Last week, I gave you the “1% rule”, which showed that all it really takes is 1% of your available time dedicated to intense exercise to get as lean and strong as you want. It just shows how insane it is to hear someone complain that they “don’t have time to workout”.

This week, I’m going to give you the “morning rule” for getting in top shape permanently…

What the “morning rule” involves is making sure that you start every day by doing something very healthy for yourself… and by starting each day with a positive action that makes you feel good about doing this healthy action, it makes it harder to fall off the wagon later in the day.

This healthy action in the morning could be doing a good workout first thing in the morning or it could be cooking up an extremely healthy breakfast that gets you feeling great… or better yet, BOTH!

I’ve found that getting people to engrain a healthy ritual first thing in the morning makes it easier for them to follow healthy habits the rest of the day.

After all, you feel so good from your morning workout and your healthy breakfast that you can’t possibly even conceive of eating any of those donuts that your co-worker brought in… and you’ll certainly find it easier to just drive right past the fast food joint and instead make yourself a healthy lunch because you want to keep the momentum going in the right direction from the great start to the day that you had.

This is yet another one of those small pieces to the big puzzle… but when you put all of these together, you eventually have the habits and rituals of a fitness lifestyle that works for you on a permanent level… So start tomorrow with a great workout, a super-healthy breakfast, or both, and make this a healthy daily morning ritual.

Before I go, just wanted to mention that my friends at Prograde are having an 11%-off sale on their Cravers low-cal organic snack bars until the end of Friday. These little buggers are delicious organic snack bars best used for those times of the day that you just need a quick but healthy snack instead of giving in to the vending machine junk food or fast food.

If you ever saw an ad or an infomercial for any product that promises you that you can get flat abs in 2 weeks, don’t believe it and don’t buy it.

Making such a claim is totally dishonorable and false. After all, the amount of time it will take one person to get a great looking belly is totally different from the time it will take another.

For instance, if you’re currently 30 pounds overweight, there is no way that you will have a flat stomach in 2 weeks. It can’t be done. There is simply too much weight to lose. If you have 5 extra pounds that’s another matter, of course.

My point is that you need to avoid falling for empty promises and setting yourself impossible time frames. This is just a way to disappointment and lack of motivation, not true and lasting success.

Focus on the long term

Instead of looking for quick fixes, which is just what many unscrupulos marketers do, you need to focus on the bigger picture and what it takes to achieve long term success. The way to do that is to begin doing what you need to burn belly fat and strengthen your abs and continue doing it as a routine, and not think about it in terms of something that you need to do just until you get flat abs.

The way to get a flat belly has 3 pillars:

1. The right kind of nutrition which involves fresh food, natural as much as possible, low on trans fat, high on vitamins, anti-oxidants, complex carbs, and lean protein.

2. The right kind of cardio – Intensive, hard, focused on fat burning and not on the amount of time you do it for.

3. Strength training – doing total body workouts which are focused on building muscle tissue anywhere on your body to burn off more calories and fat and not on trying to tone a specific body part.

If you do all these 3 things you will probably not get a flat belly in 2 weeks, but you will eventually. It doesn’t need to take years if you do things right. Just start doing them as soon as possible.

Davenport, John “Flat Stomach in 2 Weeks – Can You Get Flat Abs in 2 Weeks?.” Flat Stomach in 2 Weeks – Can You Get Flat Abs in 2 Weeks?. 22 May. 2009. EzineArticles.com. 14 Jul 2009 .

http://ezinearticles.com/?Flat-Stomach-in-2-Weeks—Can-You-Get-Flat-Abs-in-2-Weeks?&id=2382625

Today’s Fitness Quickie from http://www.TruthAboutAbs.com

I call this the “1% rule” and when you really think about how simple this is, you will quickly realize that most excuses for not being in shape are pretty lame.

The biggest excuse that most people use as to why they struggle to get in shape is their perceived lack of time to workout and to plan healthy meals regularly. As you know, I’m not a fan of excuses and believe that if you want something bad enough, excuses should not exist.

The 1% rule means that it really only takes 1% of your given time every week to keep yourself in top shape…

Let’s think about it in terms of your available time… if you dedicate only 25 minutes per day, 4 days per week to a good exercise routine, that’s only 100 total minutes per week. Considering that you have 1440 minutes in each day multiplied by 7 days equals 10,080 minutes per week of total time.

So now look at those 100 minutes per week dedicated to exercise and divide that into the 10,080 minutes total that you have in a week, and that represents approx 1% of your total time in any given week.

1% of your time… that’s it!

When you think about it in those terms… isn’t it really ridiculous when you hear someone say that they “don’t have time to workout”… it’s actually almost comical that someone would claim they can’t dedicate 1% of their time every week to exercise.

Keep that in mind the next time you hear someone say that they don’t have time to workout and keep themselves in shape… then go ahead and call them out on it (in a friendly way, of course).

Personally, I actually do a lot more than 100 minutes per week of exercise, because a lot of my hobbies involve exercise, such as hiking, mtn biking, and skiing in the winter.

However, even for people that don’t have exercise related hobbies, four 25-minute high intensity, full body workouts per week can keep anyone in top shape if you’re choosing the right exercises at the right intensity.

By Mike Geary: truthaboutabs.com

Here is the Best Tummy Reducing Exercises Website.

Everyone wants to reduce tummy fat, whether it’s a man trying to impress people or a woman that has had a baby. There are not many people that can find the time or have the dedication to achieve the results of reducing tummy fat, so they give up no matter how well intentioned they were at getting those washboard abs. For those that don’t have the energy or time for intense tummy exercises there are some ideas to help them get a flatter stomach.

There are as many if not more people that enjoy watching television compared with those that want to perform tummy flattening exercises. Try lying on the floor during commercials or if there aren’t commercials every ten minutes and see how many exercises for the stomach you can complete during the break. Begin slowly if you haven’t exercised the stomach muscles in a long time working your way up to make it into a game and getting more repetitions done every time. You’ll help your body in a variety of ways using this plan. Watching television is a natural part of most people’s day so there’s not any additional scheduling required for the tummy exercises. This means no time is taken from the day. The body’s metabolism is increased with the performance of stomach exercises every couple of minutes besides there shouldn’t be more than thirty minutes at a time when the body is stationary. A good διαιτα to follow is the Greek Diet which is full of nutrition and healthy fats.

First thing in the morning is a good time to perform exercises for the stomach. Lie on the floor when you first get out of bed and do as many reps as possible for a certain amount of time even if it’s only a few minutes. Evidence suggests that it’s more beneficial for people to exercise first thing in the morning than any other time of day. One reason for this is that the metabolism gets a boost at the start of the day after a night of rest. It’s just good logic to begin the day with tummy exercises since most people are really concerned about how their stomach looks.

Stomach exercises should be included in the routines of those that dedicate part of their day to exercise. Reports are conflicting on whether or not you should exercise stomach muscles daily so focus on a specific group alternatively. Listening to your body will tell you if you should work your stomach muscles daily or every other day. Rest the stomach muscles if they’re sore, if they aren’t you might be able to work them more intensely one day than the next. At least try to include one set of exercises for the stomach each day.

Appearances aren’t the only reason to want strong muscles in the stomach. The body’s core is the abdominal area and the whole body suffers when it’s weak. Tummy exercises can be done anywhere since the majority doesn’t require gadgets or machines. You can find lots of time to get stomach exercises done during the day with creativity and diligence.

If you want to reduce tummy fat, however, tummy exercises is just part of the solution. You should follow a combination of metabolism boosting workout of the whole body together with nutritious diet. This approach will give you MUCH BETTER results in reducing tummy fat, as described in the link HERE.

One of the problems I see with “diet talk” is that nobody seems to agree what “low carb” really means… One person may think of “low carb” as an Atkins style diet with as much fatty sausages, hotdogs, and nitrate processed meats as you want and virtually no carbohydrate based foods at all.

Another person may view “low carb” as 40% of daily calories coming from carbs instead of the traditionally recommended 55% to 60%.

If you think about it, in a 40/30/30 type of diet, the majority of the calories are coming from carbs, so that obviously can’t be called “low carb”…yet some people do call it that.

Because of these drastic differences in how different people view the term “low carb”, sometimes my clients are confused as to what I recommend.

First of all, I don’t recommend “low carb” or “high carb” per se… I don’t think it’s vitally important to have any sort of exact ratio.  I think everyone needs to explore for themselves how they feel at different ratios of fat, protein, and carbohydrates.

After all, the most important aspect to your success is your total caloric intake vs your caloric expenditure over a given time period.

But where carbohydrate intake becomes important is in how it can affect your hormones and blood sugar in your body and stimulate cravings. You could tell someone to eat 2500 calories/day of a higher fat and higher protein content combined with reduced carbs and they may actually finish the day at 2500 calories because their appetite is satisfied.

However, tell that same person to eat 2500 calories per day in a high carb fashion, and they may end up eating 3000 or more calories per day because the higher carbohydrate diet stimulated their cravings and they ended up overeating.

I know personally, if you throw a big steak in front of me and a big pile of vegetables, my appetite will be satisfied when I’m done that meal and for hours afterward.  However, you throw a big plate of pasta in front of me, and I’m gonna devour the entire plate, and then head back for seconds and maybe even thirds.

This is what happens for a lot of people… once you start eating large portions of carbs like pasta or rice or cereals, it becomes hard to stop and then you’re craving more carbs an hour later too!

So what I’ve found to work best for me, and a large % of my clients in the past is to eat in a “controlled carbs” manner… this doesn’t mean atkins style… it means very reduced grains, zero refined sugars (to the best of ability of avoiding), and instead, getting almost all of your carbs from vegetables, fruits, and maybe beans on occasion.

This ends up being very similar to the hunter-gatherer type of diet of meats, eggs, nuts, seeds, fruits, and veggies, which I believe is the healthiest way to eat.

Sometimes it just takes thinking a little differently about the way you eat and what’s considered “normal” in order to get rid of some of the useless grains and sugars in your diet.

For example, why do we need to eat a burger on a bun? Most people don’t even think of doing it any other way because that’s what’s “normal”.

One of my favorite lunch meals lately has been cooking up a grass-fed bison burger with no bun, and then I top it with grass-fed cheese, sliced avocados, diced onions, and salsa.  I have a big side of sliced fresh veggies like carrots and red peppers (with hummus sometimes), and then maybe have a little bit of fruit or berries on the side too.

What you end up with is a meal that’s pretty well balanced between protein, healthy fats, and healthy carbs instead of overloaded with the refined grains from the typical hamburger bun.

Think about breakfast too…

do you really “need” the toast with your eggs, or can you do much better with loads of veggies with your eggs instead?  That’s what I like to do for breakfast… eggs with cheese and loads of veggies, avocado (yeah, avo’s are one of my favorite foods), and some green or white tea (or lately I’ve been really digging this mango yerba mate tea…mmm) with a little raw honey.  So I get my carbs from the veggies and the little bit of raw honey instead of from the typical toast and orange juice that loads you up with extra carbs.

…Just some ideas in case it helps you to think differently about where you get your carbs from.

Article contributed by Mike Geary from http://www.truthaboutabs.com

Another excellent recipe secret from Mike Geary below:

**My high-protein, fat-burning snack:

Ok, here’s one of the simplest high protein snacks that I’ve used a lot over the years.  I like this as a small meal either late at night (due to the high protein, low carb content or even sometimes for a midmeal during the afternoon between lunch and dinner.

Vanilla-Cinnamon Nut Cottage Cheese…

Even people I know that say they don’t like cottage cheese have told me that they loved this!  Here’s what I mix together:

* mix together 2 to 1 ratio of cottage cheese to vanilla yogurt (that makes this higher in protein than in carbs)

* vanilla extract to taste

* cinnamon to taste (don’t be shy with cinnamon…it’s one of the most powerful antioxidants you can get…even more than most berries)

* handful of raw nuts (pecans, almonds, or walnuts are my favorites…but just about all nuts are packed with nutrition and healthy fats to keep your cravings at bay)

* just a touch of stevia to sweeten (stevia is a non-caloric natural sweetener that I believe is much safer than artificial sweeteners). I’ve ordered stevia (and yerba mate too, btw) at this site in the past:

http://www.Naturally-Stevia.com

This is such an easy and quick recipe, but it’s REALLY good… at least I think so, and a lot of people that I’ve had try it really liked it too.  Simple, easy, and packed with craving-ending nutrition!

Like I said, it’s also great for a late-night snack because of the healthy fats, relatively low carbs, and the casein protein content (which helps your body prevent catabolizing muscle tissue overnight because of the long-lasting casein protein).