Total Health Breakthroughs: Free Natural Health Newsletter and Alternative Health Articles

What is it that separates folks who can stay disciplined with their eating and exercise from folks who feel they “blow it” every 4 weeks?

Is it simply willpower? Or is it a combination of finding tricks and tips, the right type of motivation, and the correct mindset? I’ve stumbled upon three groundbreaking secrets that will help you lose body fat permanently.

Secret #1: You Must Have Social Support

Almost no one knows this, but if you don’t have social support then you don’t have a chance of losing fat.  One study I stumbled across in late 2006 showed that people who exercised with a friend who lost weight ended up getting more results. So find a workout buddy that you know will lose weight and workout with them!

You should also get a nutrition buddy at work. Eat lunch and take breaks with the person who doesn’t go to Pizza Hut at lunch and who avoids the office donuts. You need to team up and encourage each other to stick to your prepared meals and snacks.

Finally, the Internet is a great place for social support. A Swedish research study found that women who frequently visited a weight loss club website ended up losing more weight.¹ There are plenty of fitness forums available including TTMembers.com for you to get social support and motivation online.

Secret #2: You Must Be Competitive

By including a competition or challenge aspect in a fat loss program, I have watched men and women dramatically increase their ability to stick with it. That just means YOU will be more motivated because you will be competing against yourself or other people.

The obvious example of the latter situation is entering something like a 12-week Transformation Contest where you have a chance to win prizes.² But that’s just a small incentive.

For most people, they simply like the challenge to improve themselves. The simple act of entering a contest will give you incentive to compete and improve, plus if you tell your friends, it will increase your accountability to your social support group.

Secret #3: Accept this “Secret to Fat Loss”

Here’s the TRUTH about fat loss.

“Once you realize how difficult it is to lose fat, you’ll find it is simple!”

I bet you read that a couple of times. Here’s what I mean. Once people commit and accept the difficulty that it takes to lose body fat — once they understand that it is very hard to do this — that’s when it becomes simple to do.

If you think you can cheat and not pay attention to your diet, and just “wing it” at the gym, then you have no chance. But if you have the mindset that, “Well, this is going to be tough, and I’m going to have to change some habits, and I won’t get to eat fast food every day, and I have to get up early to get to the gym,” then you will succeed.

You must understand and accept that there will be sacrifices. If you accept the difficulty, and embrace the challenges and competition and recruit a team of social support, then you WILL succeed. So all you need to do is have that mindset of, “Hey, I’m just going to buckle down for 12 weeks and it isn’t going to be a bowl of cherries but I can do it because I’m going to plan for it,” then you’re going to succeed.

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Always Try to Do better than Last Week

At the end of the day, sticking to your program comes down to this one simple truth. You must simply always be trying to do better today than you did yesterday or last week. Quitting is the only obstacle standing in your way of success — so stay strong and persevere through the hard times as you build life-long healthy fat-burning habits!

References

1. http://www.dietdebunker.com/2008/08/swedish-weight-loss-secret.html.
2. TransformationContest.com.

[Ed. Note: Craig Ballantyne is an expert consultant for Men's Health magazine. If you're looking to burn fat, build muscle and quickly step into the body you have always wanted with just three workouts each week, check out Craig's fat-loss system, Turbulence Training for Fat Loss.]