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Welcome to all our new subscribers, and I extend my appreciation to everyone who forwards this newsletter to friends. One friend telling another is how we grow, and I deeply appreciate your support. If you know anyone who might like it, please forward this newsletter to them or send them this link: http://www.FitnessMovtivatorNewsletter.com

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IN THIS ISSUE:

1. Greetings from the Editor
2. Article—Warning! Lack of Exercise Could Be Harmful To Your Heath
3. Article—Why Diets Make You Crabby
4. Article—5 Fitness Myths That Are Responsible For Thousands of Fitness Failures
5. Inspirational Quotes
6.Web Sites Worth A Look

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Dear Fitness Friends,

Once again the holidays are rapidly approaching. We can make sure that we do our best right now to stick with our exercise routine and eating programs. If you are wanting to start a fitness routine, now is the time to do so! If you can get a routine established before the holidays, there is a very good chance you will be able to maintain your schedule when the holidays are here.

Do not procrastinate if you aren't working out regularly or in a fitness routine. If you do, before you know it, you will have procrastinated until after New Year's Day! It has happened to me in the past, and I'm sure it has happen to others.

No matter if you are keeping up with your fitness and eating plan, or if you aren't—take stock of where you are now and where you want to be next year. Visualize who you want to be, how you will look, and what you see yourself doing. You have what it takes right now to make your dreams a reality. Go for it!

Stay healthy and happy!

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"There's an important difference between giving up and letting go."

~~Jessica Hatchigan

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You know it's bad when the Surgeon General issues a warning that lack of exercise is hazardous to your health. And that was back in '96. Since then, the stats haven't improved much, either: 25% of the American population is still sedentary and 60% do not exercise regularly (Reference: http://www.cdc.gov).

For fitness minded folks, we could do worse than to follow the " hour-a-day" prescription outlined by the Surgeon General's Healthy People Report. It's just a guideline, of course and, as you already know, any amount of activity packed into your busy schedule is going to earn you healthy rewards. But there are plenty of other reasons to exercise.

"If people exercised only moderately," says Janet Kneiss, Physical Therapist, "there would be far less incidence of injury. The 15 or so people I see daily, who come in with back and neck problems, usually don't want to exercise, they want a quick fix."

The solution as she sees it?

"I think, if people could just reframe the idea of it [exercise] being so much work and focus more on the enjoyment of doing it,they would find the experience more positive."

So, if exercise alone can keep you injury and disease free, how do you keep it from being just another thing "to-do?" Here are a couple ideas:

Do something you enjoy: This sounds incredibly simple, but it's worth mentioning. As we've already said, most seasoned fitness fanatics as well as neophytes will be the first to tell you: if you do something you enjoy, you will stick to it. What do you like to do? Walk? Run? Spin the treadmill while watching the tube? Or how about branching out and trying something unique and different like kick-boxing or martial arts? It's a great idea to add variety; it will keep your exercise fresh and interesting.

Mix it up! Speaking of variety, you can also mix up your routine. For example: try splitting up your exercise sessions. If you take a half-hour walk in the morning, take a half-hour to stretch or resistance train in the afternoon. Just adding a bit of variety could spice things up and keep you motivated.

Make an appointment with yourself. Make the commitment to exercise by making an appointment with yourself. Write it on your calendar. If you've never exercised before, start slow [10-15 minutes] then build up. Begin exercising three times a week, then slowly build up your time and your frequency. If you love to exercise, try listening to your bio-rhythms. If you can, schedule exercise during peak energy periods.

Strive for your personal best. A friend e-mailed to tell me he was gearing up for another 5K relay race. I wasn't surprised. When he was 50, never having run before and not having "runners genetics" as he puts it, he decided at 15 pounds overweight and asthmatic, he was going to run. He made up his mind. For a year he trained, dropped the weight and signed up.

His first goal was simply to finish. Did he do it: you bet. Did he work through an asthma attack to get across the finish line? He did, but he kept going. Now, he continues to train and improve his time with each race. His secret, he tells me: enjoy the journey, live in the moment, and focus on your personal best.

"So, Laura, what's the take home message?" you ask. Never mind what everyone else is doing. Stay focused on you, doing what you enjoy and what is fun and exciting for you. Learn everything you can about health and fitness. Then, do the best you can. In so doing, you will be an inspiration for others. To summarize: A quote from one of my favorite inspirational writers Dr. Wayne Dyer, who says: "I don't want to be better than anybody, I just want to be better than I was yesterday."

Laura Turner, Certified Personal Trainer has developed a series of health fitness and nutrition tips available at www.1brand-new-body.com In 21 days you can create healthy new you, let her show you how! Subscribe to her free newsletter *Fitness Focus* Send a blank email to: hiperformbody@getresponse.com *Plus get her free report: 7 Steps to a High Performance Body*

Copyright 2003 © Laura Turner

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"Great changes may not happen right away, but with effort even the difficult may become easy."

~~Bill Blackman

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WHY DIETS MAKE YOU CRABBY

By Pauline Wallin, Ph.D

Author of "Taming Your Inner Brat: A Guide for Transforming
Self-defeating Behavior"

If you've ever been on a diet you know the feeling of irritability that sets in after a few days. Nutrition experts have attributed this feeling to a physical state of deprivation, such as low blood sugar or dehydration.

While these conditions do have a definite effect on mood, they don't tell the whole story. Consider the fact that you are not ALWAYS crabby when hungry or thirsty, even though your body may be in a state of deprivation.

Diet-related crabbiness stems not just from your body's physical state, but also from mental fatigue. As you know, it takes concentrated effort to change your eating habits. That effort uses up mental strength, which gets depleted.

According to psychological research by Dr. Roy Baumeister and his colleagues, mental strength operates similarly to physical strength. Suppose, for example, you've just spent the afternoon moving furniture. By the time you're done, you don't have much strength left to play tennis.

In the same way, when you've spent the day exercising self-control with food, you don't have much strength left for controlling your behavior in other situations. Thus, you're more likely to snap back at someone, lose your patience easily, or overreact to minor frustrations.

HERE'S A TYPICAL SCENARIO:

~ You start off the day feeling OK, determined to stay on your diet. This takes some effort. If you've been used to having a donut or sweet roll for breakfast, it requires effort to eat something different. When you turn on the TV or radio you're confronted with food ads designed to make your mouth water. It takes effort to ignore these temptations.

~ While you're trying to ignore the food ads, the "inner brat" in the back of your mind notices every single one. It nags at you: "I want that . . . I must have it." Your inner brat's nagging intensifies the cravings. You become involved in a struggle between short-term gratification (your inner brat) and your long-term goal of losing weight. This, too, takes effort.

~ As the day progresses and you continue to resist old eating habits, your mental strength is gradually depleted. This makes it harder for you to keep the lid on your frustration or control your temper. In other words, your inner brat gets the better of you.

~ It's no coincidence that most people end up overeating later in the day, when their mental strength is at its low point. By this time it seems like too much work to resist, so you give into your cravings.

Is it any wonder that most diets fail? They don't have to. To make sure that your moods don't sabotage your diet, here are some tips:

1. Conserve your mental strength. Be selective in taking on unnecessary stressors.

2. Stick to a routine as much as possible. This reduces the number of decisions you have to make, and thereby saves mental energy.

3. Set up your environment so that you avoid temptation: ~ Don't keep junk food at home or in your desk at work. ~ When food-related TV commercials come on, change the channel. ~ At the grocery store avoid the aisles that hold snack foods.

The less you come in contact with reminders of your old eating habits, the less you will need to draw on your mental strength. In these kinds of situations, the old saying, " out of sight, out of mind" is truly applicable.

4. Watch out for negative self-talk. If you find yourself thinking "This is awful" or "I can't stand this" you will only magnify your bad mood. Instead say to yourself, "OK, so I'm not at my best. Just wait it out for a little while longer."

5. Take responsibility for your mood. If you do get irritable, avoid picking arguments. If necessary, involve yourself in a solitary physical task, away from other people. Your bad mood will pass, you'll keep your inner brat under control, and you'll emerge on the other side with additional strength for tomorrow.

Pauline Wallin, Ph.D. is a psychologist in Camp Hill, PA, and author of "Taming Your Inner Brat: A Guide for Transforming Self-defeating Behavior" (Beyond Words Publishing, 2001)

Visit http://www.innerbrat.com for more information, and subscribe to her free, monthly Inner Brat Newsletter.

Copyright Pauline Wallin, Ph.D. 2003. All rights reserved

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"The daily grind of hard work gets a person polished."

~~unknown

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5 Fitness Myths That Are Responsible
For Thousands of Fitness Failures

Unfortunately, many people are misinformed and are also misled by the many promises of the weight loss industry. Everywhere you look, you see or hear of people promising “Dramatic Weight Loss” with products such as “The Fat Trapper," or “Exercise in a Bottle."

Then you also have the hundreds of diets out there such as “The Zone," “Sugar Busters” or “The Atkins Diet." I’m sure you have heard of many of these yourself. You might have even tried some of them. Unfortunately, these products and diets are not the quick fix, or the miracles they are portrayed as. They are also usually very dangerous.

Below are some common misconceptions among people with regard to exercise and nutrition.

1. You need to exercise to burn fat.

The truth is you don’t gain body fat because of a lack of exercise. You gain it because your blood sugar levels exceed what you are using. Basically, you are eating too many calories at one time.

2. Your metabolism slows down once you hit 30.

WRONG! Actually, hundreds of research studies have shown that the slow down in metabolism is due to a loss of muscle tissue. And the loss of muscle tissue is directly related to a lack of hard physical activity!

3. Pasta and bread are fattening.

Anything is fattening! Lettuce can be stored as fat! Any food or drink, which contains calories, can be stored as body fat if it causes your blood sugar levels to exceed what the body needs at that time. Bread and pasta are actually great sources of complex carbohydrate! The key is how much you eat and when you eat it.

4. Eating after 7pm will make you fat.

Absolutely false! It all depends on whether or not the body needs that amount of calories at that time. Keep in mind your body is constantly burning calories, 24 hours per day, just the amount varies.

5. Strength training will make you bulk up.

Another NO! It seems as if mostly women are concerned with this one. Muscle size is primarily affected by genetics and hormone production; therefore, most women don’t have the potential to build very large muscles.

Muscle burns calories, so the more muscle you have, the more calories you burn which makes easier to burn fat and harder to gain it!

By no means is this a complete list! There are so many I could write a whole book just about them. The key is in education, but not by reading fitness magazines!

Jesse Cannone is a certified personal trainer and author of the best-selling fitness ebook, Burn Fat FAST. Be sure to sign up for his free email course as it is full of powerful weight loss and fitness tips that are guaranteed to help you get the results you want. http://www.guaranteed-weightloss.com

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Web Sites Worth a Look

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"The successful man is the average man, focused."

~~unknown

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If you need more motivation and some group support, feel free to subscribe to the Exercise Your Willpower mailing list. We have a great group of people who help motivate each other. To get more information, visit our website at: http://www.exerciseyourwillpower.com

Check out the many online fitness and health tools.

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