Change your Thinking and your Language....

Tips for being Lean not Skinny!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(1) FIRST. Above all else, do not starve yourself.

ANY very low calorie diet can work in the beginning, but that’s exactly where the danger is - there’s a false sense of success achieved with rapid weight loss.

Rapid bodyweight loss almost never lasts. The thing is, in this day and age, you already know that. But you so desperately WANT to BELIEVE in the promise of the quick fix, that you ignore your own logic and act on emotion.

Never starve yourself. It’s better to burn more calories with exercise and activity than it is to cut more calories.

When you’re active and burning calories, you can eat much more, providing you with more vitamins, minerals,fiber, essential fatty acids and essential amino acids.

Proper nutrition = optimum health.
Starve yourself = inadequate nutrition = poor health

(2) SECOND, you must make strength training a part of your lifelong exercise program.

You must do resistance training. This is the stimulus and signal to your body to keep the lean muscle when you are on a moderately reduced calorie fat loss program.

Weight training is NOT just for bodybuilders. There is simply no substitute for strength training in keeping your muscle, stoking your metabolism, getting you lean, making you biologically young and keeping you healthy.

Yes - do your cardio too. But don’t do just cardio and think that’s enough. It’s NOT. Cardio + weight training are the TWO exercise elements that when done in combination will produce the fastest healthy fat loss results you can get, while maintaining all your muscle.

DON’T DO THIS

Almost all “skinny fat” people do two things:

1. Starve themselves on very, very low calorie diets
2. Refuse to lift weights

(3) THIRD, you have to change your language.

Words are so powerful aren’t they? Just a change in vocabulary can instantly change a feeling and begin to change your behaviors.

If we stopped trying to be “skinny” and stopped “dying to be thin” (what a terrible metaphor), and instead we focused on “being healthy” “being lean” what a difference it would make.

What if you focused on “improving your nutrition” instead of “going on a diet?” what kind of difference do you think that would make? Just the sound of that - “nutrition” - how does it make you feel compared to “diet?” THINK about that. What associations come along with each word?

What if you added to your goal list a desire to look and be “athletic.” How would that change your perspective? Is the rail-thin, protruding bones waif-model look “athletic???”

DO THIS!

* Always include “being healthy” in your goals, not just reaching a certain weight or dress size.
* Always include “being LEAN” in your goals, never just losing bodyweight.
* Always focus on “improving nutrition” not “dieting.”

(4) FOURTH, measure your body composition.This is very important!!!
You must become aware of the difference between body fat and bodyweight and you must understand body fat percentage and body fat testing.

That doesn’t mean don’t use your scale and ignore what the mirror shows you and how your clothes fit, it means doing all of the above.

Always measure your body composition (skinfold caliper or other method), and understand what your losing - is it weight or fat? Is it just water weight? Could it be lean muscle you’re losing?

A single measurement will tell you.

Burn The Fat, KEEP The Muscle

Everything described here about what you should do and what you should not do is the same approach that *natural* bodybuilders and fitness competitors have always used.

These athletes CANNOT afford to lose an ounce of muscle, so they train hard and eat sometimes as many as 6 clean-natural-food meals a day to stoke the metabolism and feed the muscle.

I hope that more people who were focused only on being skinny will begin to focus on the right thing:

It’s not about being “skinny.” It’s about being “lean” and being “healthy.” I know this first hand..I have been very "skinny" I much be very "lean" you feel better inside and out.