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What does stress have to do with fitness, fat loss, or health in general?

Why would you want to zap stress? Could it really zap you?

If you don't already know the answers to all of these questions, you will in a minute.

Let me start by making it clear that the kind of stress we're talking about here is psychological in nature. We're not talking about the body/physical stress that comes from picking up something that's way too heavy, being slammed with the flu, or getting your foot run over by a truck.

We're talking about the kind of stress that you "feel" in your life -- the kind that most of us are living with every day of our lives. We're talking about the kind of stress that people talk about when they say, "Man, I am totally stressed out!" or "Wow, what a stressful job interview / presentation / performance review that was!"

But what can you do about stress? Isn't life just going to be stressful sometimes -- and really, really stressful other times -- no matter what we do?

The answer to that question may surprise you…in a good way!

1. First, Understand That Stress Is A Self-Inflicted Condition. Yes, believe it or not, any and all stress of the psychological kind is self-created (and thus, self-inflicted).How can this possibly be true? What person in their right mind would create / inflict stress upon themselves?

Ah, there's the catch. Nobody in his "right" mind would inflict stress upon themselves.

But you see, it's a largely (or entirely) unconscious process. It's something we learned to do. Creating stress is, in fact, something we have been programmed to do in certain situations and under certain conditions.

While the specific details of our individual "OK, this is stressful" recipe varies from person to person, the mechanism is always the same. At some point in your life, you developed your own, unique, stress-creation equation, and whenever all the "right" ingredients are present, voila!, you create stress -- automatically, unconsciously, and predictably.

2. Be Aware That There's Good Stress And Bad Stress. As pioneering stress researcher Hans Selye pointed out decades ago, not all stress is negative. He used the term "eu-stress" (as in "euphonia." or "The Eurhythmics.") to describe the healthy stuff.

How can stress be healthy? It's healthy when it inspires you and motivates you to accomplish good things, to reach your goals, or just to get out of bed in the morning. Eu-stress is created when you understanding the difference between where you are and where you want to be, and then have a healthy (not frenetic) desire to get there.

Eu-stress is created when you understand that you don't have to make yourself crazy, beat yourself to death, slay the dragon, keep up with the Joneses, be the first one on your block, or "knock 'em dead" to get what you want in life.

A life with zero stress would be boring and unhealthy. But a life high in negative stress is even more unhealthy. So you need to understand how, when, and why YOU create stress, and become the conscious source of the stress in your life -- and not the unconscious victim of it.

3. Understand That Negative Stress Impairs All Healthy Body Functions. In fact, negative stress can literally kill you. Psychological stress can lead to so much physical stress that some essential body function can shut down entirely -- most often, your heart.

Or if excess stress doesn't kill you outright, it can make you wish you were dead, or make you one of the "living" dead. (Maybe you have already met a few of them? Maybe you are becoming one of them.

High levels of negative stress causes hypertension (elevated blood pressure) due to increased pulse rate, constricted blood vessels, or both. It also causes diminished coping ability resulting from low energy and fatigue, due to the constant drain on you resources.

Negative stress also leads to poor digestion and poor nutrient assimilation, again, a negative consequence of reduced circulatory function. This can lead to constipation and, over time, to colitis, diverticulitis, and some really serious colon problems.

I could go on, but I think you get the point.

[Please stay tuned to this location for Part Two of… "7 Ways & Reasons To Zap Stress Before Stress Zaps You!"

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This article was provided by Global Health & Fitness (GHF). Click Here
to visit their site for customized exercise and nutrition programs, hundreds
of exercise instructions and video demo's, a free fitness analysis, and much
more!

Are you maybe a little bit frustrated?

Do you have fitness goals you've been pursing with the very best of intentions, but somehow just can't seem to reach?

Or maybe you managed to get there—to your target weight or optimum BMI—only to find yourself backsliding?

If so, you have lots of company.

Of course, that's probably not much consolation. And you know what? It shouldn't be. The fact is, there are people all over the country who are reaching their fitness goals, and staying there.

How do they do it? Quite a few of them have a "secret weapon." And that secret weapon is a personal success coach.

Success coaching is probably more popular these days than you ever imagined. In fact, there are now more than 20,000 professional success coaches in the US alone.

For years, or even decades, coaches were used only by top performers who needed that winning edge—Olympic athletes, pro ball players, and the like. And of course, coaches have been just as valuable in business circles too, though that's not nearly as well publicized.

But now coaching has become available to virtually everybody. Why has it become so popular for "ordinary folks" to have a success coach?

One word: Results!

FACT: You Will Get Much Better Results
With Professional Help

The fastest way to put yourself on the road to success is to work with someone who can help you apply the powerful success principles and techniques all coaches are familiar with. For example, in my own specialty (weight loss/fatloss), a Consumer Reports Magazine article titled "The Truth About Dieting" (June 2002) reported that people who were most successful at weight loss did not involve themselves with Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers, or any other organization. Instead, the researchers found that...

"If any one thing made a difference for them,
it was one-on-one counseling from a professional
such as a psychologist or nutritionist..." (p. 27)

The simple truth is that a personal coach will dramatically increase your chances for success, too. In fact, many people find that they can do with a coach what they just couldn't manage to do on their own, which explains why...

Virtually all major sports figures and Olympic athletes use personal coaches to get and keep their "winning edge."

Tens of thousands of corporate executives at all levels of management rely on personal coaches to insure their success.

Countless entrepreneurs and small business owners use personal coaches to help them succeed where most people fail.

And thousands of "just plain folks" are using success coaches right now to find a better career, make wiser choices in life, have more satisfying relationships—and lose weight!

Do you "need" professional help? It depends on two major factors. First, you need to know exactly what to do and how to do it. Second, you need to actually do it in a way that gets results.

Some people are able to succeed through their own sheer determination. But most of us can't. That's why I use a coach, myself, to help me reach my own goals.

Five Major Benefits Of Working With A Coach

1. It's Fast - Working with a coach is your "fast track" to success. Your coach's expertise, clear focus, and proven resources will get you where you want to go at maximum speed without wheel-spinning or backsliding.

2. It's Efficient - You don't waste time doing what can't work. You make the best possible use of your available time and energy doing what has been proven to work. You'll only do what works best for YOU, and you'll be able to do it consistently.

3. You Get Solid, Consistent, Unwavering Support - As you may already have discovered, not everyone in life has your best interests at heart. Your coach ALWAYS has your total success as their goal, and they have the tools and skills to make it happen.

4. You Get Dramatically Better Results - The widespread use of coaches by high achievers in all areas of life is the most powerful success testament of all.

5. You'll Be Way Ahead Of People Who Try To Go It Alone - The simple reality is that not everyone will chose to work with a coach. They will either try to make the changes on their own, or they'll just keep doing what they've always done—and getting the results they've always gotten. When you work with a coach, you leapfrog to the front of the pack.

Are You Ready For Success?

Whatever your goal, you're much more likely to get there, get the quicker and easier, and stay there with the help and support of a professional coach.

So if you're serious about success, find yourself a good coach and get ready to "take it to the next level"—whatever that may be for you.

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This article was provided by Global Health & Fitness (GHF). Click Here
to visit their site for customized exercise and nutrition programs, hundreds
of exercise instructions and video demo's, a free fitness analysis, and much
more!

If there's one thing ALL of us need to understand, it is this:

The only reason we aren't already where we want to be in life is that we can't see the barriers that are keeping us from getting there.

We humans are smart critters. If we can clearly see what needs to be done, we can do it. And we are remarkably good at getting rid of the barriers we can actually see. Unfortunately, it's the barriers we can't see that are--right now--keeping us from getting where we want to go.

Two more crucial things to understand: All of our barriers are learned, and none are "valid." They are only as real as we, ourselves make them.

But unfortunately, we have learned to make them real, and so we unwittingly give them the power to stop us in out tracks by our own inability to spot them and challenge them. And as long as these barriers remain unseen and unidentified, they will hold us back forever--creating in a life filled with frustration and unfulfilled dreams instead of the successes we truly deserve.

If These Barriers Were Not Blocking Our Progress, We Could Fly Like Eagles To The Destination Of Our Dreams!

So the obvious solution is to learn how identify and then remove/replace the barriers that are currently blocking us. The problem is that we are "inherently incapable" of seeing our own barriers—just as we can't see the back of our own head. If we can't see them, there's no way we can replace them with something better.

We remain blind to our own barriers for several reasons. On some level, we know that these barriers exist. We also know (on some level) that they are of our own making...that we are not "victims of life. "

But since we can't see our barriers for what they really are—illusions, groundless fears, and outright lies—we believe that they're real. So, for us, they become real. Worse yet, since they've been part of our lives for as long as we can remember, we unconsciously fear that they always will be with us—that we're "stuck" with them forever.

And something inside us simply can't deal with the thought of that.

So Off We Go – Into "Denial Land"
– Where Most Of Us Will Stay

We've been blind to our own barriers for so long that we are not only unable but now unwilling to see them. The people closest to us (who may be able to see our barriers) have learned not to talk about them to us. And even if some objective third party (like a therapist or counselor) should bring them to our attention, our knee-jerk reflex is to run, scream, hide, or make a beeline back into denial.

In short, we most often "can't hear it" because...we really don't want to. What I have found, after decades of experience, is that the most effective way for many of us to identify our personal barriers is through the use of written self-assessments (i.e., as part of a course, class, or therapeutic coaching or counseling process.

Why is writing such a good "gateway to the unconscious?" Because it is the least threatening way to approach self-exploration. The entire process is under our own total control. And for that reason, we do a much better job of telling the truth--at least as we see it.

I use this technique very effectively with my coaching clients, as part of the homework I give them after every one of our phone sessions. I find this approach to actually be more powerful than the "live" counseling sessions I used to do as a licensed psychotherapist.

In fact, I have yet to see any other process that works as well for self-discovery—especially when the writing assignments are being done with a skilled coach or counselor.

What You Can See, You Can Fix!

Only when we have identified the barriers to our success can we then take the relatively easy step of removing them, or even converting them into something that will help us instead of hold us back.

And once we've done this, we start to discover that we possess a level of freedom, energy, clarity, and passion for life that we once had scarcely had dared imagine possible.

And once we really understand that the quality of our own live—of our own future—depends on identifying our barriers, then we see these self-exploration activities and exercises in a whole new light. Now, instead of mere "assignments," they become tools. Friends. Vehicles to transport us where we most want to go.

The key to it all is to really, really understand that we're going to stay stuck right where we are unless and until we do the work of identifying and removing our own personal barriers.

Otherwise our dreams will never be anything but...dreams.

Yours in total health,

Dr. Frank

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This article was provided by Global Health & Fitness (GHF). Click Here
to visit their site for customized exercise and nutrition programs, hundreds
of exercise instructions and video demo's, a free fitness analysis, and much
more!