Pretty much everyone has heard of the great Jack LaLanne.

He started his first health clubs back in the thirties (30s!).

He invented many training tools and techniques that we still use today.

Well, Jack used to have his own health and fitness tv show.

My Grandma Margie used to work out with Jack every day.  And my mom remembers seeing grandma doing handstands along with Jack on the show!

I could go on and on about how neat Jack is, but I’d rather share some clips of the man himself….

Have you ever noticed that everyone you see looks like the picture on their driver’s license?  Why is everyone so unhappy all of the time?  Here’s Jack’s take on unhappy people:

If you haven’t heard, besides running Wold Fitness and Carson City Boot Camp, I’m also the strength and conditioning coach for Capital City Volleyball Club.

The volleyball club has several hundred female athletes, mostly between 12-18 years old.

Coaches have noticed that even in the last few years athletes are getting softer, they just LOOK different.  Jack says they look like sugar because they EAT sugar.  (It’s true, these girls eat nothing but candy and nasty-sports drinks on their breaks)

Of course, I’ve noticed that while the girls are getting softer around the middle, their PARENTS are getting even WORSE.

What does Jack have to say about “sugarholics”?

The other day I wrote an article about how to Have More Energy. Of course, Jack has his own techniques and they’ve kept him going like a rocket well into his ninth decade!

Here are his energy secrets:

This is a great story and a great analogy, Life Is A Battlefield. Make up your mind to win!

A lot of people don’t do well in life because they don’t FEEL well. Here’s how to feel good and deal with problems:

The problem with being fat and having poor health is that it doesn’t happen as a single, cataclysmic event. It is the results of just a few errors in judgment, repeated every day for years. And that’s how we end up where we do. (I love the part of this video where Jack says that most people think the body is made up of coffee and cigarettes…)

Are you a slave to your body?

Lots of people I know spend all weekend shuttling back and forth to home depot to make their house look BETTER THAN NEW. Why don’t you take some time to remodel your body?

Jack LaLanne was wayyy ahead of his time. And I love the way he talks to us like we’re all his best friend.

And so we’ll end with a quote from the man himself:

The only way you get that fat off is to eat less and exercise more.

A lot of people ask me why I say aerobic exercise sucks when it comes to losing fat.

Simple – I say it because I’ve seen it time and time again in my clients.

One lady came to me after she had faithfully jogged 6 days a week for a year.  When she started, she did a half an hour a day and quickly lost five pounds.  Then the weight came back.

She upped it to an hour a day.  This time she went down 8 pounds in 2 weeks, but had gained 7 of them back by the end of the month.

By the end of the year she was doing an hour on the treadmill and an hour on the elliptical every day PLUS pilates classes 3 times a week.  Fifteen hours of exercise a week.  For most of a year.  And she only lost a total of 7 pounds.

Now, I’m not faulting her effort.  Far from it!  That’s a heck of a lot of really hard work!

The thing is, she wasn’t that big to start with.  So she plateaued quickly.  Someone a little larger at the beginning might have lost 15 pounds but then reached a point where she wasn’t seeing any results from her efforts.

And THAT is one of the big problems with aerobic training for fat loss.   It doesn’t get you to the body you want!  (Other problems are orthopedic damage, monotony of sessions, body shape stays the same as weight goes down, and more)

Here are the simple basics of how incorrect exercise programming – focusing on aerobics – can actually REDUCE your metabolism and make it HARDER to lose fat.

Here are 5 Reasons Aerobics Suck For Fat Loss:

Loss of Lean, Toned Muscle

Your lean muscles burn a LOT of fat.  Losing muscle as a result of too much aerobic work means you’ll burn fewer calories.

Total Weight Loss

The less you weigh, the fewer calories it takes to move your body.  Simple physics.

Exercise Economy

As you become more skilled at performing repetitive exercises, like pedaling a bicycle, you become more efficient and burn fewer calories.

Stimulus Adaptation

Your body changes and becomes used to the workload (remember the woman who jogged an hour then jumped on the elliptical?).  As it adapts you will burn fewer calories.

Improved Fitness

Because of everything above, you won’t burn nearly as many calories going about your daily routine.  You’ll actually burn fewer calories when you’re resting.

The good news is that all of this can EASILY be avoided by following a sound training program.

You can maintain and even toned up your muscles with resistance training.  (At Fit Body Bootcamp we use your own body as resistance, so you won’t bulk up, but will tone instead)

You can prevent an adaptation to the stimulus by changing exercises, sets, reps, rest, and loading.  Planned variation and progressions are the keys to prevent going stale.  Plus, it makes it a lot more fun!

See, my Unstoppable Fitness Formula focuses on raising your METABOLISM so that you burn calories all freakin’ day!

No matter whether you train with me or on your own, you need to train in ways that maximize your metabolism, to turn your body into a fat-incinerating furnace.  Now get after it!

Today I want to tell you about something TOTALLY awesome.

I’ve been doing lots of research on nutrition lately, to find out what really works and how to make it work even faster.

Some of the information that’s out there completely blows my mind!  Things like diets where participants GAINED muscle while on an 800Calorie liquid diet.  Other studies where athletes gained FAT even while working out 6 hours a week.

Nutrition and weight loss is complicated stuff, that’s for sure.

Now here’s the totally awesome info I promised you…

13 years ago, an explorer in the Alakazam River Basin found an ancient manuscript.

It described the magical health benefits of the Gooby Berry, which only grows in the Alakazam River Basin.

The ancients used the juice of these berries to keep their bodies lean, strong, and healthy.

The Gooby Berry also made their hair shinier, whitened their teeth, and boosted their sex drive.

All of these benefits were found in the humble Gooby Berry from the Alakazam River Basin….

The explorer couldn’t wait to share his discovery with the world!

For the past 13 years his company has been bottling this magic Gooby Berry juice in abandoned wine bottles.

The ancients in the Alakazam River Basin didn’t have an obesity problem, but it turns out that Gooby Berry Juice also cures fat stomachs!

Just drink one ounce of Gooby Berry Juice a day and you can lose 37 pounds in a week!

The Gooby Berry juice company is run under the label “Money 4me”, so if you want to lose 37 pounds in a week, cure cancer, and become irresistable to the opposite sex, just find your nearest “Money 4me” distributor. (You won’t have to look far….)

————————————————————————-

Ok, maybe I was being a little bit sarcastic.

That’s because I’ve had so many distributors of “magic potions” bug me about stocking their stuff in our gym.

While I wish I could give you a way to lose weight that’s as easy as taking a pill every morning, it doesn’t work that way.

The secret is to find a proven plan that you can fit your life around, include nutrition AND exercise, and is fun to do (so you’ll stick with it).

Instead of focusing on a “miracle berry” I think you need to learn more about this particular part of your life…. and I think you need to be focusing on how YOU can succeed.

My advice?

Come to my next seminar.  One of the most important aspects of my program is the “big picture” information we cover.

I spend several hours helping you understand the science and realities of getting the body you want to have…. which then becomes kind of a FOUNDATION for the other things you’re learning from me.

It really is the kind of thing that will change the way you see eating and exercise forever… and it will take you to the next level MUCH faster.

The next seminar will be in October.  I’ll see you then!

“You can’t soar with the eagles if you’re scratching around with turkeys”

The above quote is on one of the first pages of my journal.  There’s no name attached, and google tells me that a lot of people are taking the credit…

But, regardless of who said it first, it’s an important thing to remember – especially when it comes to your body shape.

A Harvard study showed that spending time with fat people all but guarantees that you’ll be fat.

A few years ago my Dad and I went to visit my uncle, who was then the tourism director for Port Angeles, WA.

That’s the area where the ultra-popular Twilight novels are set.

If you’ve never been, I suggest you make plans to visit.  There are lots of great hiking trails, ocean adventures, and you’re right across the water from Victoria B.C., where there are museums and art galleries everywhere!

One afternoon we took my uncle’s boat out to catch some fresh crabs.

When you take the crabs out of the traps, you just toss them in a big bucket.  After the second trap the bucket has lots of crabs crawling around over each other.

This one crab was all set to get out of the bucket.  He was ambitious enough  to climb on top of all the other crabs and then hooked on to the lip of the bucket.

Now, I’m not a fan of deep water, so I had a white-knuckled grip on the side of the boat.  I wasn’t about to let go before we were back at the dock.

When it looked like the ambitious crab was about to make a prison break, I hollered, “Yo!  One of the crabs is getting out!”

My dad and uncle just laughed and told me to watch.

“Fine,” I thought, “if they don’t care about losing dinner then neither do I”

What happened next has a lot to do with that Harvard study I mentioned a minute ago…

The ambitious crab was getting ready for freedom and pulling himself up out of the dinner bucket, the other 5 crabs below him REACHED UP AND PULLED HIM BACK DOWN!!

A fisherman on the boat told me that crabs just “police” each other.

But what that means is they drag each other down.

This reminds me of what I see with my clients and friends every day.

We’re surround by crabs who waste our time and drain our energy….   These crabs destroy your passion, motivation, enthusiasm and ambition.

(Often times it’s just an unconscious response, just like the Port Angeles crabs in a bucket.  That doesn’t make it any less real.)

Fear is what drives them.

Fear of losing you.

Fear of being left behind.

Fear of change.

Fear that they couldn’t do it.

These fears are camouflaged as concern for you.  They urge you to be “Realistic.”

They always have a reason to burst your bubble, to pull you down with the rest of the crabs.

To put the seed of doubt into your ambitions.

These crabs are often the people closest to you.  Often very close…

They kill your mojo.

Sap your energy.

Drag you down.

You can feel the bad vibes coming off of them…

Sound like anyone you know?

Well, after thinking about that bucket full of crabs, I took a hard look at the people in my life.

And then I cut out people who were sapping my energy.

Friends.

Other trainers.

I even limit exposure to certain people who (unfortunately) can’t be cut out permanently because they’re family.

If  I could give you one thing right now, today, it would be the ability to recognize the crabs in your life….

The people, the thoughts, and the ideas that are pulling you down, holding you back from achieving your goals.

Maybe it’s even you…….

I’ve written about aerobics before: Aerobics SUCK!

Yesterday I brought in a book for show-and-tell.  The book is titled… Aerobics!

Before Dr. Ken Cooper coined the word aerobics the only people who ran were runners, the only people who swam were swimmers, and the only people who swam were swimmers.  In other words, running, swimming, and biking were RECREATIONAL ACTIVITIES, not “exercise.”

Then aerobics became the holy grail of exercise, and everyone got fatter.  So we did more aerobics, and we got even fatter.  Now Americans do more aerobics than ever, and we’re the fattest we’ve ever been.

I want to put this out there: Unless you enjoy it and are already fit, traditional aerobics are not only useless, they can actually DAMAGE your body.  Overuse injuries, oxidative stress, extreme carb cravings… all from a type of exercise that doesn’t work anyway.

So, here are 10 really quick reasons aerobics suck:

1.  Small Number Of Calories Burned For Time Spent.

Jog for an hour: 400 Calories

Drink a Gatorade: 200 Calories

Aerobics burn so few calories that all the time on the treadmill can be offset by a small meal.

2.  Adrenal Fatigue.

Ever hear of a “runner’s high.”  It’s the good feeling you get from aerobic exercise.

Your runner’s high actually comes from adrenaline, so repeatedly going for a runner’s high leads to adrenal burnout and fatigue: also known as chronic fatigue and depression.

3. More Cortisol Produced

Cortisol breaks down lean muscle (the main component in your metabolism) and promotes extra fat storage.

When you do aerobic training to relieve stress, your body actually produces MORE stress and causes you to gain weight and feel poopy.

If you want to know more about cortisol, check out this post: New Information To Fight Belly Fat

4.  Bigger Appetite and Binge Eating

Doing aerobics makes you super HUNGRY!

I’ve had experience with this one first hand: I used to go for long runs with my training partners, then we’d usually be so starved we’d hit Dairy Queen and binge on ice cream right afterwards.  Whoops.

5.  Shortened Muscles

Most aerobics involve incredibly high repetitions of short range movements.

Jogging and biking are both popular aerobic training plans, and both shorten your working muscles.

This leads to inflexibility, immobility, and muscular imbalances.

High levels of aerobic training will lead you to a body wracked with chronic pain.

6.  Injuries to Your Feet, Ankles, Knees, Hips, and Lower back

Jogging/running creates high impact forces through your joints.  Add in the fact that a mile of jogging involves more than an thousand reps and you have a recipe for injury.

Even “low impact” aerobic exercise like biking can cause joint injuries due to overuse of a short range of motion.

7.  Muscle Fiber Conversion

Aerobic exercise can turn fast-twitch muscle fibers into slow-twitch muscle fibers.

This leads to a shrunken, weak body that has a true age much older than your chronological age.

8.  Excessive Fatigue

Aerobics makes you so tired and beat up that you don’t have any energy left for more productive training.

9.  Lowered Testosterone Levels

Testosterone is a “feel young” hormone in both men and women.

Lowered testosterone leads to fatigue, mood swings, muscle loss, and increased fat storage.

10.  Oxidative Stress

Everyone has heard that antioxidants are extremely important for health and weight loss.

Well, aerobic training leads to high levels of oxidation in your body that can lead to things like cancer and heart attacks.

If you’re currently doing aerobics for health or for weight loss, you are holding yourself back!

Find a more productive method of training, one that doesn’t break down your body and ruin your health.

You’ve been doing it for a while now, probably longer than you realize. Again and again, you come up with a reason why you’re going to start TOMORROW.

Before you know it, you wake up one morning and you’re 5 lbs, 10 lbs, or 15 lbs heavier than you were a few months ago!

Enough is enough. Now is the time to stop making excuses, to stop putting your fitness on hold, and to start working out.

Don’t Let Age Get the Upper Hand

With every year that passes, your body conspires to make getting into shape harder. Your metabolism slows down as you age, adding weight that you’ll have a harder time shedding. Your growth hormone production slows down, making it even more of a challenge! What might have been a snap at 20 will take more time and effort at 45.

Here’s the good news: You CAN absolutely get fit at ANY age! BUT….the longer you put it off, the harder it will be to make those changes.

Your body is more primed to respond to exercise right NOW, than it will be even 6 months from now. And, if you happen to be that 45 year old who starts working out today, know that soon enough you’ll be fitter than a 20 year old who’s sitting around still making excuses!

The Chicken or the Egg?

It could be that you’re overweight and think you need to lose a few pounds before you start working out. So, you’ve decided that you’re going to lose weight by dieting BEFORE you start an exercise program. You’ve even got a list of groceries to restock your fridge and pantry with and to start you on your way.

It’s true that watching what you eat is a huge part of a fitter, trimmer life. But studies show that making the switch to healthier eating is easier when you’re already working out regularly.

Exercise will cause you to crave healthier foods, encouraging a fit diet to come more naturally, and the pounds to melt off quicker!

Laziness Makes You Even More Tired

Maybe you’re waiting around until you feel less exhausted and fatigued by work, family, and everything else that goes on. Chances are, you will ALWAYS have a ton of things going to that will zap up your energy!

More good news: Exercise will INCREASE your energy throughout the day, so you will have more clarity and be able to get more done during your day

You’ve just got to get the ball rolling!

It’s a Mental Game

Fitness is about being proactive mentally AND physically – putting it off will actually psyche you out! Adding regular exercise isn’t necessarily easy. But the longer you wait to begin working our regularly, the more insurmountable a challenge it will seem.

Put the kibosh on negativity before it starts to impact your drive to workout and live healthier! The little engine that could do did do because he was already doing.

Decide right now to stop your excuses and take the first step. Together we will come up with the perfect personalized fitness plan for you. It will be unique to your lifestyle and get you to your goals quickly.

On Wednesday I received an email from one of my buddies.

His girlfriend dumped him and now he wants to lift weights and get super-huge muscles so that he can “show her what she’s missing.”

I get this from guys all of the time.  They want to put on a lot of muscle to impress the ladies.

Well, most of my personal training clients are women so I’ve asked them what type of body they prefer on men.

It isn’t huge arms and a button-popping chest.

No, it’s wide shoulders, tight butt, and hard stomach.

But my friends disagree with me.  They say that ALL women prefer dudes who are “jacked.”

Actually, it’s GUYS who are impressed the most by bodybuilder type builds, not women.

Like I asked my buddy, “Who would you rather impress, your frat brothers or attractive women?”

So today I’d like you to cast a vote.  Which of the three bodies below is most attractive?  (Men, which body would you rather have?)

Body 1: Bodybuilder Ronnie Coleman

Body 2: Model Carlos Freire

Body 3: Random Image of an average dude

Leave a comment below with your vote!

(Oh, and don’t forget to check out my Carson City Bootcamp!)

I’m not sure where this originated, but several people have sent it to me saying “You HAVE to put this on your website.”

And since I’m busy designing some AWESOME bootcamp sessions, I’ll cop out and share it here today.

Without further ado….  Revealing: “The Magic Pill For Weight Loss“:

Everyone always asks me what I do to “stay in shape” and how I get my body to look the way it does. I apologize to everyone that I have been holding out on you. There is, in fact, a magic pill for dieting and weight loss. I was always hesitant to share this secret because I knew no one would believe me. But it’s true and it works.

You won’t find it any grocery store, specialty shop, farmer’s market, health food store or infomercial website. You can’t get it from your doctor either, and unfortunately you can’t bring it back illegally from Mexico or Canada.

You take it every morning as soon as you wake up. It’s painless, tasteless and has NO side effects with the exception of maybe an elevated heart rate. When taken consistently the results speak for themselves.

What are the results, you might ask? Well, once you begin taking this miracle pill you will lose weight, feel better about yourself, firm up your body by building healthy muscle and you will be able to make healthy food choices by watching your portions and eating foods that consist of the right amounts of protein, carbs and fats.

This magic pill doesn’t suppress your appetite and there is no ephedra in it. It is 100% LEGAL and you don’t need a prescription. Oh, and those pesky folks at the FDA won’t hound you for having this either.

I know that the suspense is killing you. But you’ve been anxiously waiting for the day when this miracle weight loss pill was designed that would help you lose body fat. Well here it is.

The magic pill I take EVERY SINGLE MORNING is called MOTIVATION. That’s right, kids. Every morning I take my motivation pill with a big glass of determination and THAT is what drives me to make healthy choices and to exercise to keep my body in tip top shape. It’s as simple as that. If you were to start taking your motivation pill in the morning, you too would be able to get the results you wanted.

Taking the pill is simple, but I do have to give this disclaimer: you WILL have to work at your body. But that’s the beauty of the motivation pill…it helps to get you to whatever activity it is you need to do in order to change your body. You’ll enjoy hitting the gym, or a group class, or a trail or a personal training session because the motivation pill helps you see past today and on to the healthy body in your future. You’ll enjoy every complex healthy meal you eat because it’s fueling your body. And if you don’t enjoy knowing that you are making healthy choices and you don’t enjoy putting in the time and work to achieve your goals, and yet you STILL want to lose weight and look great, then the motivation pill isn’t for you. Just keep taking the one you’ve been taking….you know, the EXCUSES pill. Because if you do what you always do, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.

The EXCUSES pill causes weight gain, lethargy, bloating, depression, more excuses, laziness, lack of motivation, poor eating choices and other serious side effects. However, upon IMMEDIATE discontinuance of this harmful pill, all side effects virtually disappear.

When you wake up tomorrow what pill are you going to take?

Leave a comment below with what pill you’re going to take….

We all have a list of our favorite things. It may not be written down anywhere, but you know the things that make you happy.

The list holds your favorite foods, music, TV shows, movies and even people in your life that you can’t get enough of. This is the stuff that you really enjoy. It’s the stuff that makes your life worth living.

Somewhere on the list is your health and appearance. You know that looking and feeling great make a good life even better.

The interesting thing about your list is that without fail you’ll always make time for it.

• When your TV show airs, you watch it or record it to watch later.
• When your favorite actor stars in a new movie, you do your part by going to the theatre.
• When you’re hungry, you turn to your favorite foods.
• When the weekend rolls around, you do everything you can to spend time with the special people in your life.

Yet when it comes to exercise you automatically say, “I don’t have time.”

Time for TV, but no time for exercise… We live in an age where life is full. You don’t have extra time anymore.

You no longer have time. You make time.

• You make time for your TV show.
• You make time for your hobby.
• You make time for your friends.

It’s time to drop the charade of “I don’t have time to exercise” and call it what it really is.

An excuse.

You know how to make time for your favorite things. You know you want good health. You know you want to look great. You know you want more energy.

Exercise delivers all those benefits – and more.

I believe that exercise belongs on your list of favorite things.

Make It A Favorite: How do you turn something that you’ve dreaded into something that you enjoy?

1. Block the Negative: Your thoughts play a big part in determining your favorite things. Block out any negative thoughts you may have about exercise. Focus your energy on creating a positive attitude that will get you excited about hitting the gym, rather than dreading it.
2. Focus on the Benefits: With exercise you have so much to gain and nothing to lose. Exercise makes you stronger, sexier, happier, and gives you more energy. Pick the benefit that moves you the most and fixate on it.
3. Get Guidance: The easiest way to put exercise on your list of favorite things is to experience it at its best. Get onboard with one of my personal training programs and I’ll show you the most effective and enjoyable techniques that will get you into the best shape of your life.

I get emails and texts like this all of the time: “Luke, I hit a plateau and I’m just not losing anything!”

Here’s the deal (and you might not like to hear it):

When you hit a weight loss “plateau” it is caused by NON-COMPLIANCE 99% of the time.

What does non-compliance mean?

Simple, it means not following your diet and exercise plan.

Things start slipping:

• A handful of almonds instead of just 10
• Two extra martinis a week
• Dropping from 4 workouts a week to 3
• Not getting enough sleep

If you think you’ve hit a weight loss plateau, take a good hard look at what you’ve been doing… I’ll bet you’ll be surprised with what you find!