2 Things You Need To Lose Weight

The marathon interview of celebrity trainer and p90x creator, Tony Horton, is coming to a close, but if you missed any of part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and finally 8, then I highly recommend going back and reading it through.

In just a short amount of time, Tony offered up a number of KEY takeaways that anyone, myself included, can quickly and easily implement and start seeing results.  Whether you’re just getting started, getting back on track, or wanting to take your workouts to a whole new level, there’s definitely something in here for you.

So, let’s jump into the final interview excerpt with Tony and learn what he feels are perhaps two of his most critical suggestions to help anyone lose weight and keep it off for good.  Let’s go….

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Craig Ballantyne:    Tony, I really appreciate everything you’ve said here today.  You’ve – I’ve written down about 17 different things that have really hit me hard, and I really appreciate that.  Having trained tens of – hundreds of thousands of people, probably, with P90X and in person and on – through the infomercials and – or, sorry, through the DVDs, are there any other tips that you’ve come across that you wanna share that we didn’t cover?

Tony Horton: Yeah, you know, I think this is important.  I think this is super important.

The idea is not to lose weight.

All right, losing weight is part of it, but it’s not everything.  You see these processed food infomercials; I won’t name names, but they have a lot of celebrities, right, showing people that, “Hey, I did this thing, and I ate this food in a box, and then over X period of time, I lost the weight, and look at me now.”  And so that’s all about ego.

All right, I want people to STOP exercising for the sole purpose – to lose some weight so they can fit into a dress that they can wear at a wedding in front of a bunch of people who could care less because they’re caring too much about themselves, and come Monday morning, you’d better have another wedding planned, okay?  That’s a horrible cycle.  That’s not a – family reunions, high school reunions, weddings – you know, to look good for some event – that is – the reason why so many people struggle with their weight and their health and their fitness is ’cause they don’t have a good plan.

They have no PLAN, and they have no PURPOSE.

So stop getting away from the purpose of what the numbers on the scale look like and what that – what you look like in the mirror and what you see on the scale.  I mean, I think that’s part of it; I don’t want to dismiss them altogether.  Those are great ways of measuring success.  But the idea is:  How do you stay motivated, excited, five to six days a week? Because only five, six days a week are you gonna get the results.  Three days a week, you might as well throw yourself down a set of stairs, ’cause you’re gonna be really sore, but you’re not gonna get the results.

You also can suffer from something I call “fitness bipolar disorder” . You know what I mean?

When you exercise really hard, you dump dopamine, serotonin, norepinephrine, these really important, critical chemicals inside of the brain, without having to do it through processed food, alcohol, and drugs, right?  Why not do it through hard work?  It might not be at the extreme levels, but it’s perfectly balanced when you exercise for 20 minutes or more a day.

Brain-derived neurotropic factor, without getting too scientific, here – BDNF, all right?

It’s molecules and proteins that sit separately inside the brain.  When you exercise 20 minutes or more, they come together and they create Miracle-Gro for the hippocampus of the brain. It changes everything about how you look at the world: your memory, your cognition, your ability to work hard under pressure.  It’s phenomenal, regular exercise.

So figure out a PLAN, and simply – I hope I’m not going too long here, but I think this is CRITICAL– get three calendars, anywhere between one and three calendars.  Put them on your – the back of your front door; put them on your bathroom mirror; and put them on your refrigerator.  Some folks need three.  No matter where they go, there are those three calendars.

Write down, in advance, what you’re gonna do; what time you’re gonna do it; and then put a red magic marker and attach it to the calendar.

At the end of the month….

…if you don’t have 20 Xs for when you accomplished that goal, you have basically not done what you need to do to live large, to improve the quality of your life, to be healthy, to be fit, and to be less vulnerable to illness and injury.  If you have 12, you know, it’s better than 0, but you need 20-plus Xs at the end of that month.

And that – I STILL do it.

I have a desk calendar, and I’ve been doing it for 25 years.  I write my workouts down.  For example, tonight I got Plyometric legs at 6:00.  Tomorrow morning I have shoulders and arms at 8:30.  Wednesday I have cardio intervals at 6;  Thursday morning I’m back at 8:30 with chest and back; Friday’s cardio again, probably a run or a shorter interval routine.  Saturday is yoga.  Sunday is my three-hour gymnastics workout.  Now, I might miss one or two of those a month, but that’s how I keep going.

And the other thing is PURPOSE.

Stop thinking about your ego.  Your ego is going to make you fail.  It always has; it always will.  Why don’t you exercise because every time you do, your health will improve, automatically?  You don’t have to wait 30 days, 60 days, 90 days for that.  Your health improves when you move your butt.  Your fitness improves when you move your butt.

Your – the quality of your life improves, because you get all those chemicals.  You get that BDNF in the hippocampus, so all of a sudden you’re smarter, you’re happier; those are beautiful things.  And you’re less vulnerable to going out like your grandparents did if they didn’t exercise.  That’s gonna be a miserable train wreck.  Right?  Look at old people who don’t – who have never exercised.  It is a pill-infested nightmare.  And that’s gonna be you, if you don’t get on it now.

So trust me.  That’s purpose, for me, now: health, fitness, quality of life, and being less vulnerable to illness and injury.  That gets me off the couch.  That gets me moving every time.  And I look better, too.  Oh, yippee.

Craig Ballantyne:    You are a machine at 51, Tony.  I really, really appreciate all your words of wisdom here today and you taking the time out for this call.  So thank you very much, sir.

Tony Horton: Well, thanks, Craig.  My absolute pleasure, man.  Anytime I can spread the word, I really love it.  I hope your crew gets something from this and keeps them in the game.  And that’s the most important thing.

Craig Ballantyne:    Great stuff.  And I wish you the best of success in continuing to spread the word and getting more and more people involved.  And I see you and Carl talking about that on Facebook all the time, and I encourage everyone listening to follow Tony or to join his fan page on Facebook.  He’s always got some very good insights there.  So best of luck to you on that.

And everyone, this is Craig Ballantyne.  I hope you enjoyed the call.  And talk to you soon, and best of luck with your health.

To discover the rest of Tony Horton’s fat burning advice:

Click here to listen to this exclusive interview

I promise you’ll learn a lot to help you lose belly fat