A Different Kind Of Fitness Challenge

I recently received the email below from fitness pro, Mike Whitfield. It's an important message and I asked him for permission to post it here for you.

I truly believe sometimes we all train for the wrong reasons (including me!).

Think about it... what's the #1 reason people train?...

... to lose fat.

That's fine, but what happens after that? I've seen this happen in my gym over and over.

You'll lose 10 pounds, 15 pounds even 50 pounds or more. Then the goal was reached.

But then what is there to go for? Lose more fat? Then after that even more fat?

You certainly don't want to work out day after day just to lose fat... for the rest of your life, do you?

Not only is this mentally draining, but it's not healthy either. One quote I recently shared on my facebook page...

"When you train for health and not for vanity, you have more fun and you won't obsess about the way you look. The fat loss then becomes a by-product."

This opened the eyes of many of my readers and quite honestly, I needed to hear it myself.

Look, maybe you know this or maybe you don't... but I'm far from perfect. I don't have 8-pack abs. My skin from being over 300 pounds won't allow that.

But I don't let that get to me. There are more important things in life than some loose skin.

I train to be healthy and live a more vibrant life. I also want to be there for my kids as they age and get involved in sports. 

I want to throw the ball back and forth without getting winded. I want to chase them all over the house and let the laughs fill the house.

But I also want to get stronger... and you should, too.

So, my challenge to you is this. For just ONE week, I challenge you to do your workout plan to simply become a better version of yourself.

At EVERY workout, choose one to two exercises that you'll progress on. Whether it's increasing the weight or increasing the reps on a bodyweight exercise... progress on SOMETHING.

Then celebrate. Don't worry about what the scale says or how your clothes fit. Just focus on simply getting better.

When you change your mindset and really focus on doing this ONE thing, you'll quickly discover that perhaps a plateau you've been facing has been broken...

... and you're having fun with your workouts instead of being frustrated about your body image progress.

That's it. The challenge sounds quite simple, but don't underestimate the power of this approach.

Accept the challenge with this weekends' workouts, or at least at the start of next week...

Mikey, CTT


If you're looking for something different to spice up your workouts, Click Here to check out Mike's Metabolic Workout Finishers.

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Total Exhaustion Does Not Mean You Got A Good Workout

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Has Your Fat Loss Stalled?

If you are struggling in general or have hit a plateau with your fat loss, check out this very long but excellent article from John Berardi at Precision Nutrition.

He discusses common nutrient deficiencies that can derail your weight management efforts, portion sizes and control (not calorie counting), nutrition for different body types, the truth about meal frequency, etc.

Check it out here ==> How to fix a broken diet: 3 ways to get your eating on track

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Collected Fitness Wisdom #57

In order to lose weight, gain muscle, feel better and improve your health, most of what you eat needs to be high quality and nutrient dense foods. There is no other way around it. People keep trying to bend this rule

of fitness by trying to compensate poor eating with additional exercise. Trying to burn off a weekend of doughnuts, booze and fried chicken on a treadmill Monday morning is like buying fire insurance the day after your house burns down. It just doesn’t work like that. You have to learn how to properly nourish your body if you want lasting changes in how you look and feel.

~ Sgt. Steve Rosen



Years of misinformation mixed with some bizarre, masochistic cultural obsession have convinced millions of us that a good workout should always leave you nauseous and completely incapacitated...But training like this every time you work out, or, like most Americans, you’re new to vigorous physical activity altogether is just stupid: a shortcut to adrenal shock, subsequent overtraining, and injury.


~ Christopher Chilelli



You need to be okay with who you are, and with who you can be. If you want to lose weight, great, lose weight. But do it because you want to be healthy, not because you want to conform to unrealistic lies you have been told. I do believe everyone should strive to obtain good health, it will only make your life, and the lives of your loved ones, more enjoyable. But, healthy or not, we need to learn how to be comfortable in our own skins. We need to learn how to tune out all the lies that surround us. I truly believe we are all fearfully and wonderfully made. What if we believed and focused on that instead of all the other noise we are fed?

~ Tim Anderson



You can’t focus on “losing weight” if you want long term results.

You have to focus on “Gaining Health”!

Make your goal be everything about what you are GAINING...What you are moving TOWARD... What you are GIVING yourself...What you WANT to CREATE.

Don’t focus on “losing” anything ever again.

~ Andrea Albright


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