I live in the Gator Nation of Gainesville, Florida, so it’s something of a requirement that I start my story with the big news swirling around town (and around the nation if you are a fan of college football) namely that Urban Meyer, one of the most successful and well respected coaches in the industry, announced that he is stepping down as Head Football Coach for the University of Florida due to health concerns.

Urban and his wife, Shelley, and their kids live right down the street from me. Of course their house takes up a lot more space than mine. Urban is a pretty young guy – 45 – and compared to a lot of head coaches, he appears to be in decent physical condition. He has to be considering the intense physical, mental and emotional stress that comes with running the kind of high caliber program he’s put together this past four years – recruiting and coaching the likes of Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow and taking the Gators to two National Championships, just to name a few accomplishments.

In his announcement on Saturday, however, Meyer admitted that his body is telling him that something has to give - that it’s time to stop and regroup. And, while the news came as quite a shock to everyone, for me, the most surprising news of all was that Urban actually chose to LISTEN and not ignore what his body is saying.

As an 11-year veteran of the fitness industry, I can tell you first hand that the majority of people wait way too long to listen, especially when armed with dozens of “justifiable” reasons NOT to pay attention. Right now I can’t imagine anyone with a longer list of those reasons than Urban – a list he could have easily used as his excuse to ignore the warnings and keep going.

The fact is that, too often, we treat the body as a side line to the rest of our lives – as a dumb annoyance that, if left to its own design, would happily run us off the road in our rush to get from point “A” to point “B.” We treat it as a thing to be forced and manipulated. We deprive it of sleep, work it too hard, feed it too much of the wrong stuff and drown it in a sea of caffeine, constant worry and stress. Then, one day, it starts to talk back, often in a voice that’s hard to ignore.

The truth is, the body is a big fat know-it-all and, if you insist on ignoring that voice for too long, the body will, in an attempt to grab your undivided attention, respond by handing you what often becomes the biggest challenge of your life. It’s all a product of what I call “living too deeply in any one of the four life corners.”

Here’s how I explain it in my soon-to-be-released book, In The Box: Forget about thinking outside the box. Imagine instead that you live In The Box. In each of the four corners of this box lie the areas that are most important to your existence. Your four corners might look something like this:

Love: Family, friends, leisure time, writing, reading, meditating, playing, cooking, painting, creating things that connect you to the world and the people you care for.

Body: Health, fitness, nutrition, grooming, exercise, sleep, water, or anything pertaining to physical energy or the physical experience.

Work: Job, education, vocation, volunteer work, any regular activity that defines your purpose or provides you with financial means and/or the means to live a meaningful life.

Home: Home, housing, shelter, transportation, car, personal and material possessions. While some believe that living in a balance of all four corners is the key to happiness, the truth is, many people live very happy lives spending a larger block of time in one corner over another.

For instance, a good number of people spend a huge block of their lives in the work corner. Until retirement and even after retirement, the work corner often “defines” who we are. Most of us make the mistake of thinking that we must pay equal attention to all four corners in order to strike true balance and harmony, but this is not necessarily true.  The real problems begin, not when we choose one corner more often than the others, but when our attention is so locked in one corner that we totally and completely ignore the others and, ultimately, become disconnected from them.

The end result is often an abrupt shift of attention away from the dominate corner - as in the case of a sudden heart attack or the imminent threat of losing a loved one - when we are left with no choice but to focus all of our attention on the body corner or on the love and home corner.

The bottom line is - the body is always the Know-It-All indicator that something has finally tipped off kilter. It will tattle on you every time by way of sleepless nights, excess weight gain, dizziness, chest pains, and every other range of health issue imaginable. My hat’s off to Urban.

Personally, I will miss him, but I am thankful that he had the courage to LISTEN. As a man who has always led by example, this may be the best play he’s ever called. Thanks coach.

Dianne Orwig is a international fitness expert, success coach, motivational speaker, and founder of LivingFit Online™, a fitness program that has helped thousands of men and women completely transform their bodies and live healthier, happier lives though her less-works-better approach.
 
For more information on how you can get better results in less time and with less effort than you ever thought possible, visit http://www.lovelivingfit.com.
 
(c) Copyright - Dianne Orwig. All Rights Reserved Worldwide

“How can I speed up my results and get this belly fat off?” is a question I hear more than any other and, today, I am going to hand you the answer on a silver platter.

 
Of course, when most people inquire about how to speed things up, they usually start with the obvious questions…

“Should I do more cardio?”

“What about using higher reps and lower weights or do heavier weights and less reps work better?”

“How about working my abs every day?”

Unfortunately, all of these questions miss the mark because they are pointed toward the wrong issue. As hard as it is to believe, reshaping the body has surprisingly little to do with what happens in the gym.

Abs Are Made In The Kitchen - When it comes to getting the fastest results possible, here’s the bottom line: of the key components needed to reshape your body (blubbery thighs, giggly abs, soft biceps and all,) exercise is actually at the bottom of the list. That’s not to say that it isn’t important or that you should knock it out all together, but when it comes to your overall return-on-investment, exercise is not the main ingredient in moving your mid-section from flabby to flat. Food is where it’s at.

Shake vs. Bake – Think about the ingredients that go into baking the perfect cake. There are the main ingredients (flour, milk and eggs) and then there are the more subtle ingredients (like baking powder.) Adding too much or too little of this very critical ingredient can spell the difference between success and failure. That is exactly what exercise is to flattening your abs – it’s like the baking powder of fitness. It only takes a little, or more accurately, just the right amount, and more does not make it better. Do it--forget it--and point the majority of your energy and focus on the main ingredients to flatter abs… getting a handle on what’s landing in your stomach on a regular basis.

The Silver Platter of Success – Now that we’ve established that exercise, while it is an important component of your overall results, will not remove the fat from around your belly, I want to hand you the formula for achieving swift, certain results - the kind you can feel in your clothes and see in the mirror. Having trained, coached, and closely measured the progress of over 4000 individuals over the past 11 years, I can tell you with absolute assurance that 80-90% of the visible results achieved from any fitness program is a product of the following recipe:

Ingredient #1 – Toe the line on your meal portions. Make sure you are eating just enough food at each meal to last you about 2-3 hours. Your natural hunger mechanism should kick in just around the end of the second hour after you’ve eaten. Otherwise you are probably eating meals that are too big. Make it a rule that you plate should never contains more than the visual equivalent of your two clinched fists put together.

Ingredient #2 – Make the majority of your meals about fuel, not entertainment. That doesn’t mean that your food has to be boring. It's really a simple matter of looking at each meal and asking these three questions, “Where’s my protein, where’s my carbohydrate, and are they of equal portion?” (For an easy guide to creating the best protein, carb and veggie meals, write me at lovelivingfit@gmail.com and request your free copy of my LivingFit Optimum Food List!)

Ingredient #3 – Drink water like you’re going for a record. Make water your main beverage. When you choose a beverage other than plain water, especially if it contains any of the “Four C’s” (caffeine, color, calories or carbonation) follow it with 16 ounces of plain water. Easy enough. Another great rule is to start your day with 16 ounces of water and make your last drink of the day another 16 ounces of water.

Ingredient #4 – Take an optional food break at least one day a week. Having full autonomy one day a week to let loose and have whatever you want is a great way to stay on track. It’s much easier to avoid the cookies in the lunch room when you know you can put one in a zip-lock bag and have it on your opt day!

And, there you have it - the true recipe for flatter abs. So, the next time you find yourself grabbing the stuff around your waist, asking what you can do to get it off, you have your answer. Trying to shed fat by working it off is the slow and painful way to nowhere. Whenever you find yourself pointing your focus toward forcing the fat off with exercise, remember that it takes hours and hours of work to duplicate the same benefits of simply watching your portions, timing and meal combinations.

The best way to put it is this. You can work out like a CRAZY person, but if your food isn't spot-on, you will NEVER see much in the way of visible results. On the other hand, if your food is spot-on and you happen to miss a workout here or there, you are still likely to experience great results.

Dianne Orwig is a success coach, motivational speaker, fitness trainer, and founder of LivingFit Online™, a fitness program that has helped thousands of men and women completely transform their bodies and live healthier, happier lives though her less-works-better approach.
For more information on how you can get better results in less time and with less effort than you ever thought possible, visit http://www.lovelivingfit.com.

(c) Copyright - Dianne Orwig. All Rights Reserved Worldwide