LouAnn Good
louanngood@fitnesstogether.com

I have to say, I just love your site! This article in particular really hits home! I suffered from depression for many years. It's almost impossible to motivate yourself physically, mentally or any way when your emotional health is in the toilet! So, a few months ago, I quit taking my anti-depressants and started taking care of my mind, body, and spirt.

One treatment I highly recommend and use is Emotional Freedom Technique or (EFT). It works for everything from overcoming addictions such as overeating to setting positive goals. You wouldn't think this simple 5 minute practice could have such a powerful impact on your negative thought patterns but it does, and it works!

No matter how commited you are to eating a balanced diet, exercising, and living a healthy lifestyle, you will not achieve your body's maxiumum healing if your emotional barriers are blocked!

SO TRUE MAN!!!

I always think of the work ethic my old football coach instilled into his athletes: "Every time you slack off, it becomes a little bit easier to slack off the next time, and every day you work hard, it becomes that much harder to walk away."

While im not bodybuilder-like bulky, i still have some excess muscle do to my small height and it makes me look pretty bulky, im pretty much tired of it and clothes not fitting, etc. At the same time I would like to lose fat.

I read the "lose muscle mass on purpose" post and have a couple of questions, since i also want to lose fat:

should I start with marathon cardio and when I reach my target weight then use hiit? or should I use hiit to get lean first and then start doing marathon cardio?

Would hiit create a "pump" in the thighs? (where i want to lose the most muscle)

is there anyway to use hiit as a burner for both Fat and muscle?

sorry if some of these don't make sense, my english ain't that good

Success can, of course, make people feel VERY good. High. But things like 'The Secret', when truly tested, do not hold up. Great marketing for that kind of stuff, though. Anyone who creates such a system always wins in the end because the claim is that if something bad happens to you, it's because you aren't thinking postively enough, not that what they are teaching doesn't really work.

Yes there certainly can be big money in selling people positive thinking:

http://www.speedonlinewe…making-money-the-guru-way/

Congratulations on your site.

My wife and I have started doing interval training as your site suggested. We have seen an overall improvement in our endurance on the treadmill.

And here is what we saw today in the NY Times: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/

regardless, the post still makes one point clear: no action – no results. And this message is what matters in the end.

Cheers!

With simple methods that work people see results and results are the best motivation givers, nothing better IMO

What you said is also one very good motivation factor, if most people quit, and most people don't achieve their goals, i have to be different, to achieve different results, and in this case being different is not letting myself get lazy

Being positive above all things is believing, and when you believe you can really achieve anything

Good point about hanging out with positive people. All of my friends and family are generally positive people…so I'm fortunate.

Mike,

Yeah…I think positive thinking works better "after the fact". Probably the best approach is positive thinking WITH positive action.

Venkat,

Good job on doing the HIIT session. Very admirable considering how busy you are.

Rafi,

Don't know if I make the big bucks but the site gets a ton of visitors. You use a slightly different form of motivation…that is great…whatever gets you to take action. You are welcome about commenting on your site. It is the least I could do, since you are always commenting on my site. I wish there were more hours in the day.

sangita,

Tom Venuto does have a great site. I bought his product Burn the Fat Feed the Muscle 5-6 years ago and consider it to be one of the best value for the money of any fitness product. Good point about just getting started and then building momentum. This is what I do as well. Get going with those circuits!

Henrik,

I love this quote "And I know that a lot of my thoughts are simply babbling nonsense looping around and around. There is no need to take them too seriously a lot of the time."…perfect. The mind does have a tendency to wander around and think outrageous thoughts. The better we get at realizing this, the easier it is for us to just "go ahead and do it anyway". Glad you commented…keep pumping out the great posts on your site!

Anton,

You are right…we can't wait for the mood. The problem is that often times when people start working out, or anything for that matter, they are enthusiastic because it is new for them. As soon as the enthusiasm wears off, they quit. This is a guaranteed way to fail at anything in life.

Greg,

I agree about "well thought out" activity. People should take strategic action for best results.

Grok,

Hope all is well in Castlerock. I'll be driving on by on my way to the Portland Beer Fest in July. Were you there when Mt St Helens erupted in 1980? I was living in WA and could see the plume from our deck…about 120 miles away!

Mindbodygoal,

True, there has to be a baseline of confidence to be able to begin training. Most of the regular readers of this site are a bit more experienced, but it makes sense that a complete beginner would need a little more confidence and courage to get started. Good point.

Rachel,

Glad you have found the site helpful. Taking the wrong action can be draining, so I know what you mean. Now that you are getting results I bet you are finding it easier to take action. Thanks for the compliment, I appreciate it!

Joe,

You are one sick puppy for working out at 5:30AM (kidding)! You are about 10 years older than me…I am betting you were an "action taker" at my age as well. I don't know how the masses of people don't put together being tired in the early afternoon with their terrible lunch. The problem is that people equate food with energy…the problem is that certain foods are made to store energy (body fat) instead of giving immediate energy. I like you point of how your workout gives you a sense of confidence that carries you through the day. I feel the same thing.

Terry,

It is weird at how you can take the principles of success in one endeavor and use that drive and mental toughness to succeed in other areas of life. The most successful people I know are often successful at many many things. My hope is that once people work at staying in great shape they can use that skill set to do even more important things with their life.

Patrick,

I'm guessing that you enjoy tough workouts and it doesn't feel like hell all the time. I get what you are saying, you want the workouts to be intense. I actually enjoy the intense workouts…seeing if I can push past the comfort zone.

NancyJ,

You are so right about procrastination. You have to push forward and "do it" before you talk yourself out of it. When I was younger, me and a few friends would go to this area near my house that had cliff jumping. They had 6 cliffs. The smallest jump was 20 feet…going up to 75 feet. The first time I went up to the 75 foot cliff, it took me an hour to get up the nerve to jump off it. From that point on, I jumped as soon as I reached the edge. The best thing to do is just go for it. Probably not the best example with the cliffs…your comment on procrastination just reminded me of cliff jumping.

justin,

I have heard about "triggers" in the past and have been curious about them. I need to do more reading up on the subject. All of that NLP stuff fascinates me…especially since such an overwhelming amount of successful people swear by this stuff. Soyy about your first post not showing up. Sometimes if a link is included in the comment it won't show up…I will always go back and fix it by leaving the domain, but killing the link. This doesn't always happen, so keep on posting links when appropriate.

Ashley,

You are right. I have never regretted exercising either. I have felt better 100% of the time that I didn't listen to my mood and exercised anyway. All of us have up and down moods. It is easy to believe that everyone is happy and positive all the time and that we are the ones with up and down moods, but the fact is that everyone has the same challenges. The successful people ignore the self talk and push forward.

Tom,

It is funny how slow the mainstream media is to react. I've been doing HIIT since 1993 (read about it in "Muscle Media 2000"…an article written by Shawn Phillips). Now 16 years later the New York Times catches up! What is funny is that it will still be another couple of years before you will see anyone else doing HIIT on treadmills (besides a select few people). As far as I know, I'm still the only person in my gym who does HIIT out of over 1,000 people. Okay, I have seen maybe 2-3 others doing it from time to time…but that still is crazy!

Fat Loss Tips,

Michael…your site is looking great. I dig the video in the sidebar. I may need to steal that idea. Looking ripped, buddy!

Elle,

Wish I knew more about philosophy. When I was in college it didn't interest me…now I'm fascinate by this philosophy. Great quote!

Becks,

Glad you found the site. I think your best approach would be to eat slightly below maintenance 5 times a week…so around 1,200-1,500 calories per day. Twice per week you can go pretty low…around 600-800 calories. This isn't an exact number, you have to see what your body responds to. It is also an aggressive diet plan (that will work). Once you get to your target weight then loosen the diet up a bit.

jerdog,

Thanks for the compliment. This site has taken off way beyond my expectations due to the whole "social media" thing. People recommend my sites on their Facebook pages, their blogs, Twitter, etc. I can't thank people enough. In the past it would have been near impossible for a small site like this to get huge traffic, but with word-of-mouth social marketing it is possible. It is funny how big companies with millions to spend are getting less Internet traffic than some of the bloggers. Thanks for reading and I really do apreciate all of the consistent comments.

Norbi,

Well, you kind of got me! I guess my line of thinking could be considered positive thinking. I guess this post was more about just positive thinking and not taking action…which I do see quite often. Great counterpoint!

Simple Scrapbooking,

True…the ideal situation is to think positive while taking action.

Denmark,

Great idea about rep-ranges…will do a post on that. Those last few pounds are the toughest to lose. Make sure and give yourself enough time. If you are getting down low in body fat and close to your goal, sometimes you will only lose 1 pound a week or on pound every 2 weeks. People rarely talk about this, but once you get close to peak condition progress really slows down. The nice thing is that it is easy to maintain once you get there.

CraigB,

The Internet is such an amazing place. It is funny…I am not a big reader of fiction. I love non-fiction and learning. The Internet is almost like crack to me. I just wish there was more time each day for me to learn new things. Zenhabits is outstanding. A top site for sure!

Brad,

That is hilarious. You are not good at relaxing (I'm not great either). I can sit still for a day or two, but once it hits day 3 I go crazy. I would hate to be stuck inside for 5-6 days straight.

Great comments!

Rusty