I remember in elementary school when we would create collages in class with all the stuff that we liked and represented.  The teacher would bring in stacks and stacks of magazines and we would go away cutting out all the cool stuff and organizing it on a huge piece of poster paper.

I wish I knew more about why we were creating these vision boards but at the time it seemed like a lot of fun and got us out of doing math for a couple hours.  I wish I still had the same vision board I made back in my school days but at least I never forgot the concept.

Having a great vision board will not only be a natural fat loss tool but it will also allow you to take a step back and see what you actually want to do with your life.  It doesn’t all have to be about losing weight and looking fabulous.

Maybe you also want to find your soul mate, travel, buy shiny and cool things, learn to play the guitar, have a family, find happiness, own your own business, etc.  All of these dreams can be made into a vision board, and this will help keep you motivated to reach your goals.

All you really need to do is get a huge piece of paper and start checking out magazines or online images of stuff you want to achieve.  Make a list beforehand so you know what you’re looking for.

Hang your vision board somewhere you’ll see it everyday, especially in the morning and times of temptations (such as the refrigerator!).

When you get up in the morning just stare at your vision board for a few minutes and picture yourself doing these things.  This will help get your inspirational engines going and it will also remind you of why you’re getting out of bed to get your hustle on.

If you feel comfortable enough, be sure to share your vision board with somebody close and you can even encourage them to do a vision board too.

When you start to visualize yourself actually doing these things your mind will automatically believe that it’s real.  Your mind can’t tell the difference between a thought and reality so choose your thoughts wisely.  Most people think about negative stuff all day and wonder why they’re depressed and not going anywhere with their lives.  Be different.

Doing this has helped give me a much more positive outlook on life, along with taking my natural fat loss journey to another level.  But don’t think just staring at it everyday is going to do all the work for you, you still have to work your butt off to get there, but at least you’ll have the motivation to do it.  Which is what 97% of people in the world lack.

Also going along with vision boards I would recommend getting going on a consistent mediation program.  Meditating can do wonders for your stress levels and can help you refocus on the things you really want to achieve in life.

The biggest problem with meditating I’ve found is being consistent with it.  It’s great at the beginning when you’re really fired up and you’ve meditated a few days in a row, but when you start getting a little lazy and would rather sleep that extra 10 minutes is where you get in trouble.

I really recommend meditating first thing in the morning and right before you go to bed.  This will help you get your day started right and not filled with a bunch of negative stuff and you’ll sleep a lot better when you’re not dumping all the days junk into your thoughts.  Ever lay in your bed for hours with your mind constantly talking to you?  This is where meditating comes in.

All I do is mediate for 10 minutes in the morning and 10 minutes at night.  It doesn’t have to be a huge thing, just make the extra 20 minutes in the day to do this and the rest of your day will reap the benefits.

If you’re looking to burn fat naturally then these are two awesome techniques that don’t use any fancy schmancy supplements that don’t even work.  When you do these 2 things consistently you’ll find yourself losing more fat, happier and with much more success than before.

To your success,

Josh

P.S. if you need some extra help detoxing from all the negative junk in your head and want to change your outlook on life then check out this book, it changed mine!

So I’m still recovering from having dinner at the world renown “The French Laundry” and it was easily the best fine dining experience of my life.

It was all about indulging and forgetting about dieting and training.  Which is something I really need to focus on every once in a while.  It’s so hard to keep yourself fit that you can easily become obsessed about it.

But I always try to remind myself to relax every once in a while, have fun and let loose.

After I have my fun it also really motivates me to get back on the wagon and back to training.  If I didn’t have those “cheat days” then I would quickly get burned out and struggle even more to keep my training clean.

OK, and I also wanted to share with you my 21 sure fire ways to make sure you stay fat.  I like to taking a comedic view to this as I’m seeing it all the time and people never seem to “get” it.  Even if it’s staring them right in the face.

Here’s 21 ways to make sure you stay fat…

1.  Stuff your face with pie while you ask me how to lose weight.

2.  Block street traffic as you wait in a GINORMOUS line for Jack In The Box at 3:30 in the afternoon.

3.  Start working out but continue to eat whatever you want insisting you “know” how to eat right but just don’t want to do it.

4.  Pay for a gym membership or a personal training session and never take action on it.

5.  Keep insisting that you’re waiting or the “right time” to start working out and things are just too crazy right now.

6.  Saying you’re satisfied with your body even though you don’t want to wear a bathing suit in public.

7.  You work your butt off to get fit while you’re single but once you get a boyfriend/girlfriend all bets are off and nobody will see you exercising again until you break up. (I’ve seen it happen too many times!)

8.  Keep telling yourself you’re proud of your “curves.”

9.  Blame everybody else for where you’re at right now and won’t take responsibility for yourself.

10.  Claiming gym memberships and personal trainers are “too expensive.” If this is the case then you can do a lot of great stuff in home.

11.  You have an “active” job and you’re on your feet all day so that’s all you really need.

12.  You don’t have the guts to eat something else while all your friends are rooting for you to eat a Double Whopper with cheese.

13.  Your life sucks so bad that you need to come home and drink booze to escape reality.

14.  Keep telling yourself “I’m too tired to work out and it’ll only make me more tired.” Working out is a great stress release and will help you recover and rest better giving you more energy the next day.

15.  Tell yourself you want to get in better shape before you start going to the gym. (oxymoron.)

16.  ”It doesn’t work anyway.” Yeah anything done half ass will get half ass results.  Put something into your training, learn from the best and work hard.  You don’t have to devote your life to it but with some effort you can get some great results.

17.  You put everybody else before yourself.  Start taking care of yourself too so you can take better care of everybody else.  Besides how can you best help people will you’re struggling?  If you don’t have a babysitter; exercise at home, eat better and take your baby on power walks.

18.  You can’t stay motivated. Remember what Zig Ziglar said, “People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.”

19.  It’s too crowded at the gym so you stay home and watch The Jersey Shore.  Click here for my favorite home body weight workout.

20.  The weather isn’t right so instead of driving to the gym in the rain you’ll tell yourself that ONCE the good weather starts you’ll get serious (but this never happens).

21.  You don’t want to get bulky muscles so or look like Arnold Schwarzenegger so you hang out in the “fat burning” zone on the elliptical while reading a book.

Hope you liked these, let me know what you think by leaving a comment below.

I know that dehydration isn’t at the top of your list for most interesting subjects to do a blog post on but being properly hydrated can literally “make or break” your training.

In most adults the percentage water makes up our body is around 60% and while we can live for weeks without food, we can only live a few days or so without water (depending on the environment).

And as training “athletes” we will naturally raise or body temperatures and sweat to cool ourselves down.  When this happens dehydration sets in a lot faster than normal.

Researchers have found that even a 2% loss in bodyweight from dehydration can hinder performance by 10-20%.

And if you’re a guy who sweats like Lawrence Taylor in church then you’re going to become dehydrated a lot faster than the person next to you.

Water retention is another reason why I’m not a fan of people weighing themselves all the time on the scale.  Simply because our body weight can fluctuate up to four pounds a day just on how much water you’re holding in.

So the next time you feel like partying to some Lady GaGa songs after the scale says you lost 2 pounds. Be aware that it could just be water weight.  Instead focus on body fat and girth circumferences to gauge your results.

Another big key to take note of is that you’ll also want to focus on having sufficient levels of electrolytes while you’re training.  Sodium is the only one that will really make a difference and it will help with your water absorption.

So I do recommend using some kind of sports drink if you’re training hard since drinking just water will cause bloating and more peeing (…then you’ll have to drink more and the cycle continues!).

But just watch out for our old pal Gatorade who still likes to use high fructose corn syrup in a lot of their products.

There are a lot of signs to look out for when you’re dehydrated a few being; your mouth is dry and your tongue is swollen, your thirsty (duh!), constipation, your skin doesn’t snap back on a skin turgor test, your muscles are cramping and/or spasming, you feel lightheaded/dizzy when you stand up too fast, and if you’re body is overheating.

I know hydration is something that I’m always looking to improve and it’s something that I really struggle with.  Every morning a drink a full glass of cool water to start my day off right.

OK, so here are a couple simple tips to make sure you get the right amount of water daily.

1.  You’re Pee Is Clear.

Sounds funny and downright obvious.  But it works.  Check your pee every time you go #1 to make sure it’s clear enough to drink (but don’t drink it!)  If it’s looking like the color of apple juice then you better start drinking some water fast.  I’ve heard stories about coaches who have literally checked their athletes pee to make sure they were hydrated.

2.  Drink Half Your Body Weight In Fluid Ounces Daily.

This is another golden rule to follow.  So if you weigh 200 pounds then you’ll want to drink AT LEAST 100 fluid ounces of water daily.  And this will increase if you’re working out, drinking alcohol and/or caffeine.  A simple way to follow this is to get a bottle water, see how much water it holds and do the math to find out how many of them you have to drink in a day.

I know it’s really tough to eat good when we’re always on the move.  If you’re like most people then you’re probably super busy and don’t always have time to eat every 3 hours like we’re supposed to.

But that’s ok, I always call my 5 “meals” a day, “feedings” instead.  Because I really want to discern the difference between the two.

When I say to eat 5 “feedings” a day every 3 hours, I’m not talking a big ol’ country style meal.  I’m talking 3 meals with some snacks in between.

But what do you want to eat as snacks?

There are a ton of things you can eat but I want to give you a few of my favorite protein packed snacks that I always try to keep around when I’m in a bind and want to make sure I’m getting that feeding in.

The first tip I want to give is to always try to be prepared.  Preparation is the key when it comes to losing weight from having a solid nutrition plan.

I keep snacks all over the place; at home, in my car, in my gym bag and at work.

This way I can keep on track with my meals, otherwise I’ll be missing my meal and therefore might as well have cheated and snacked on some pizza.

Just to break it down really quickly, if you’re not eating every few hours then your metabolism is going to slow down and your blood sugar levels will dip as well.

When this happens your body goes into survival mode and you’ll want to eat anything in sight that will fill you up quickly, this usually results in fast food binging and other bad stuff.

So the key is prepare, prepare, prepare.  I usually like to take Sundays to prepare my snacks for the week so I don’t have to rush through it during the week.  It only takes me an hour or two but it makes a world of difference.

Ok, here we go, my favorite 3 awesome protein packed snacks.

1.  Jerky.

It doesn’t matter if it’s beef, turkey or salmon jerky and it’s a great way to keep a very good protein with you at all times and the best part is that it won’t go bad very easily.  This is great because I can keep the jerky in my car or in my gym bag and just snack on it here and there.  I personally like to mix it up and use beef, turkey and salmon jerky.  Just try not to get the cheap stuff because it’s loaded with nitrites as well as high fructose corn syrup.

2.  Almond Butter and Celery.

Another favorite of mine, I usually keep this at home or in the work refrigerator.  I cut up a bunch of celery on Sunday and have my jar of RAW almond butter that I get at Trader Joe’s for just $5 and I’m good to go.  The only bad part is that you’ll want to keep the almond butter cold after you open it.  But almond butter is a lot better than just plain old peanut butter and I recommend it to mix up your snacks and keep things fresh.

3.  Cottage Cheese and Carrots.

Maybe this is a weird combination but I don’t mind it.  I’ve never been a big fan of cottage cheese but it’s a great source of protein and has lots of casein protein in it.  Casein protein is different from whey and it will be absorbed a lot slower than whey.  I just cut the carrots in half and use the half-carrot to scoop out a bunch of cottage cheese.  Delicious!

There you go, 3 awesome protein packed snacks to keep your day going strong and your nutrition on point.  I also keep a variety of protein bars and protein powder on hand just in case but I try not to overuse these because they are supplements and should only “supplement” your meals.

If you have any other suggestions for protein packed snacks go ahead and leave a comment below, I’d love to hear yours!

“Some people say motivation doesn’t stick. Well either does a shower-that’s why we advise you to take one everyday.” – Zig Ziglar

Today I wanted to share with you a little motivational film, 212 degrees, that always gets me inspired up to take my game  to the next level.

I was first given the book to this by Todd Durkin and it had a big impact on me as a fitness professional as well as a person.

If you need a little kick in the pants right now or if you’re having a crummy day then hit the play button on the video below.

I like to watch this video when I’m feeling lazy or down in the dumps and it really helps me to re-focus and get out of my funk.

This film will show you how much taking your game to the next level really means and the power of discipline when it comes to achieving your goals and dreams.

Here are a few key points that I personally took away from the 212 degree video…

Good is the enemy of Great. I know everybody doesn’t necessarily want to put the work into having a perfect dream body, most people just want to look hot in their bathing suit.  But if that’s not motivation enough to be great, to you what is?  Maybe you want to have a high position in your occupation or you’re want to be a great parent or a great spouse.  Whatever it is you truly want to be great at, it’s all about having the discipline of being great, and not just settling for “good.”

The Margins of Victory are Small. Finishing those extra few reps when your muscles are burning and your hearts pounding out of your chest will get you those results that you truly want.  Doing your workout from start to finish when you’re dead tired and cranky as heck will completely set you apart from those who would rather sit on the couch and watch the boob tube.  Doing the small things consistently can make a champion out of you.

It’s Up to You. All of your success and failures will come from yourself and yourself only.  We all hear stories of people going from rags to riches because they had a dream and worked their butt off to accomplish them.  It’s easy to say some people are successful because they were “born” to do it and because of some of special circumstances.  But I’m a firm believer that anybody with their head on straight can accomplish anything they want.  But it comes down to the fact if you have the discipline and passion to give that extra degree.