AlchemyFit.com

Every year millions of people begin an exercise program at one point or another. The most popular by far is New Years. It is cold outside, people have put on their extra holiday pounds, and they are determined to change their bodies. They start off strong the first week of January and continue doing well until the end of the month. February comes around and the gym crowd starts to die down slightly. Within a few weeks everything is back to normal. So why do 90% of them fail? It all boils down to their mindset. As I’ve said many times before, discipline of the body begins with discipline of the mind. Your reality will shift when your mind changes.

I covered the thermic effect of food very briefly in an earlier post about raising your metabolism. This post will be a little more in depth about one of the factors that can help raise your metabolism. The thermic effect of food is the amount of calories it takes to process (digest, transport, and store) the nutrients you intake. It is typically responsible for 10% of the calories your expend on a daily basis. So even though it can contribute to weight loss over time, your main focus should be on exercise and a clean diet.

I had a very hard time coming up with this list because there are so many great books out there on personal development. I have narrowed it down to my personal favorites. Check back later on for my complete library. By the way, this list is in no particular order (“Think and Grow Rich” always ends up number one somehow). Feel free to comment and put up your own lists.

Interval training has become one of the latest training methods to gain popularity in the fitness world. If your not familiar with interval training, it is a form of cardiovascular exercise that alternates periods of high intensity with periods of lower intensity. The most common method of interval training is sprinting. After a five minute warm-up you would sprint for a minute then jog lightly for a minute and repeat that cycle 5-8 times (don’t forget a five minute cool down). The sprint would be considered the high intensity and the light jog would be the low intensity.

Before you start thinking about 20/20 or eye exams, I’m talking about your vision for the future. What is it that you want to accomplish? Where do you want to go in life? Where do you see yourself in 5, 10, 15 years? Who do you want to become? These are some of the most important questions you want to ask yourself. If you aren’t where you want to be and not doing what you want to be doing, what’s holding you back?