As a body transformation specialist I hear a lot of comments like, “Once I get this 10 pounds off….”, or “When I get down to “x” percent body fat…”, or “I just want to fit into my skinny jeans then I’ll be happy.” These are all good goals because they are somewhat specific. They are associated with a metric goal. You are either 10 pounds lighter or not, you can either fit into your skinny jeans or not. In other words, you will know when you have accomplished them. Now I don’t want to get into the whole goal writing process (though that would be a good topic for the future), what I want to discuss is the “tone” of the previous statements. For one, they don’t convey very much positivity. But more importantly they stress the outcome over the attitude. I’ve been reading an excellent book on happiness (The Happiness Advantage). This is a book on the science and research of positivity or positive psychology. For years both in our personal and business lives we have been taught that if we work hard we will receive our reward and then be happy. That success equals happiness. This thought pattern has been proven time and time again to be flawed. If we first find happiness we will then find success more abundantly and more quickly.
In his book, The Happiness Advantage, Shawn Achor states, “We become more successful when we are happier and more positive. For example, doctors put in a positive mood before making a diagnosis show almost 3 times more intelligence and creativity than doctors in a neutral state, and they make accurate diagnoses 19 percent faster. Optimistic salespeople outsell their pessimistic counterparts by 56%. Students primed to feel happy before taking a math achievement test outperform their neutral peers. It turns out that our brains are literally hard-wired to perform at their best not when they are negative or even neutral, but when they are positive.”(89)
Shawn goes onto say that we continue to sell out our happiness for success. We become overwhelmed with what we need to do and the pressure to succeed at any cost.(90)
So how do we find happiness first? It’s not that we have to find shangri la or take a handful of happy pills first to find success. In the Happiness Advantage, researchers asked a group of 4 year-olds to put together blocks of different shapes. One group was given neutral instructions: Please put these blocks together as quickly as possible. The next group was given the same instruction, however, they were first asked to think of something that makes them happy. At 4 years of age, they don’t have a huge repertoire of life experiences to draw upon, so they could merely have been thinking of the Jell-o they had for lunch. The kids primed to be happy significantly outperformed the others, not only in speed but in accuracy.(237)
So what does this have to do with training, boot camp and nutrition? Everything!!! Your attitude will be a bigger factor on you achieving your fitness goals than any diet plan, workout program or training tool. Prime yourself with happiness, then you will lose those that last 10 pounds, fit into your skinny jeans and find success. My clients that walk through the door with a smile on their faces are the ones that achieve their goals, which in turn breeds more happiness. The “Debbie Downers” that look at exercise and healthy eating as a chore just don’t get the same success rate.
For some of you this paradigm shift may be as strange as when Copernicus first suggested that the universe revolves around the sun instead of the earth. I challenge you to put happiness at the center of your universe and let your life and fitness goals revolve around it. Change the thought pattern from, “Ill be happy when I lose…” or “I’ll be happy once I can fit into…” to “I love how good my body feels.” or “Eating healthy makes me feel happy.”
If you’re struggling with positivity, it doesn’t take a huge positive life changing experience to make a difference in your results. If you’re not psyched to workout listen to some happy music to lift your spirits. Or, review your goals and visualize how you will feel once you have accomplished them. For me, I always remind myself how good I’m going to feel after my workout or even during my workout and I think about the tone it sets for the rest of my day or even week. Even just thinking about how happy your body is going to be because you’re eating healthy or you get your cardio done. Heck, just like the 4 year-olds mentioned above just think of something that makes you happy (Jell-o) even if it has nothing to do with fitness.
Here’s a quick youtube video to make you smile…(Give it some heat…hahahaha)
Think happy thoughts…be a happy camper,
Mat “the trainer”
And I know you’re going to get a good 
We just recently finished our Fit 4 Fall Body Transformation Contest. A no holds barred contest comparing total percent body fat lost and visual changes when comparing before and after pics. It was just a 7 week program but both our winner lost 4% body fat. I’ve never seen such a dichotomy with winners. In the men’s division Kelly Wilkinson lost close to 20 lbs with over 17 lbs being body fat. He did lose 2.5 lbs of muscle, but I’ll gladly trade 2.5 lbs of muscle for 17 pounds of fat any day. In two boot camp phases Kelly has lost 69 lbs. Way to go Teek!! In the Women’s division Angela Oakeson also lost 4% body fat. She started in the teens with her percent body fat which is considered lean already. Losing 4% is quite remarkable, she also lost 2 inches in her waist. Both win a free month of EXL Fitness Boot Camp.
I love to people watch. I mean who doesn’t? The other day I got lassoed into going to the mall with my beautiful wife and kids and while my wife and daughter were in the women’s only underwear store (which is kind of weird, guys don’t have a guys only underwear store??? But if we did it sure wouldn’t be called Victor’s Secret). Anyway while sitting outside Victoria’s place I had a chance to observe mall life. We’re talking all kinds of shapes, sizes, styles and ways of life a true slice of red, white and blue Americana. I don’t think it takes a fitness professional to notice the poor fitness level of todays Americans. (As a little side note: congratulations we are no longer the fattest nation on the planet. The Land Down Under, Australia, is now officially the fattest nation ever. So I guess we can relax a little…ya right, second place isn’t that cool either.) Anyway, aside from the spare tires and muffin tops I witnessed I was blown away with the severity of poor posture. From the elderly to the young poor posture knew no limits. Our relatively sedentary lifestyle does a number on our spine. For the most part we do a lot of sitting, even if we are recreational athletes and workout religiously we still sit a lot more than our ancestors. From the moment we get up we sit down to eat breakfast, then sit in our car as we drive to work, at work we sit at our desk, then off to lunch where we sit, drive home sitting in our car and when we finally get home instead of working on getting our recommended 10,000 suggested steps in a day we sit down on the couch and watch Dancing with Stars. This seated position leads to rounded shoulders and a forward head. Poor posture leads to shortened muscles which leads to inflexibility and loss of strength, performance decreases and the likelyhood of injury increases. Not to mention neck, shoulder and back pain.
