How to get that summer body in five easy steps!

With the temperatures rising, this can only mean one thing…spring has arrived and summer is right around the corner. Are you ready to strut your stuff up and down the beach in that yellow polka-dot bikini, or are you one of the many women who dread the thought of putting on that swimsuit?

Don’t panic just yet! Now is the time get up off the couch and start getting those unwanted pounds off… BEFORE summer hits.

The great news is that there is still time to look your best for that summer vacation that you have already booked and are looking forward to the rest and relaxation it has in store for you! But, it will take some commitment on your part.

Are you ready for that?

If so than, take that swimsuit out of the bag, hang it up on display and let’s get your confidence soaring!

Step 1: Find the “why” in your goal:
I want you to dig deep on this one. I want you to think about your ideal body and envision yourself on the beach in that fabulous bikini. Can you see it vividly in your head? Now I want you to write that “ideal” body down on paper. This is where we must go further and write down WHY we want this ideal body? What is the real reason for this goal? Is it self-confidence, health, a special event or someone? Be specific and don’t hold back. Most of all…be HONEST!

Step 2: Get those Calendars and PDA’s out:
Over the next few months, one of the most important appointments you will have will be your workout times. These need to be scheduled at the beginning of the week and you must keep yourself accountable for those times. No more excuses, no canceling times because of other “appointments”. Get yourself to the gym (or better, yet, to Boot Camp); this is your commitment to yourself. If you don’t prioritize, you will ultimately let yourself down. Consistency is KEY here!

Step 3: Raiding the Pantry Time:
Remember that 70% of your fat loss results come from what you put in your mouth! It is time for a little “spring cleaning” for your kitchen. Throw away all the “junk”, like processed foods, sugar-filled colas, fruit juices, candy, etc. We need our kitchen to be supportive of our fat loss goal, not a death trap.

Instead, stock the kitchen with lean meats, fruits, veggies, and healthy fats (i.e. white cheeses, nuts, avocados, olive oil). You will be amazed at the results you can achieve by just cleaning up the food you ingest and not getting so hung up with calories.

Step 4: Eat Supportively:
Now that our kitchen is rid of all of the “temptations” that might sabotage us during our intense commitment, we can start to talk about food and food timing. To achieve the best results one should eat every 3-4 hours and only eat until you are satisfied. Choose from the previously mentioned foods, and make sure to get a lean protein and veggies at every meal. This will not only help boost your metabolism, but it will give you the energy you need to get the most out of your workouts every day.

Step 5: Now Get up and MOVE:
A healthy combination of resistance training and cardiovascular training is very important. All too often, people think of fat loss and start running miles upon miles each week, exhausting their bodies and finding little or no improvements in their body appearance.

Adapting a full body resistance training program (Boot Camp or Nelms Fitness) that has you lifting a minimum of three days per week will not only yield you fabulous results, but will also make your time in the gym more efficient and effective. Combine this with 2-3 days of High Intensity Interval training, for 15-20 minutes per session, and you have a recipe for success.

Now, with your swim suit hung up and your mindset focused on the goal, you have now been equipped with the tools that you need to succeed.

With a strong commitment to that beach body, you are now ready to begin down the road to your best body ever!

Enjoy the journey and remember that consistency is crucial to meeting and even exceeding your goal.

Finally, act today… what are you waiting for? The year is almost half way over with!

Sincerely,



















Alissa Nelms
TheFitCouple

Motivation & Goal Setting: Part 5

Lastly, remember that patience is a virtue. Success has never been achieved overnight. Be patient with this process. Stay focused, stay motivated and take this process one step at a time. If you mess up and fall off the horse, wipe the dirt off and jump right back on the horse and ride harder. Do not be discouraged or beat yourself up about the small mistakes, this is not how you create success. Success is getting back up, keeping that mental toughness and pushing forward. This is where true success is born and tough goals are achieved. This is when you can be truly proud of achieving your goals.

Taking action is the key to this entire process. I can give you the tools that you need to achieve your goals, but without your action these tools are worthless. So write down your goals, create rewards, make a vision book, be positive, find an accountability partner, join an online community and lastly, have patience.

Time is ticking… it is your time to take action and change the course of your life by achieving your goals today!

What are you waiting for?

Sincerely,















Alissa Nelms
TheFitCouple

Motivation & Goal Setting: Part 4

The best way to motivate yourself in this next step is to find a strong accountability partner. This needs to be someone that you trust, look up to and respect. Be sure to think carefully about a person that would be able to fill these shoes. Right now, write a list of 5 people that you feel could be a strong accountability partner. List out their qualities, and then by process of elimination, choose the person that you believe will help you stay strong, motivated and help you achieve your goals. Call that person up now and ask them if they are willing to support you and motivate you in achieving your goals today!

Joining an online community or message board can also be vitally important to your success. I know to some of you that this may sound corny, but online communities are an easy way to gain instant support, encouragement, motivation and friendship from people who share the same goals and mindsets that you do. This is where you can learn from other’s mistakes and even share some of your own. You can learn a ton of information and gain a wealth of knowledge from these online communities!

Also, a majority of these sites have professionals that you can ask questions of and get fantastic answers from. Be sure to be active, ask questions, and share your thoughts and feelings. You will only get whatever you put into the community, so take advantage of this free resource and use it! You can use Google to find online communities that are specific to your goals, or if weight loss is your goal you can check out ours at TheFitCouple Community site.

Next blog post will wrap this topic up so act now and get moving, today is the day!! :)

Sincerely,



















Alissa Nelms
TheFitCouple

Motivation and Goal Setting: Part 3

Now, here is the fun part, where the creativity will kick into high gear. I would like for you to wipe the dust off of that pile of magazines that are sitting in the corner of your living room. Start to dig through them, or if you have to, go to the store and find some that are in line with the topic of each of your goals. Flip through and find images, pictures, words or phrases that allow you to get lost in the vision of your goal. Take all of these and paste them in one place. You can either use a notebook, poster board, a sheet of paper, or whatever you feel will correctly portray these visions! This is where you can allow your creativity to come out and shine! Keep this handy as you will need to look at it 2-4 times per DAY!

You need to keep these goals in your mind, they need to become a part of you, a part of your life, and this collection of pictures and phrases will be your motivational vision book, poster, or page. Every time you look at it, visually imagine yourself as if you had already achieved this goal. You have been successful at following through and you have attained this goal. It is yours and you own it. Now is the time to act, so don’t put this step off. Put it at the top of your to do list! You won’t regret it… it is a very powerful tool in the process of achieving your goals.

There is no time to waste, your goals are waiting on you to achieve them!

Have fun with your crativity over the next couple of days and then return for the next step!


Sincerely,
















Alissa Nelms
TheFitCouple

Motivation and Goal Setting: Part 2

Next, I want you to write out some rewards. Yes, you read correctly! I want you to think of some constructive ways that you can reward yourself as you start to achieve these small goals. Talk about some motivation! This will not only help keep you focused and motivated, but it will allow you to work hard on attaining and ultimately achieving these goals. Think about smaller rewards for your smaller goals and larger rewards for your larger goals. This will keep you on track and focused on what is important.

As you think of the rewards be sure to make them constructive and not destructive. For example, if your goal is to lose 10 pounds by bikini season, your reward shouldn’t be a large hot fudge sundae covered in chocolate and caramel sauce. Instead, pick something along the lines of a new shirt or a mini vacation. Your rewards should support and provide positive reinforcements for what you are trying to accomplish.

The next step is to let your mind be free to dream, be creative (even if you are not creatively inclined), and let your mind soar as you begin to envision your goals vividly. They say that if you vividly envision your goals on a daily basis, your brain treats them as if they are real experiences. In fact, it is as if they have truly happened in real time.

What do your goals look like? What would be the perfect picture or way that you would display your goal? What would make them stay at the forefront of your mind at all times? It needs to be a vision that you can ingrain in your mind as a visual image, picture, or type of word that will trigger your mind to think of this goal as often as possible.

Go on, do this step now, don’t wait.

You should have these goals down and ready to go before I post the next step in a couple of days...It is your turn to take action, make it happen and don't get behind! :)

Sincerely,















Alissa Nelms

TheFitCouple.com

Motivation and Goal Setting - Part 1

What makes us do the things that we do? Why do we find the motivation to succeed in some things, yet we fail miserably in other things? This is such a valid question for our society today. If each of us really and truly put our minds to work and focused specifically on our goals, wouldn’t we all be a lot more successful in each area of our lives?

They say that the most successful people have very specific goals. They write their goals down, read these goals daily, attack them and ultimately achieve them. Knowing this, why don’t we all follow this type of goal setting? It sounds so easy and so attainable, so why don’t we all set our minds to this system and go after what we are all wanting in life…success? Is it because we are too lazy to do what it takes? Or are we too busy to sit down for a few minutes to prioritize and set goals for ourselves?

Wouldn’t this allow us to be more efficient in ALL that we do? Is this not motivation enough to kick ourselves into gear and take action by starting NOW? Today, I would like to discuss motivational tips that you can implement immediately to step out, take charge and achieve the goals that have been on your mind’s “to do” list for the past decade!

First off, I want you to take action immediately. Don’t put this step off another second. Go find a pad of paper and pen and begin to write down 5-10 goals. I don’t want you to hold back… I want you to dream! Let your mind roam… the sky is the limit!

Be specific: include numbers, dates, times, locations, etc. These cannot be specific enough. Then under each goal, I would like for you to write out 3 powerful reasons WHY you would like to achieve these goals and what these goals mean to YOU. You must make these powerful, emotional and motivational in order to get the full and desired effects from these statements.

Take action and write these out now before reading on.

Secondly, take each of one these goals individually and break them down into smaller, more attainable goals. This will not only allow you to become less overwhelmed with your goals, but it will also allow you to stay highly motivated as you start achieving these smaller goals.

Go on, do this step now, don’t wait.

You should have these goals down and ready to go before I post the next step in a couple of days...It is your turn to take action, don't get behind! :)

Sincerely,

Alissa Nelms

http://www.thefitcouple.com/

Mental Toughness and Goal Setting: Part 2

In my last blog article, I began the process of defining mental toughness and explaining how the goal achievement process is crucial to the actual development and creation of mental toughness. The next step in the process is:

Implementation. This is absolutely key to achieving mental toughness. Start by making a plan, be detailed, and be specific on what steps you will need to take in order to achieve these goals. Take a minute, RIGHT NOW, and write out a game plan on what you intend to do to make this all happen. If you don't know, don't be afraid to ask!

Ask friends, family, significant others or professionals on what they think will be the best way to achieve your goals, collaborate with them and come up with the best organizational chart as possible. You know what they say, two heads are better than one.

Now I need to mention one caveat, do not get hung up on mistakes whether they are big or small. This will be a process and you will not be perfect; we all make mistakes. The take home message here is don't let your mind creep into that "All or Nothing" mindset or even second guess yourself. Such negative thinking is NOT the mental toughness you are looking for.

If you mess up or become frustrated, be tough enough to admit it, learn from it and push forward even harder and even more intensely. This is the creation of true mental toughness. So, use it to your advantage… don't let it hinder your progress and get in the way of your ultimate goals.

Negative self-talk. This is huge in learning mental toughness and for achieving your goals. Our mind is very powerful, and more often than not, we allow the negative side of our mind to dominate our thoughts and, ultimately, our lives. Although negativity, or “brain trash”, as I like to call it, is hard to get rid of completely, it is very important to retrain our brains to replace the negative thoughts with positive ones.

I would suggest that every time you have a negative thought cross your mind, you IMMEDIATELY replace it with a positive one, one that is opposite of the negative thought that you just had. You will then repeat this positive thought at least five (5) times in order to retrain your mental thoughts into positive ones. Negative thoughts are like poison and you need to reverse the poison by ingesting the antidote or positive thoughts into your system.

Immediately halting and destroying negative thoughts are the key ingredients to goal achievement and the improvement of yourself as a human being, as well as the foundation for mental toughness. Negative thoughts are often tough to overcome, but if you can overcome these negative thoughts, you will have made incredible progress towards mental toughness.

Lastly, be a "difference" maker. Go out there and make a difference, in your life, as well as in others. This will not only make you feel absolutely wonderful about yourself, but it will also give you confidence and positivity in all that you say and do.

Now, go and take action, be a doer and make it happen. Don't put it off another second, minute, hour, day, week or even year. You owe it to yourself to become mentally tough and achieve those long awaited goals NOW...nothing is better than the present for taking action.

Sincerely,


Alissa Nelms

www.TheFitCouple.com

One of the best goal setting tools that I would strongly suggest is by a wonderful colleague and friend, Day Moy. He has developed a phenomenal goal setting program that is a complete 100 day blueprint for positive ACTION that'll lead to positive RESULTS! Jeremy and I have both used it and simply can’t recommend it strongly enough. You can find his program, called The Magic Hundred, by clicking here!