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10 Reasons You’re Still Fat, Even After
Reading This Website!
(Part One of a Two-part series)
By Eugene Thong, CSCS
................................................................................
 You
know, MCNewsletters is nearing our first anniversary October 2007 (and we’ve got
something special planned for all of our customers – to be announced
soon!) and my, how we’ve grown.
Our newsletter
readership is bursting at the seams (there’s still room for everybody,
though!
sign
up here), we’ve been deluged with your questions, and all of our
Black Book of Secrets
purchasers have been giving us great feedback and high praise.
So, with all these
great resources at your fingertips, how come you’re still not at
the body of your dreams?
Chances are, you’re
making one (or more) of these deadly mistakes. Hey, don’t worry, making
mistakes doesn’t mean you’re a bad person or anything – it will,
however, make your fat loss efforts an uphill struggle on roller
skates!
I’ve compiled a list
of the 10 most common reasons Mike and I encounter that cause folks
to fail on their fat loss programs, despite their best efforts.
(To minimize the
harshness factor, we’ve decided to split this article up into two parts
and run them separately. Don’t say we don’t care about your feelings.)
1.
Lack
of Action
Sir Francis Bacon once
wrote that knowledge is power, but he was wrong. Putting knowledge and
know-how into action is the real power. It’s not enough to know
that you’re supposed to eat every 2-3 hours or that each meal has to
contain protein if you never take these actions, or take them
inconsistently. You must follow through on the advice in order for it
to work.
A sad, but true
statistic: Of the millions of people who buy self improvement products
(books, DVDs, etc.), most never open the cover of the book or break the
plastic on the DVD. In fact, 90% of the people who actually start
reading the book don’t even get past Chapter 1.
You must follow
through on your new found knowledge with action. Even a terrible
program, consistently executed, will get you better results than an
ideal program poorly executed.
2. Making
Substitutions
This one happens all
the time. A new client, horrified at our suggestion to
eat more fat
(and it is hard to overcome the media brainwashing and cultural hypnosis
that surrounds us) will eschew our recommendation to eat full fat yogurt
and buy a pint of 2% instead. Or, instead of having a couple of eggs as
breakfast, they’ll just add the eggs to their usual breakfast fare of a
bagel with cream cheese.
And they wonder why
they aren’t losing any body fat!
Look folks, if your
name isn’t Todd English or Alton Brown, do yourselves a favor and follow
our recommendations as exactly as possible. Don’t make substitutions!
Think of your
fat loss program as a recipe
for your success. If you were to go about baking a cake, and you
substituted a walnut for the egg, sandpaper for the flour, salt for the
sugar, and modeling clay for the butter, do you think you would come out
with fluffy deliciousness?
Don’t go pretending
you’re a master chef and that you’ll just substitute a little of this
for a little of that and it’ll work just fine. Most of the time, the
substitutions you’ll try to make will be incorrect.
We don’t think we’re
being too unreasonable by asking you to adhere to a few basic exercise
and nutrition principles. Review our
beginner articles and commit the info in them to memory. Stick
to your guns, people!
3. Thinking That
You Can Defy The Odds
We get emails all the
time from people saying, “You guys seem to have the opinion that XYZ is
bad, or that you should do this to lose fat, and my trainer says…. or Dr.
So and So from Oxford says…”
We’re aware that other
fat loss programs are out there, and some of them were developed by some
impressive names, and we don’t dispute at all that their programs can
work just as well as the methods we use.
But the bottom line
is this: We’ve provided you with the most efficient and effective
ways we’ve found from our combined years of experience working with
clients, day-in and day-out. These methods work for everybody,
because they’re based off of hard science and practical application
(believe me, I’ve got reams and reams of studies in my files to back it
up).
So if you want to
discuss the difference between a 40-30-30 macronutrient split or the
value's of using so-called “slow-burning
carbohydrates” to help burn fat, well, we’re all for friendly
discussion. But if you’re here to lose weight and get real results,
save yourself the mental gymnastics and just follow the program.
Do you think that
you’re that lucky person in a million who can eat starchy carbohydrates
and lose body fat? Or that your muscles and metabolism just “work
different” than everybody else’s? Or that somehow, the sugar you ingest
from your soft drink is somehow metabolized using a different metabolic
pathway than every other human on this planet?
Chances are, you’re
not that one-in-a-million genetic freak who can defy the odds.
4.
Exercising To Lose Weight
If you’re a frequent
reader of this website, you’re probably sick of hearing me say this, but
it bears repeating, since it’s probably one of the biggest fat loss
myths out there:
You can’t outrun a crappy diet!
The biggest cliché at
big, commercial gym chains is the member who runs on the treadmill,
year after year, and doesn’t look any different, ever.
If you don’t control
caloric intake and create a favorable hormonal environment for fat loss
to occur, it doesn’t matter how many miles you run or bike or swim – the
fat simply isn’t going to come off. You have so much more control
over your daily caloric balance through diet, it isn’t even funny.
Is
exercise a vitally important facet of fat loss?
YES – major studies on
obesity and fat loss all show that groups who exercise lose more weight
and keep more weight off than groups who simply diet. You
facilitate fat loss by building muscle – metabolically active
tissue that burns calories for you when you aren’t exercising.
But is exercise alone
going to cut it?
NO – especially if all
you’re doing is “cardio” (and if you are, you need to head over to our
Foundations articles. Right this very second).
5. Giving Yourself
Too Many “Outs”
Mike and I have a
litmus test that we use when conducting phone or in-person consultations
with new customers. Simply, if they mention, “Well, I’ll try to…”, then
we give that customer “The Talk.”
“The Talk”, condensed version:
“Now, stop right
there. When you say, ‘I’ll try’, do you know what you’re really doing?
You’re giving yourself permission to fail. Whether you know it or not,
you’re sending a signal to your subconscious mind that not only do you
expect to fail, but it’s okay to fail, because, ‘Hey, you tried.’
Look, we appreciate
your enthusiasm, and we’re more than thrilled that you chose us to help
you achieve that higher level of living – that you deserve! But we’ve
got news for you – you will never succeed if you don’t execute on the
things we tell you to.
You have to DO them.
No trying.
Just do or do not
(apologies to Yoda).”
What happens when you
try to put out a kitchen fire? Easy – your house burns down.
Master Yoda said it best: “Do or do not. There is no try.”
Still with us?
Remember, it’s just a little bit of “tough love”, since we want
you to reach your fitness goals! Stay tuned for Part 2 in next
week’s newsletter!
P.S.
If you haven't yet, sign up for our
newsletter below... or
read
more about it here.
About the Author:
Eugene Thong, CSCS, was born a weak, skinny,
bespectacled child. Now, thanks to a steady diet of martial arts,
scientific inquiry, and heavy compound movements, he's no longer weak.
His scientific bent, Zen-like demeanor, and efficient but intense
methods have made him one of New York's most sought-after personal
trainers.
 When
not helping clients cultivate their own inner 6-packs, Eugene can be found
arm barring opponents at Renzo Gracie's Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Academy or
sailing through the air on his snowboard. Read Eugene's semi-weekly musings
on exercise, fitness, and fat loss
at his blog
Eugene is Mike's co-author of The Black Book of Secrets. You can purchase
it by clicking
here.
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