How many goals are you working on at once?

Goals - Keep a Journal or Log of Your Progress Towards Your Goal and Note How You Feel Each Day

Goals - Keep a Journal or Log of Your Progress Towards Your Goal and Note How You Feel Each Day

If you expect that you should follow a regimented schedule when in the past you’ve always been the type to “wing it” or you try to impose a number of new habits on yourself all at once, it’s unlikely that you will be able to succeed. We only have so much energy and so much focus and if we spread it too thin, nothing gets the right amount of attention.

Additionally, the word “priority” kind of loses its meaning if you start to label everything as “a priority.” Restrict the number of changes you’re trying to make at any given time (begin working out, start eating 5 meals a day instead of 2 or 3, never skip breakfast, take the stairs at work instead of the elevator, etc.). You shouldn’t try to make more than 1 to 3 changes at a time. Pick the very most important to you and leave the rest aside for now. When you accomplish one of your goals, celebrate, reward yourself, and pick the next most important goal to you.

Keep a journal or log of your progress towards your goal and note how you feel each day. You can review it each week and learn to spot where you have difficulties sticking to your goal.

Are you building on past skills or trying to learn everything at once?

Drastic changes are very hard to incorporate into your life. Children understand that when you’re doing something like playing a video game or working your way up through school, you have to get through level 1 before you can move on to level 2. For some reason, as adults, this concept all but disappears and we expect ourselves to master all of something immediately, rather than gradually.

When you make your goals, don’t make them so difficult that you set yourself up to fail. If you’ve never worked out, don’t decide to start working out for one-and-a-half hour gym sessions. It’s not good for your body and it’s even worse for your motivation and follow-through.

You need to be reasonable with yourself. Start with the least you can do in one or two areas and commit to doing that for a few weeks.  Then, when you make your next goal, take it up a notch. You are more likely to be on track 3 months down the line if you do that then if you overdo it now.

Will it take longer than a half of a season?

If your goal will last longer than 6 weeks, break it down into smaller, incremental goals. Don’t plan to “lose 35 lbs by Bathing Suit Season” in the early winter. It’s fine to have that in the back of your mind as a final goal, but focus on the next few weeks. Plan instead to “lose 10 lbs in the next 6 weeks.” Once those 6 weeks are up, you can reward yourself for a job well-done and, if you want to, renew the goal. You may find at that time that there is a more important goal that you need to work on at that time.

Having goals that feel like they will never end will sap you of your motivation. Not to mention that priorities change and if all your goals are so extremely long term you may never get to the end of any of your goals before another priority swoops in to dethrone it. 6 Weeks is short enough that you can usually make a solid commitment to the goal, and it’s long enough that you will develop good habits you won’t need to work hard at maintaining when you turn your focus to another goal.

Will a stranger be able to judge when you’ve reached your goal?

Goals like “look good in a bathing suit,” “workout enough” or “finally be the size I want” are far too subjective. Your goal needs to be set objectively so that you will know exactly when you have achieved it in a very specific way. If your neighbor or grocer couldn’t measure your progress, you need to refine your goal. Again, you may have something else in the back of your mind, but the goal you set (and accomplish) needs to be specific.

So give your goals the 4-question check-up and see if they pass the test. If your goals are reasonable, they will stick; and that’s the best way to Get Fit Fast.

When we’re talking about fitness, this is most obviously applicable to getting your workouts in. Sometimes it’s hard to summon the willpower to get to the gym or to get out of bed and jump on the elliptical on a cold dark morning. Having the ability to make those choices is key to being able to reach your fitness goals.

Goals - Don't Make Them Too Demanding. Everest Wasn't Climbed in a Day!

Goals - Don't Make Them Too Demanding. Everest Wasn't Climbed in a Day!

Don’t Be Too Demanding

First, you need to have set a reasonable expectation for yourself. We will look at this in more depth in my next post, but for now it’s enough to know that you should focus on one or two goals at a time and on only doing slightly more than you’re doing now. What matters isn’t getting where you want to be immediately, it’s succeeding in getting when you want to be. If you try to do everything at once and increase your chances of failing because of it, you’re much worse off than if you make incremental changes that result in you succeeding in the long run.

Just Five Minutes

The hardest part of doing something that you don’t want to do is starting. Make a deal with yourself to do only five minutes of whatever it is. If it’s starting your workout, take five minutes to put on your workout clothes and begin your routine. If, five minutes in, you really don’t want to do it anymore, give yourself permission to start, and pat yourself on the back for taking those 5 minutes.

It may sound pointless but there is a cascade of effects that result from doing this. For one, since the agreement you’ve made with yourself is that you will “start,” you will have kept your agreement, and nothing enhances your ability to keep promises to yourself more than feeling great about having kept a promise to yourself. You will have increased the connection between beginning a task and the emotional reward of “completing” your task (which in this case, simply means getting those five minutes done).

Some of the time (possibly even most of the time) you’ll find that the task that you were putting off really wasn’t nearly as bad as you had imagined it would be, and you will continue to do more, perhaps even all, of the task.

DON’T expect yourself to start the task and want to complete it every time. You won’t want to, and that’s fine. The important part is to begin the process of creating that self-discipline habit and of changing those procrastination tendencies. As you do that you will also begin to create those new rewarding feelings and they will come to be associated in your mind with the tasks you didn’t want to do. Essentially, you will be tricking yourself into actually liking the feelings you get doing those tasks, which will make them easier to begin and may, for some of them, even make you begin liking the tasks themselves.

Developing self-discipline can affect your fitness levels indirectly as well. When you learn to apply the skill of self-discipline to your fitness goals, you strengthen self-discipline in all areas of your life. You will find that the Just Five Minutes trick works in other areas as well.

How can this affect your fitness? Well, there’s no doubt that procrastination is one of the top time-leaks and that if we procrastinated even just a little less, we would have more time available to us. That’s more time to take your workouts at a leisurely pace; more time to go out for a walk on your coffee break; more time to park farther from the building and walk; more time to play tag in the park with your kids; and so on. On top of that, as we procrastinate, we create stress for ourselves as our deadlines taunt and threaten us. People who are stressed are more likely to overeat as well as to store that fuel rather than burn it off.

Certainly developing self-discipline takes time, but as we’ve seen, it really can be done with just a small trick or two. Don’t believe me? Try it for 3 weeks, as a personal challenge, and feel free to leave comments on how your experiment went below. I guarantee you will be surprised at the results!

There is a variety of ways mindfulness can help further your weight loss and fitness goals. Let’s start by looking at how it can be used when you first feel those hunger pangs.

Hungry or Thirsty?

It’s 2:45 pm and you’re reading a book in a comfortable chair when visions of sweet treats begin to dance in your head. Normally our first instinct is to get up and find something to eat, but this is a good time to pause and give mindfulness a try. But what should you be looking to “pay deliberate attention” to? A good place to start is to ask yourself whether you are really hungry or thirsty. Many people actually confuse these two signals. According to a 2007 publication from the Consumer Rights Protection Centre in Germany, overweight people were more likely to be drinking too little water and mistaking the body’s thirst signal for hunger.

Mindful Weightloss - You May Be Thirsty, Not Hungry, So Drink Plenty of Water

Mindful Weightloss - You May Be Thirsty, Not Hungry, So Drink Plenty of Water

In fact, if you don’t find yourself reaching for several glasses of water a day you may find yourself reaching for a snack instead. Some of us have to re-learn the feeling of thirst by first drinking a glass of water and waiting to see if that “quenches” the feeling of hunger. Over time it will become easier and easier to tell these two feelings apart and, when you mindfully tune in when “hunger” strikes, you’ll begin to recognize it as dehydration and will save yourself many unneeded calories.

Emotional Hunger

If you find that you’re not thirsty, the next thing to turn your attention to is whether you’re eating for an emotional reason, out of boredom, or because you’re seeking the sensory pleasures that come with eating your favorite mid-afternoon snack. There has already been a lot written about eating for reasons other than hunger, but advice is usually limited to simply asking yourself if you’re really hungry. This advice is ineffective without a more pointed technique that you can actually apply on the spot.

Start by taking a few slow, deep breaths and then focus your attention on your belly. Does it really feel hungry? Or are you actually still stuffed from a late lunch but in the habit of eating at around this time? Sometimes this will be enough to keep you from making the trip to the kitchen. If not, picture eating something neutral, something that you neither crave nor dislike (chocolate may not be the best candidate for this exercise).

Do you still want to eat or does your stomach clearly signal to you that you aren’t really hungry just yet? If you notice that only certain foods call to you, you may just want to enjoy the taste of something and a low-calorie hard candy, a stick of gum, or a small piece of dark chocolate slowly savored would do just as well and save you more unneeded calories.

Developing the habit of tuning in before fuelling up is a remarkably effective way to cut many unnecessary snacks (and calories) from your weekly intake, speeding up your progress with only a few seconds of effort at a time (and no extra crunches!).

In Zen and the Art of Weight Maintenance Part Two, we’ll look at how mindfulness can still be useful if you determine that your hunger pang is indeed hunger.

You see, I’m an outdoor-loving adrenaline junkie, and for years I kept fit by climbing up steep cliffs in remote areas or actually any area that had a decent rock face. Then came marriage and children. Rock climbing is not only a dangerous sport, but a time-consuming one as well. I didn’t want to be away from my girls for long periods of time or worse, forever. So I had to look for another form of exercise.

For me, the most important kind of workout is cardio – it’s what gets me relatively trim and healthy. Yet, going from a shear rock face 300 feet above the ground to a Cross-Trainer inside a gym was a difficult transition. I found many of those exercises monotonous.

Gradually I invented ways to ease the boredom, several tricks I’d like to share with you.

Get Yourself An MP3 Player Suitable For The Gym And Other Types of Exercise

For a fun cardio session, an iPod or MP3 Player is a must. You’ll want purchase a group of dance songs or at least tunes that have a quick beat. Granted, disco songs are not normally my favorite, but when I’m on the treadmill, I love running to Gloria Gaynor and the Village People. As much as I love the Indigo Girls and Counting Crows, I find it hard to get a stimulating workout listening to their often-doleful ballads. Fun tunes and fast songs enable me to move more and make the time pass a lot faster.

You Could Be Climbing K2 Whilst Doing Your Cardio On The Elliptical Trainer

You Could Be Climbing K2 Whilst Doing Your Cardio On The Elliptical Trainer!

Let Your Mind Wander

Daydreaming is another useful tactic that costs no money at all. Some days, – in my head – I’m the first middle-aged American mother to scale K2 when my body is actually on the Elliptical Trainer. Or I pretend I’m finishing an ultra marathon when, in reality, I’m in my first 30 minutes on the Treadmill. Our bodies react to our thoughts whether they’re real or not, which makes daydreaming a sure way to increase your adrenaline and energy while turning minutes into seconds.

Set Some Goals

Another way to maintain your interest in cardio is to set specific goals for your workout routines. I’ll never forget the time I reached a goal of running a 5k under 30 minutes on the treadmill, or when I lasted a whole hour on the Stair Climber. I also like to make goals for exercising outside. If I run for thirty minutes straight one week, then I’ll hike it up to 35 minutes the next. Perhaps you want to run in a 10K race. Simply go online and find an upcoming event in your area, and train for it. Your workouts will have more focus and meaning, and you’ll feel a wonderful sense of accomplishment once you’ve achieved your goal.

Take In The Scenery

And speaking of running outdoors, if you have hiking paths in your area, use them. Trail running is a fun and scenic way to exercise and you’ll be hard-pressed to feel bored doing it. It’s also great on your body – I’ve talked to too many people who can no longer run on any surface because they blew out a knee or a hip by running on pavement. Leave pavement to the cars.

Man’s (and Woman’s) Best Friend

As a last resort, you can do what I did and get a puppy. Rain or shine, in sickness or in health, I must run this dog at least twice a day. Otherwise, he’ll repay me with even more chewed up furniture and torn-up seat cushions than usual. My canine has been my best motivator yet.

So many of us feel starved for time today, and we tend to fit as many things as we can into any one time slot. As I’ve mentioned in another post, I’m a multitasker by nature. As it turns out though, mealtime is one time it doesn’t pay to multitask. You have probably had the experience of sitting down with your meal in front of a television set or at your desk at work. You begin eating, reach for another bite, and realize that there isn’t anything left on your plate. You could have sworn that you had only taken a bite or two; and you certainly don’t feel full or satisfied.

This kind of mindless eating can really throw off your fitness plans. If, on the other hand, you eat mindfully, not only will you feel more satisfied, but you may eat up to one third less than if you eat on the run or while doing other things. Your brain takes note of sitting and eating and registers it as a meal, leading you to snack less later on. And because you will feel more satisfied, you’ll be less likely to go back for a second helping if you don’t really need one

To Eat Mindfully, Sit Down At A Table For Your Meals And Snacks

To Eat Mindfully, Sit Down At A Table For Your Meals And Snacks

Eat Mindfully

To eat mindfully, all you have to do is serve your food up, take time away from other things, and sit down at a table for your meals and snacks. While you’re eating, pay attention to your food by focusing on how it tastes, smells, and looks; and pay attention to how your body feels as you are eating. Are you full? Are you still eating just because there is food left on the plate when you could just as easily slip it into a container to save for a later snack? If you notice that your mind has drifted and you are mentally writing a to-do list instead of focusing on the food, just go back to focusing on the meal at hand. (You will probably have to do this again and again… and again.)

If you change how you eat, you can effortlessly affect how much you eat. And, again, without having to do any calorie counting or feeling deprived. In fact, eating like this will very likely make you feel much more satisfied and you will begin to notice different subtleties about the foods you eat that you may have been missing. Food is one of the great pleasures of life and, when we are very focused on weight loss goals, sometimes that enjoyment can be forgotten. By giving your food the attention it deserves, you get to enjoy it the way it is meant to be enjoyed and you may eat up to a third less calories. That’s the kind of calorie savings that can really add up fast!

Certain exercises come to mind when you think of paying mindful attention to your workout. You might get the image of a session of Tai Chi, Yoga, or Pilates; but you can do any form of exercise mindfully and enhance its effects, its safety, and your enjoyment of it.

To Begin A Mindful Exercise Session, Take A Few Moments To Clear Your Mind

To Begin A Mindful Exercise Session, Take A Few Moments To Clear Your Mind

Begin By Clearing Your Mind

To begin a mindful exercise session, take a few moments to clear your mental slate. Just stop, take a breath or two, and focus on any part of your body and on how it feels. Personally, I like to focus on my feet; I stop and notice the feel of the soles against the ground or the feeling of my toes in my shoes. This step will help you change gears from being in your head, to being more aware of your body. It can help make you feel like your workout is a little sanctuary from some of your usual mental clutter by immediately changing your mindset every time you begin.

Lift Weights Slowly

While you are performing your weight training routine, move as slowly and deliberately as you can stand. You will likely notice that, done in this way, each repetition is much more challenging than you might be used to. As you slow down, you use less momentum, causing your muscles to do more work. You also have more time to focus on performing the exercise with the best possible form. The extra effort will fatigue your muscles in fewer reps, which leads to less stress on your joints, and, since your form will be more precise, you will be much less likely to injure yourself.

Focus On Your Breathing

Finally, focus on your breathing. You may find that you have a tendency to hold your breath when you are lifting weights or working on a machine. This is an excellent time to change that bad habit. To breathe properly during a repetition, breathe out as you lift, press, crunch, or otherwise perform the motion that requires the most exertion. Breathe in as you return to the start position. (For example, if you are doing a bicep curl, breathe out as you curl your fist toward you, and breathe in as you lower the weight back to the starting position.)

An especially pleasant side effect you might experience from this kind of focused attention on your form and movement is a greater appreciation of your body. When I started paying closer attention as I worked out, I found that watching the movement of my muscles became more and more interesting and I noticed smaller changes, which kept me more motivated. I also found that I developed a deeper respect for my body and the way it works. But perhaps the best payoff of exercising mindfully, even above the safer, more effective routine, was that I started to look forward to my trip to the weight room as my time to let go of the day and just enjoy the feeling of admiration for my body’s strength and abilities. Anything that could make me look forward to getting to the gym is a technique worth trying!

Here is my list of the top six workout vices, and the ways to cut out these bad habits.

1. Skip your warm up.

You may tire sooner without a warm up and end up having a less productive session. Plus you leave yourself more open to injuries. Always warm up for at least 5 to 10 minutes.

2. Repeat the same strength training routine again and again, for ever and ever.

Your muscles build because they are adapting to the workout with which you challenge them. Eventually they become accustomed to the exercises and stop growing much. You need to change your workout occasionally so as to continue challenging your muscles in different ways, which will make them stronger and more toned. As you progress, learn at least 2 or 3 different exercises for each muscle group and keep switching them up every once in a while.

3. Stick to a single cardio workout at a single intensity

Just like your strength training, your cardio training needs variety as well. Change up the intensity and introduce interval training to your routine. You can find instructions on interval training in the free ‘7-Secrets to Getting Fit and Losing Weight – Fast!’ report.

The Top 6 Ways to Sabotage Your Workout

4. Obsess over one single area of your body

Spot reducing doesn’t work. If you focus on one area to the neglect of the others, it is unlikely you will end up seeing the changes you’re looking for, even in that area. The body is a system in which all the parts work together and you have to train it with that in mind.

5. Workout as hard as you can, every single day

Not resting and not varying your intensity may seem like a noble effort, but it’s not very productive. Your body needs rest to turn those effortful workouts into results. Only do 1 or 2 cardio workouts at your highest intensity every week and make sure they are a few days apart. For your weight training, never exercise the same muscle group two days in a row. Each group needs a day off to recover and to build those muscles you’re working so hard for. If you keep working them and never let them recover, you will hinder muscle growth and increase the likelihood of injury.

6. Race through your routine

The faster you go, the more momentum you are using and the less you challenge your muscles. Not to mention that you risk jerking your muscles in the wrong direction and causing yourself an injury. Take at least 2 seconds to lift and 4 to lower on each repetition. You will see more results, faster, and you will better protect yourself from injuries. When you’re applying effort toward something like fitness, you want to make sure that every last drop of sweat is going to its best use. By paying avoiding the six workout mistakes above, you can make sure that your hard work is producing the most results in the least time.

Watch Out For The Plateau Effect

Another danger with motivation and training is that you can reach a plateau, and mentally and physically you stay on it, stalling any progress you are making, or even slipping backwards. There is a danger with training in that you can enter a comfort zone where you a reasonably happy with what you have achieved, which of course is great, but be careful of the potentially detrimental effects of “switching off” a little. The common thread that binds us in fitness and nutrition is the desire to improve.

Whether you want to lose weight, or achieve better fitness, or both, you are pushing your body to constantly adapt in the way that you want it to. And these blog,s and GetFitFast.com in general, is all about giving you the best methods to achieve your goals.

Challenge Your body To Adapt

But remember, your body needs stimulus to adapt, change and develop. If you stay at the same level of training intensity all the time, your body will inevitably become used to it, and it will become more efficient at achieving that level of physical activity. That can mean that you burn less calories doing that activity, and ultimately your metabolism may slow.

Remember, when we are trying to lose weight, the aim is to stimulate your metabolism and to force your body to adapt by introducing new activities, or greater physical challenges, for example by refreshing your resistance training program from time to time with different exercises, and by steadily increasing resistance.

Pick A Training Partner Who Is Stronger And More Experienced Than You For Better Results And More Motivation

Pick A Training Partner Who Is Stronger And More Experienced Than You For Better Results And More Motivation

Get Yourself A Training Partner

Where does a training partner fit into all this? A training partner, carefully chosen, can help you with motivation and give you an extra edge in your training. If you train with a partner, you can develop a team spirit, and missing training becomes more difficult because you can feel that you are letting the team down as well as yourself.

In addition to that, you can add in a healthy element of competition. That doesn’t mean to say that every training session needs to be a contest, but a training partner can help to push you to levels you might not achieve on your own. Personally, I like to choose training partner for the gym, and on the bike who is stronger than me, for 2 reasons: first, their strength pushes me to achieve greater strength, and secondly, you can often learn a great deal from a trainer or athlete who is stronger and more experienced than you.

Don’t Forget Your Fundamental Motivation For Getting Fit

A note of caution, however. Remember our free ‘7-Secrets to Getting Fit and Losing Weight – Fast!’ report, and the important advice it contains about motivation. Remember what motivates you at a fundamental level, and keep it at the forefront of your motivational focus. Training partners may come and go but your underlying reasons for wanting better health and fitness will stay with you.

If you rely too heavily on a training partner for motivation, it can have a counterproductive effect on you if your progress becomes too tied up with his/hers or if you go your separate ways. So choose a training partner carefully. Chose someone whose goals are similar to yours and who is at a similar level of fitness. The right person can help you push yourself to even greater goals!

Training for a specific one-off event – whatever your level – is called ‘reverse training’.  You set a date, and design your program backwards.  Makes sense?  Well, yes and no.

Make Your Fitness Goal Achievable

The problem is you aren’t starting from your current level of fitness.  You’re starting from where you think you need to be to achieve your goal.  And frankly, that may not be where you really are!  It’s easy with reverse training to visualize yourself achieving something that’s beyond your capabilities in the time you have – and an unachievable goal is a recipe for disappointment.

Set Your Fitness Goal And Plan Backwards To Create Your Training Plan

Set Your Fitness Goal And Plan Backwards To Create Your Training Plan

The most important thing to remember when you are designing a reverse training plan is to be realistic about what you can achieve.  If  your first marathon is in three months, and you’ve never run more than a 10K, don’t set out for a sub 3:30 time.  Aim to finish, even if it means walking some, and build your fitness program accordingly.  If it’s your first triathlon, and you aren’t a strong swimmer, don’t build a program that has you swimming 3000m tomorrow morning.

The same goes for experienced athletes –especially if you are coming off an injury or a rest period.  It’s easy to overestimate what you can do, especially when motivation is high.  You see yourself at your best, remember yourself in peak form, and forget that you need to build your program in small steps.  The fastest way to lose that motivation is to look at a training plan week after week where you haven’t met your goals.  Keep it realistic, and it will work.

Add Some Variety To Your Training Goals

That’s not to say that reverse training doesn’t have benefits.  You are focused on a single outcome – all your training is designed to support that one event or activity, and that will help to narrow and define your training program.  But when you do that, don’t forget to think ahead – are you really only going to run 10Ks this summer? Or do you think you might want to try a mountain bike race too?

If you focus too much on one activity, you may find you don’t have the skills or fitness for something else that comes along and takes your fancy.  It’s great to be determined and motivated to reach your goal, but a little variety in your program will keep you fresh, prevent injury, and allow you to try out something else if the mood takes you.

Allow For Some ‘Contingency Time’

Always allow plenty of ‘contingency time’.  Something is bound to come up – you may get sick, you may get injured.  You might need to go away for work, or move house, who knows?  If you have a training plan that will only work if you follow it religiously week after week, with no scope for a few days or even a week out here and there, you will put yourself under unnecessary pressure.  Make sure your plan allows for a few days every few weeks for you to miss training sessions without losing too much ground.  That way, you won’t feel you need to push yourself too hard if you aren’t feeling well or something comes up.

Remember To Include Some Goal Recovery Time

If you need a rest or a break, don’t miss out recovery weeks or easy sessions, and try to compress your hard sessions.  Just absorb your contingency time, and pick up where you left off.  This way, the worst outcome is you arrive on the big day most of the way through your program rather than all of the way, instead of not arriving at all because you’ve gotten injured or sick.

Finally, remember, it’s only one event.  You have a lifetime ahead of great achievements, and if this one doesn’t work out, or you miss it due to injury, illness, or just life’s little circumstances, it’s not the end of the world.  There’s always another event – pick yourself up, and start planning for the next one!

Picture Credit: Courtesy of MarathonFoto

Is Stress Stopping Your Six-Pack

Is Stress Stopping Your Six-Pack

What’s Your Sabre-Toothed Tiger?

You’ve probably heard of or read about the ‘flight-or-fight’ response where our body harks back to caveman days where we had to decide to either fight that sabre-toothed tiger or run like the clappers away from him!

Today’s tigers are more likely to be heavy work demands, financial pressures, relationship problems, or traffic jams. Strangely, overtraining or even under-eating can also have a stressful effect, but whatever the triggers, your body still reacts in the same way and gets you ready for action. It does this by producing chemicals in your body to ramp up your blood sugar (glucose) levels to increase energy and get your body ready to act.

From Life-Or-Death and Onto Your Belly

One of these chemicals is Cortisol. This is a stress hormone which increases the flow of glucose out of your muscles and into your bloodstream. To give you that vital energy when you’re faced with a life-or-death situation (or what your body mistakenly thinks could be).

When you’re stressed, levels are increased but without the corresponding massive action to burn up that energy, your body then has a tendency to convert this to stored fat. And, in the case of cortisol, research has shown a direct link between raised cortisol levels and increased abdominal fat.

But, we don’t advocate taking cortisol suppressant pills as this may lead to an unhealthy balance in your body. No, the better (and safer) solution is to look at the cause of your stress and fix the problem.

What To Do

Read up on stress and start taking steps to reduce it in your life. Learn relaxation techniques and apply them. Look at your life-work balance. Try to consciously become aware of when you feel stressed. Make notes in your journal or training log and look for patterns you can fix.

Take a look at your caffeine intake – whilst it can be a useful fat burner, if it’s making you wired tighter than a cat on a hot tin roof, maybe it’s time to cut back.

Make sure you’re getting enough quality sleep. This is important not only for keeping cortisol levels in balance, but you already know it is key to recovery and lean muscle growth after training.

When it comes to supplements to help, you could start by looking at natural stress relieving & calming options such as chamomile, lavender, catnip, and hops. Make sure you’re taking a good multi-vitamin and that you’re getting enough B vitamins as these help regulate your body’s stress response. Some studies have also shown that Vitamin C can reduce excess cortisol levels.

Conclusion

To get that eye-catching flat stomach with sharp six-pack abdominals, you need to get your body fat percentage down. But if life is getting in the way and stress is sabotaging your efforts, start taking action to get things under control. A mixture of stress management, good nutrition, enough vitamins & minerals, balanced training, and quality sleep, will put a cap on those cortisol levels and your abs will soon appear as if by magic!