute as Maren, but my kitty was still the cutest kid around.

Have a great day!

The Fit Dad

It’s getting to be that time of year here in Nebraska where it gets colder than a witch’s you know what.

I’m not a big fan of cold.  I like to be toasty warm.

I like to be able to go outside and play if I’d like and so does Maren.

But she’ll be damned if she’s going to let a little cold weather get in her way.

We headed to our local park yesterday because she wanted to go swinging.

She loved it even though her little nose and her tiny little hands were bright red and frozen.

She refused to wear gloves and didn’t want her hat on.  We’re just lucky she didn’t want to strip her clothes off as she’s now prone to doing at home.

Hopefully she grows out of THAT phase before she begins school!

Any ideas on how to get this little munchkin to wear gloves other than super gluing them to her wrists?

Have a great cold Thursday!

The Fit Dad

I’m not a big fan of going to commercial gyms or health clubs to get workouts done.   I think they’re largely a waste of time.

But I recently found myself needing to use one to get in a fat burning workout because I was on the road and needed to get the heck out of the hotel.

Going in I knew what I was going to find and I wasn’t disappointed…or maybe I was.  I guess it depends on your perspective.

I saw person after person doing love handles exercises, or at least what they thought were love handles exercises and they were doing the wrong ones.

They were spending all their time on the floor doing ab crunch variations, twisting and torquing their bodies into weird positions just so they could work those hard to reach love handles.

I even saw people working on the abs machines that are supposed to work the love handles, but they’re largely $4000 pieces of junk.

To truly work your love handles, or your abdominal region in general, you’ve got to get out of the mindset that crunches are the one and only way to accomplish losing stomach fat.

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I have designed thousands of fat burning workout programs over the years and by far the biggest request I receive has to do with the stomach.

Clients want to know how to lose stomach fat, how to get six pack abs and what the best six pack abs exercises are.

When I ask them what their idea of a good six pack abs exercise they usually bring up some form of abs crunch, sit-up or torso twist.  I can’t blame them because we’ve been brainwashed into believing those exercises really burn stomach fat and will help you get six pack abs.

We’ve got infomercials running constantly telling us their abs gizmo will carve our six pack abs and there’s no shortage of magazine article pointing to some sort a crunch to really target the abdomen.

Unfortunately we’ve all been lead down the wrong path when it comes to six pack abs exercises and how to lose stomach fat.

To truly burn stomach fat you have to use a lot of muscle, which is why the best six pack abs exercises are all full body exercises…not exercises that specifically focus on the midsection alone.

To really kick in the fat burning you’ve got to move a lot of muscle at one time and crunches just don’t fit that mold.

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This week has been kind of screwy in terms of workouts.

Monday I tested out some new 10 minute fat loss workouts I’m working on which was cool, but it wasn’t part of my routine right now and I’m all about routine when it comes to workouts.

Then yesterday I took a buddy to the airport to pick up his car (why someone didn’t drop him off I don’t know and if you’re reading this, answer that question for me) and that really screwed me up.

I had time to get in a normal workout, but I basically trashed the day because I screwed around too much.  I was livid when I got home for the night (as my wife could tell you), but not at my buddy.  I was mad at myself.

I squandered my free time and didn’t accomplish anything of substance, let alone a decent workout.

So that brings me to today.  My workout routine right now doesn’t call for a workout on Wednesday, but I had to get one in to make up for the beginning of the week.

Luckily I got in a pretty good one.

It was mostly upper body stuff and focused on the chest, shoulders and triceps but I did some squats at the beginning as well.

1A) Incline Bench Press – 4×8
1B)  BB Squat – 4×8

2A)  Shoulder Press – 4×8
2B)  1-Leg Squat – 4×8

3A)  Decline Spiderman Push-up – 2×15
3B)  Incline Triceps Extension – 2×10

4A)  Standing Chest Press (only machine I’ll ever use is for this type of movement) – 2×12
4B)  Shrugs – 2×10

Overall it was a great workout, plus Andrea and Maren were there.

Maren always finds the best times to make me laugh.  I was right in the middle of an incline bench set when she walked up and said “Heavy daddy?”  It’s not so much what she said but the way she said it.  When she asks that question she gets a really high pitched voice and has a big emphasis on the end of the sentence.  Not good when you’ve got over 200 pounds hanging over your chest.

Have a great day!

Ed, The Fit Dad

Man it’s cold here in Nebraska.

Winter is finally starting to set in after a pretty mild fall which was beautiful.

I was out doing some work on the house on Sunday and Andrea and Maren came outside to check out what I was doing and Maren was all bundled up in her winter coat, pink hat and pink “gubs” (that’s how she says gloves).

She looked so darn cute all bundled up, but I don’t think she could move her arms that much.  Have you ever seen that movie “Christmas Story” where Ralphie’s little brother is all bundled up and he can’t put his arms down because his mom has wrapped him up in so many layers?  That’s kind of what Maren reminded me of.

That and she really wanted to put on her gubs (gloves), but they couldn’t go on all the way because her coat was in the way so it looked like her hands were about 10 inches long.  Quite the sight.

I could go on and on talking about how darn cute she looked but I suppose I better get on with the point of this email.

I’ve been talking with more and more clients about how to fix their eating habits and I thought I would share with you the first thing I told all of them.

They wanted to know how to fix their daily diet to help them lose weight so I asked them all a question.

I asked how and what they were eating right now.

Every single one of them said they were eating OK.  They said they paid attention to carbs, fat intake and alcohol but they still weren’t making any progress.

Having known they were going to say this I knew what to say next. (Yes I am brilliant…I can read people’s minds)

I told them all to keep a food diary for the next week or two.

I told them to write down EVERYTHING they ate and drank…everything.

Don’t leave anything out for the next 7-14 days.

Then after you’ve done that every day, bring it to me and I’ll take a look at it and see what holes we can fix.

To their credit they did it.

They took the action and began to write down what they ate and drank and it was pretty eye opening for them.

It pointed out flaws in their daily diets that were keeping them from losing fat and in some cases was making them gain it.

Sometimes it was something as simple as an unhealthy snack every day.

Sometimes it had to do with not being prepared with healthy foods at work to avoid the box of bagels during the mid-morning TPS Report meeting.

To their credit they all ate pretty well a majority of the time, it was just picking up on those 2 or 3 minor mistakes that lead to major hiccups in terms of fat loss and fat gain.

I challenge you to do the same thing over the next 7 to 14 days.

Write down everything you eat and drink.

And don’t lie because you’re only lying to yourself.  I know that seems silly, but I’ve seen it happen.

And don’t suddenly change your daily routine drastically.  It has to be as close to a normal week as possible.

Keeping a food journal is a very minor thing that is very easy to do that can point out huge flaws and huge holes in your daily diet which will help you lose weight…and a lot of it.

Maybe you’ll find something you didn’t realize you were doing because it’s become such a habit.

Maybe you’ll write something down and wonder how many calories are actually in that, do the homework and find that it’s around 800.  This actually happened to one of my clients and she thought it was a healthy meal.

It may sound trivial and stupid, but it’s not so just give it a try.

The only thing you have to lose is a little blubber.

Have a great day!

Ed

P.S. – Let me know how it goes by leaving a comment.  I’d love to get some feedback about your food journal.  Things you found out, how you fixed them, etc.

Ooooh, today’s workout was awesome.

It only took 10 minutes (OK 12 with the warm-up circuit) and I was panting like a fat dog on a hot August day for about 15 minutes AFTER I was done.

It’s part of a new fat loss workout program I’m working on that should be available within the next few weeks.

It’s a 5 day a week 10 minute fat loss program and it is so darn cool.

I’m really excited about this fat loss workout program because I don’t think there’s anything else like it out there right now.

Sure other folks offer 10 minute fat loss workouts, but not the way I’m putting them together.

I’m mixing a lot of different modalities so that you never get bored and get the most fat burning that you possibly can in those 10 minutes and the best part of it is that it doesn’t have to end.  It won’t stop with 12 weeks, 15 weeks or even 26 weeks.  It’s something that you can do for months and months and never run out of fat loss workouts!

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