I have put together a preliminary prize list for the upcoming January weight loss competition. I will be adding a few more prizes to complete the list in the near future.

The first place overall team will each be awarded either a digital camera or mp3 player. The second place team will receive a 30 day membership at a local gym of their choice. The overall first place individual winner will receive a brand new 32″ plasma screen tv. The second place overall winner will receive a 3 month membership to a local gym of their choice. All participants will receive an official Innaugral CityFitClub Weight Loss Competition T-Shirt.

As previously mentioned there will be 8 personal training sessions totalling 12 hours of training time. There will also be 4 team competitions totalling about 8 hours of games, nutritional instruction, and and training advice to help you achieve our goals. The estimated price to join the competition is going to be around $475. This works out to $23.75 per hour, a big discount to the $30 to $35 an hour I normally charge clients, depending on location.  And in addition, you get the chance to win some pretty great prizes for an even greater motivation factor.

I will be posting up additional details about the competition in the coming days.

After almost a year of planning and the last couple months of fine tuning, I am ready to announce the First CityFitClub Weight Loss Competition.  The first competition will be hosted in my hometown of Yankton, South Dakota and is tentatively scheduled to begin January 3, 2009.  The competition is going to be limited to only 9 participants.  This is due to me wanting to provide enough personal attention to each and every one who signs up, and also so I may offer everyone great rewards and incentives.

The competition will run for 4 weeks, where there will be 4 competitions, and eight 90 minute training sessions.  Each competition will offer small prizes, and at the end the most successful team will be awarded grand prizes and the most successful indiviual participant will be awarded the overall grand prize.

Overall performance will not only be measured by weight lost but also by total inches lost, as muscle weighs twice as much as fat and part of the goal will be to gain some muscle mass as this promotes a higher metabolism to boost the fat burning process.

I will be announcing the complete prize list in the coming week or so.  I will also be posting a signup page with full details about the contest and the requirements to participate.  Doing this safely and healthy is the main idea behind this, but to also show that solid, lasting results are possible by following my CityFitClub program.  Until then, keep striving for your goals.

Now, as long as you remember cityfitclub, you can get here by typing .com, .net, .org, or .info!  Also in the next day, I am going to be adding a couple city specific links to CityFitClub.com as I am going to soon be starting monthly weight loss competitions in those cities where participants will compete as individuals and as teams for great prizes as they see who can lose the most weight.  Sound familiar?  Well now is your chance to partake in a new fun way to lose weight and stay motivated along the way.  And with the added incentive of winning exciting prizes you’ll be even more determined to lose those extra pounds.  I’ll be posting the full details of the competition and the prize list this coming week, so stay tuned!

Now you can get instant feedback and be an integral part of CityFitClub.  I started the CityFitClub forums to bring everyone together who wants to lose weight and keep it off thru the help of the community.  The forums offer you the chance to read weight loss posts, keep online journals for exercise and nutrition, and post before and after photos for even more motivation.  You can also read other’s success stories and what other members are doing to lose weight and keep it off. 

The new CityFitClub forums also offers a new and great way to get your own private personal training and consulting directly from me, Josh Law.  You also get all of the Paid Ebooks I’ve written for CityFitClub for free when you sign up for the CityFitClub “Model Member” Membership.  You get other great added features to enhance your experience on the CityFitClub Forums as a bonus too! 

The best part of the new forums is that basic registration is free and you get to post journals, participate in chat, and discuss new ways to lose weight and keep it off.  Join today and start that new thinner and healthy lifestyle you’ve been desiring all this time.

Josh

I have just completed a new report available for download titled, “175 Ways to Lose 7lbs in 7 days!”  This ebook is different from anything else available right now online as it provides more tips and methods to lose weight then anywhere else, and how you can apply those tactics with guaranteed success.  Most articles and reports offer 10 tips or tricks to lose weight, my new ebook covers almost 200 ways to do this.  You will never find another as complete resource anywhere.  Don’t wait to start your new lifestyle, click here and do it today!

There are 3 things that hold true for those who are already healthy and at a weight they are happy with.  They are not some mystical secrets from the orient, or some special recipe brought to us by martians, but rather the same good ol’ fashioned advice we’ve always heard since childhood, only sometimes we forget what we were told when we were kids.  Here they are.

1.  People who are in shape and at a ideal weight do NOT diet.  Well thanks for that Captain Obvious, is probably what you are thinking.  But wait a second, before you get all John Wayne on me.  The people who are where many desire to be, eat the same way day in and day out.  They don’t skip meals, and they don’t binge when a craving hits.  They eat the same way all the time.  Which means a set amount of calories everyday, usually very healthy, and they eat at every meal.  Take some advice from the crowd who is already where you want to be and follow what they do.

2.  They stop eating when they are no longer hungry.  Don’t think you have to clean your plate every time you sit down to eat.  If at some point during your meal you reach a feeling of being full, STOP EATING!  Don’t gorge yourself to where you can’t move any longer, or that you start to feel sick.  When you do this two things happen that work against you.  One is that once you have overate, all of your body’s energy is being redirected towards your stomach and is now working on digestion, leaving little energy for you to get up and move around to burn off some calories.  This can take a couple hours to work through if you really stuffed yourself before you think about doing any type of exercise effectively.  And two, all of the extra calories you just ate are going to be stored as fat since your body can only effectively digest so much protein and carbs in one sitting.  So stop feeding yourself when you’re full, you are only hurting yourself by cleaning your plate everytime.

3.  Keep track of your weight often.  I’m talking like everyday at the same time.  This will give you an accurate guage to see if your efforts are paying off.  Now I know you’ve heard this is the wrong thing to do, but let me tell you why it’s what really works.  When you weigh yourself daily, you have instant feedback on what is working and what isn’t.  If you think you are doing great, but all of a sudden you’ve gained 3 lbs from yesterday, it’s time to IMMEDIATELY reevaluate what went wrong the day before and change it.  If you notice no weight change, you may become discouraged and this is the main arguement against daily weighings.  Instead of having feelings of disappointment, use those feelings to reinvigorate yourself and do even better.  Once the weight starts coming off, it will come off in a hurry when you find the formula that works for you.

So you see, there are no deep dark secrets here.  Only solid advice to help you achieve what you desire.  You will always get out of what you put into something, unless it’s gambling lol.  And weight loss is no gamble, it’s something you just do.

Just like everything in life, things don’t just happen by accident.  Things occur because of previous events that set in motion the events that eventualy happened.  The same goes for losing weight.  It isn’t going to happen by accident.  And your goal has to be realistic.  When making a budget for a vacation, you know what you can afford and what you have to save to get there.  Don’t set an impossiple goal for your weight loss.  30 lbs in 30 days can be done, but most people will not have the ability to do it on their own.  10 lbs in 30 is completely realistic, as is maybe 12 lbs in the same amount of time.  But there will come a point where failure is inevitable.  Here are a few ways to get to your goal, without having to face failure.

1.  Be realistic.  As I said above, you have to know what you are totally capable of doing.  An impossible goal gives you plenty of reasons to not even try and get there.

2.  Set short term goals on the way to the big one.  Check in on your progress every few days.  You don’t want to do it everyday as there will be days you will not lose anything and that can be discouraging, but every 4 or 5 days you should see results that will keep you motivated to your big goal.  And that’s what it will take to get there.

3.  Find a friend or family member to help you get there.  Doing a lifestyle change as drastic as is sometimes necessary to lose weight and keep it off permanantly can be the toughest thing many people will ever go through.  Everything they knew in the past is now changing, and change can be frightening.  Going through the change with someone can have it’s benefits of comfort knowing that you are not alone and you will have someome who can relate to you when you need them to.

4.  But Most Importantly, STICK TO YOUR PLAN.  It is your road map to success.  Straying the course will lead you into uncharted territory and you will waste time and your results will fail to materialize.  Don’t let what you started end with disappointment.  You are capable of doing it.  Now make it happen.

H2O.  The most important thing for sustaining life.  Our bodies are made up of mostly water.  And while it doesn’t contain any calories, the processes that it aids in our bodies keeps us alive.  But, there’s more to water’s important role then just a life giving substance.  It is key to weight loss and healthy living plans.  Here’s why.

Number one, hydration.  If you are dehydrated your body will naturally hold onto the water that it does contain, causing a slight state of bloatedness.  It goes against reasoning, but the more water you drink the more you will expel.  Water is actually a bit diuretic in larger quantities, thus you will lose weight, and bloatedness by keeping well hydrated. And how much is that exactly?  You should try and strive to drink a gallon of water a day but you must drink at least a half gallon of JUST WATER for certain.  If you partake in any strenuous activities, you will need more then a half gallon.

There are other benefits to drinking water, such as aiding in the excretion of wastes and toxins, and it reduces sodium buildup in the body, which contribute to a healthy lifestyle.  But don’t forget that it is crucial to your dietary nutritional plans.

What your body is made of will determine how many calories you need in a day to maintain or exist.  If you have a high ratio of fat to lean body mass, you may need fewer calories then someone of the same weight but much higher amount of lean body mass.  In other words the more muscle mass you have, the more calories your body naturally burns.  I’m not recommending becoming the next champion bodybuilder, but I am saying working out with weights, or resistance training, is very beneficial to you and your quest to lose weight or maintain a healthy body weight.

There is a two-prong reason for this, one being the more muscle you have the faster your metabolism is.  Just because muscle burns calories even when at rest.  Secondly, if you have a higher ratio of lean body mass to overall weight then the average person, you more then likely already do some type of physical activity to stay in shape, thus burning calories in the process of gaining more lean body mass. 

It can be a bit confusing, and seem like a chicken and egg scenario, but you do have the power to change your body composition.  The easiest way is through nutritional manipulation and some form of exercise.  Just decreasing the amount of excess fat changes the overall ratio of your body composition.  So remember, even though your dietary plan may be spot on, exercise will always help accelerate the changes you want to achieve.

Sometimes people eat when they are not hungry or when they are placed in an out of the ordinary situation.  There are reasons for this, and none of them are  justifiable when it comes to your health and mission to lose or maintain a healthy body weight.  I am going to cover a few reasons here and how to overcome them, especially if they have become a habit.

Stress can be a killer on a person’s emotions.  Feelings of depression, fatigue, body or head aches, loneliness, anxiety, and personal relationships are all forms of stress that can lead to binge snacking or overeating.  While it’s not always possible to eliminate the source of stress in your life, how you effectively manage that stress is what will keep you from packing on several unwanted pounds.  But before I delve into how to manage stress, I’m going to mention a few scenarios that may help you recognize when you are eating when you really shouldn’t be.

1. Going out to coffee or a few drinks with friends.  There is invariably always some types of snack foods available in coffee shops such as muffins or cookies, or maybe a super chocolately concoction of fudge brownies.  It’s the same for most bars or restaurants, they offer quick snacks like chips or pretzels.  If you find yourself out with friends, DO NOT eat just because something looks good or because your friends are grabbing something.  If you wouldn’t eat it if you weren’t with them, WHY eat it just because you are with them?  It’s only extra calories, and usually very poor ones at that.

2.  When you aren’t at home, and you stop somewhere to eat, eating something because there is a huge sign advertising it and making it look super delicious shouldn’t be justification for you ordering it.  Don’t let t.v. or creative marketing get the best of you and your nutritional program.  You’ll lose the war on weight loss if you do.

3.  If you’re having a rough day and are really down on yourself, you may find comfort in having a little treat like a twinkie, ho-ho, or whatever your weakness might be.  Don’t think that you have no will power, because you do!  Occupy your thoughts and time some other way, go buy a book you’ve been wanting to read, take the dog for a walk (he misses you!), or get in gear and clean the spare room or basement you’ve been putting off for weeks or months now.  Do NOT just sit around and mope, and certainly don’t snack and mope!  Its a terrible combination, and you won’t feel any better afterwards.

4.  Sometimes when you’re alone due to personal relationships, maybe work is really tough right now, or maybe life in general just isn’t going the way you want, eating may seem like a logical way to pass the time and replace the happiness that’s missing at the moment.  This can be a SERIOUS problem and is where many folks have trouble these days.  It’s not easy, ever, to get up and occupy yourself when you don’t feel like doing anything but sitting on the couch or in bed eating bon-bons, or tearing through a bag of doritos and liter of soda.  But there are people out there who do care about you.  Call a family member or friend, or someone you work with to get out of the house and do something.  Talk to them, not necessarily about all of life’s problems, but listen to them and maybe they have a rough spot in their life too.  You might end up helping each other out just by being there and listening to each other.  It works!

5.  And lastly being overly hungry because you skipped a meal earlier in the day and you figure you better make up for it.  This is a horrible idea.  Everyone’s body effectively digests what it needs at the moment and everything extra is stored as fat.  Do I really even need to say more here?  Just remember that little fact.

These are all different situations people find themselves in that can lead to overeating.  But what can you do to control this?  First, recognize that the situation is occuring and then stop it from happening.  You have many options.  As I said above, read a book, do house or yard work, take the dog for a walk.  You can also take a bubble bath, play a board or video game, call or talk to someone, anything that you find pleasurable (BESIDES EATING) until the urge or feeling passes.

One final way to combat stressful binge eating or situational eating is to keep a food/diet journal.  Keep track of everything you eat during the day.  And keep doing it for a very long time until what you are supposed to be eating and when you eat becomes strict habit.  That’s when you are truely on your way to a healthy and nutritional lifestyle.  You have the power to do it and there are many tools available to help you along the way.  Take advantage of all that you can and you will speed the process to your benefit.