Do You Plan Your Days?

Posted on March 14, 2011 by Shawn Horwood

One of the things I’ve found that has really helped me do better in all areas of my life is planning my days. I have a regular routine I follow and then each night before I go to bed I plan out my next day.

Like for instance I’m about to go to bed (it’s after midnight and it’s way past my bedtime) and I’ve made my plan for tomorrow. Here it is:

Wake up -> do my mobility & stretching routine -> go for a walk with my sister -> go to walmart and buy a tripod for my camera so I can finish up the product I’m working on (to be released later this week hopefully) -> finish my product -> write the sales page for the product -> create a download page for the product -> write a new blog post (possibly talking about the product) -> work on my other product (to be released sometime this month) -> start advertising my product -> eat somewhere in there

I’ve got it more detailed and I’ve got a few other things after that on my plan for tomorrow, but the point is when I wake up I know exactly what I’m doing.

I know where I’m going to go, what I’m going to do and I’m not going to waste any time. I have goals I want to complete tomorrow (technically today I guess) and I’ve written out how I’m going to complete them.

It took me about an hour to put together my daily routine I wanted to follow (and I update it as I find ways to improve it) and it takes me 5-10 minutes each night to plan out my next day.

This simple technique has helped me double what I get done in a day and allowed me to be productive and never sit around not knowing what to do.

If you have a job where you can’t plan out your work day in advance, then plan out the rest of your day and make a plan of attack for your job. Let’s say you work at McDonalds (I use it as an example because it’s the only job I’ve ever had) and you work counter.

You could plan to serve customers and when you have spare time stock the condiments, clean something that hasn’t been cleaned in months that you know needs to be cleaned or find something you can do that is beneficial and will impress your managers/boss.

Now if you can’t really plan for your job, then plan your mental attitude. How are you going to deal with the different things that come up at work? When that coworker is driving you crazy or when a customer freaks out for no reason. What attitude are you going to arrive with and what attitude are you going to leave with?

Make a plan, and make your day as effective as possible. After a day is gone, it’s gone so make the most of it. Time is the only asset you can’t get more of – so make good use of that asset!

Try planning out your day the night before.

When you wake up, you’ll know exactly how you’re going to tackle your day. You’ll be more productive (if you actually follow the plan) and you’ll be more relaxed because you’ll already know what you’re doing.

As a bonus, when you plan out your day the night before, your brain will work during the night to solve whatever problems you may have coming up the next day – so you may find that when you wake up, you’ve got an answer that might’ve taken you all day to think of!

If you’re not planning out your days, then start now and see how it changes your life.

Shawn Horwood

P.S. Don’t be OCD about it. You can change your plan throughout the day and you should definitely plan time for fun and for “whatever”. Don’t plan every minute of your day so you feel like you’re in prison.

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Shawn’s Training Journal

Posted on March 11, 2011 by Shawn Horwood

So aside from trying to post to my blog more often, I’ve also created an “Inner Circle” (all the cool kids have one) that’s a whopping $4.95/month, which apparently is way less than most people’s inner circles.

Anyways, as part of the inner circle I’ll be posting my weekly training journal, so you can see exactly what’s going on with me (like Keeping Up With the Kardashians except not a complete waste of time & brain cells) as well as answering your questions, giving you random cool stuff and adding pretty much anything you think I should add in my Inner Circle to make it awesome. (I’m making it for you, so let me know what you want to see in my Inner Circle!)

So let’s kick things off with your first look into my training journal…

[wpmc-protected]I gotta admit, up till now I haven’t really kept track of things well, so an ulterior motive for me starting the SHF Inner Circle is to keep me accountable. I’ll be posting every week what I’m doing, so if I’m slacking everyone in the IC will know about it.

So what did I do this week?

Sundays are always my day of rest, so no workouts or anything on Sunday.

On Monday & Tuesday I did drywalling for my dad. For those of you who don’t know, my dad is starting a construction company and his first project is a multimillion dollar house for him and my mom.

I’ve been helping him off and on since the very beginning, sometimes working for a few months at a time, sometimes only a few days. Since I’ve been really trying to focus on my business, I’ve been only working for him 1 week/month to help him out and of course I get paid for it so that’s nice. :P

I also went to the doctor on Tuesday (my first time seeing a doctor in years) and I had him check out my shoulder which has been bugging me since I dislocated it playing squash a few months ago. He said it’s nothing serious, I just have to do rotator cuff exercises, so I’ll be making sure I work my rotator cuff in my workouts.

Wednesday I spent a few hours playing Kinect Adventures with my mom (she hates working out so we got her a Kinect and she’s been using it a lot to get exercise, so I play with her sometimes) and I get a suprisingly good workout when playing that game – especially that obstacle course one.

I end up exaggerating my movements a lot to make sure the game reads what I’m doing (and because that’s just my personality) so I do a lot of jumping all over the place and swinging my arms & legs everywhere.

Some people may call it a cop out, but I find it entertaining and it’s fun so who cares? I’m not going to build much muscle doing it (though I do a lot of jump squats with some of the stuff), but it’s good for fat burning and I get to have a friendly competition with my mom. :)

Thursday I slacked. I’ll admit it. I did basically nothing except decide that I need to start structuring my routines more – so I created my daily fitness routine PDF to sell for a buck. I figured if I started selling it as what I do daily, I’d actually have to follow my daily routine more strictly so I’m not lying.

Oh, here’s the PDF: My Daily Fitness Routine

Today I actually started following my routine properly. I started off my morning with 30 minutes of mobility & stretching exercises (seriously awesome way to start the day) and followed the rest of my routine.

I’m only doing one of the Conditioning Solution workouts today – right after I post this – because I honestly just don’t feel like doing a full workout today. The Conditioning Solution contains 28 (I think) 9 minute workouts that get your heart pumping and are a lot of fun.

I’ll also be going for a run later to the bank to deposit some cheques so that’ll be my exercise for the day. The run to the bank and back is about a mile so not that far, but enough to get the heart pumping.

I’ll see you next Friday, and thanks for joining my Inner Circle!

Shawn Horwood

P.S. Let me know any questions, comments or suggestions you have so I can make the IC worth at least 5X what you pay![/wpmc-protected]

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Posture, Back Exercises & What I’ve Been Up To

Posted on March 3, 2011 by Shawn Horwood

I meant to post this yesterday, but I didn’t get around to it for a few reasons, so here it is a day late (this post is written in present tense…but it all happened yesterday).

Sunday was the last day of my vacation – I spent the week in Banff, Alberta with my family and went skiing a couple times with my brother (he snowboards though). There was some great powder on the mountains, some great games with the family, and some cold weather (below -30 Celcius at multiple points in the week).

Monday I took the day to try and catch up on emails and play a little Call of Duty: Black Ops with my brother.

So today I went out to do construction for my dad. I don’t have a specific area of expertise, I’ve been helping with the house off and on for the past year and a half (it’s a big house) – starting with the surveying.

Today my job was to put a bunch of screws in the floor. The floor was put in a while ago with nails to meet code, but my dad didn’t like how the floor moved up and down so he wanted to screw it in (which is apparently what most people end up doing).

Since it’s a big house, that means a lot of screws. I worked from 9:15 AM-7:45 PM with a 45 minute lunch break. That entire time was spent putting screws in the floor except for a few minutes here and there moving stuff so I could put the screws in.

By the end of the day I had finished off an almost empty container of screws (probably around 100-200 screws) and an entire container of 2,000 screws. That’s a lot of screws I put in the floor…and I’m not done yet.

Of course putting screws in the floor means bending over -  which if I’m not careful means a sore back.

So what did I do to make sure I didn’t end up with a sore back?

First, I made sure that every hour or so I stretched. I like doing the cat & camel stretch (there’s a billion videos on Youtube http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=cat+and+camel&aq=f) I feel good after doing that one.

Plus recently I saw a video from Bodyweight Coach with an exercise that I now do multiple times daily and got my sister doing. I’ve noticed an improvement in my posture and so has she. Here’s a link to the blog post:

http://www.bodyweightcoach.com/01/desk-jockey-thoracic/

By the way, you should check out some of the other videos from Adam & Ryan – they’re the kings when it comes to bodyweight exercises. So make sure you browse their blog and see some of the other stuff they’ve got.

I know a lot of people struggle with back pain, but it’s really not my expertise. I just do a few stretches and my back is fine. I also try to make sure I don’t slouch and I do my best to maintain good posture.

If you struggle with back pain or you sit at a desk all day, definitely check out the exercises above and do them every day. They definitely help my back and they just might help yours. :)

Shawn Horwood

Posted in Fat Burning, Muscle Building | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Why You Should Listen to Other Fitness Experts

Posted on February 28, 2011 by Shawn Horwood

Yes, I am telling you to listen to other fitness experts, not just me.

I like to think I know quite a bit about fitness including nutrition, hormones, exercise, building muscle, burning fat, supplements, etc.

But I don’t know everything. In fact, there’s a lot of stuff I don’t know. That’s why I buy pretty much every fitness product I think may be able to teach me even one thing. I’ve got GB of downloaded fitness products on my computer (I actually started to move all of them onto their own hard drive because I’m buying & downloading too much stuff and it’s slowing down my computer!).

So if I’m learning from different people, I don’t think it’s fair to suggest anyone just listen to me, or to suggest that everything I know I came up with, did the research on or found out through my own experimentation.

Yes, I research the things I learn & experiment with different ideas to make sure that certain things work, but I haven’t discovered everything myself or done all the research on my own.

That is why I strongly recommend you find other experts to follow that fit your areas of interest. I follow over 30 fitness experts because it’s my business to know what everyone is teaching and keep up to date in the latest advancements on everything I can.

But that’s my job – my livelihood – my passion. You don’t need to follow that many people. In fact, if it’s not your job, I strongly recommend you don’t even bother trying to follow that many experts – especially since many experts have contradictory opinions and the more you follow the more likely you are to get confused.

Who do I recommend you listen to? That really depends on your goals. If you want to lose weight, I’d recommend different people than if you want to build muscle or if you want to become faster, jump higher, etc.

Just look around and see who you relate with, who you enjoy listening to, who knows what they’re talking about and who teaches what you want to know.

If that means you find other people that you’d rather listen to than me, that’s cool. As long as you’re getting results, I’m happy for you. Of course I’d prefer if you listen to me, but like I said – I don’t know everything so other people may be able to help you better than I can.

If you want some suggestions on who I follow and recommend you follow, just leave a comment below and let me know what your goals are, what you’re looking for and anything else you think is relevant and I’ll be happy to give you a few suggestions.

Or if you’d prefer, send me an email shawnhorwoodfitness @ gmail.com and I’ll be happy to help you out. :)

Shawn Horwood

P.S. Feel free to let me know what fitness experts you currently follow so I can check them out if I don’t already follow them!

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Vince Delmonte’s Live Large TV

Posted on February 24, 2011 by Shawn Horwood

*UPDATE: Youtube deleted Vince’s videos, so they are no longer available on Youtube.

Vince Delmonte recently started “Live Large TV” where he shares fitness advice and advice on living large.

He’s already released two episodes, and after checking out I thought it would be worth sharing here on the blog.

In the first episode, Vince talks about his “Morning Ritual” and living large outside of the gym. Here’s a link to episode one:

Vince Delmonte’s Live Large TV – Episode 1

In episode 2, he discusses muscle building carbs & proteins, one exercise you should do before any leg workout and a few other things as well. You can check that out here:

Vince Delmonte’s Live Large TV – Episode 2

If you like what he’s sharing, subscribe to his Youtube channel. He’s releasing a new Live Large TV every Tuesday.

I doubt I’ll be posting anything for the next couple of days as I’m on vacation, but check back next week.

Shawn Horwood

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My Opinion of Fat Burners, Fat Burning Pills & Weight Loss Supplements

Posted on February 22, 2011 by Shawn Horwood

Hot topic today! How do I feel about fat burners, fat burning supplements and just general pills for weight loss?

I am a total fan and think you should by the following 5 ridiculously expensive supplements:

  1. I
  2. Am
  3. Obviously
  4. Just
  5. Kidding

Though if you look around the internet for whether or not weight loss supplements work, you’ll see a ton of people telling you how awesome they are (fake articles written for marketing purposes) and testimonials from people saying they were the secret to their weight loss (plus their change in diet and exercise that they don’t tell you about).

Everyone wants a magic bullet, so companies provide them in all sorts of fat burning substances that will melt off the pounds while you sleep. Of course the fine print always says when combined with proper nutrition & exercise – which obviously gets you the results on its own.

Darn deceptive marketing.

So in general, I hate them. I hate the companies that produce them. I hate it when people recommend them.

Yes, a few of them do HELP. But usually they are so overpriced it’s ridiculous, and they fill it with extra stuff that just isn’t necessary in order to charge more.

I understand people needing to make a living, but doing it at the expense of others without providing value in return is just not cool with me. Hey, I sell stuff for a living (speaking of which, Valslides are awesome – ask me why!), but I do my best to provide 5-10X the value in return.

That’s why there are very few supplements I ever recommend. In fact, I currently only recommend one company, but even they charge a decent amount of money (which of course means I make some decent commission cheques if you buy through me, but today I ain’t sellin that!).

I actually know of a much better option. No, it’s not quite as easy, but it’s a whole lot cheaper and more effective than what’s on the market – because you make the supplements yourself. When you make them yourself, you get rid of all the unnecessary ingredients and only keep the stuff that’s proven effective.

And Jeff Anderson shows you exactly how to do it in Homemade Supplement Secrets. He shows you what you need, where to get the ingredients cheap & gives you the recipes you need for any fitness goal.

Yes, if you buy from the link above I make a commission – but that’s not (completely) why I’m recommending it. I do need to make a living so I can afford to keep sharing the information I do, but if I was just in it for the money I would recommend a supplement company where you’d pay a lot more and spend money every month (making me mucho mas moolah).

I honestly think Homemade Supplement Secrets is the best supplement resource. So if you want to take supplements to increase/speed up your results, then I recommend you get a copy (it’s $27 – that’s like half a bottle of one supplement for one month).

However, if you do not have a good exercise/nutrition plan, supplements won’t do much for you. So remember that they are not magic, they just supplement your efforts.

Shawn Horwood

P.S. Jeff’s recipes are better than any supplements currently on the market, so they’ll get you the best results. He ain’t called the “Muscle Nerd” for nothing.

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My Opinion of Calorie Confusion, Muscle Confusion and Other Confusion Methods

Posted on February 21, 2011 by Shawn Horwood

*UPDATE* You should read this article. It’s way better than mine (darn you Caleb): http://doubleyourgains.com/muscle-confusion-101-why-muscle-confusion-and-p90x-is-bullsht

I will do my best to keep this discussion of confusion as confuseless as possible, despite the fact that I’ve already written the first sentence in a confusing manner.

I’m sure you’ve heard of calorie confusion (Josh Bezoni’s 7 Day Belly Blast Diet is based on it), muscle confusion (P90X anyone?) and other forms of “confusion” for fitness.

Personally, I have an opinion that probably goes against a lot of people. First of all, how can you confuse parts of your body that don’t have a brain? My muscle does what my brain tells it to, so I can’t confuse it, I can only confuse my brain. So right there I’m a little skeptical of these confusion theories.

Josh Bezoni says calorie confusion prevents your metabolism from figuring out what’s going on, so you change things up (but his way, not anyone else’s because you’ll be doing it wrong and you’ll get poor results) ever 7 days and you lose weight insanely fast…

If this is true, how come so many other experts just give you nutrition guidelines and tell you to eat the same forever, and the people that follow their programs get insanely good results? They don’t use calorie confusion.

Then there’s the muscle confusion theory. We’re told that if we don’t change up our routine every 3 seconds we’re going to plateau and get crappy results. Therefore we need to confuse our muscles and change up our program constantly.

Again, I don’t see how it’s possible to confuse something without a brain. By definition it’s not possible. But even if it was, how come people who do manual labor get huge when they’re doing the same thing day in, day out?

Let’s take lumberjacks for instance. Not the ones nowadays with all their machinery, the ones back when they used to cut trees down by themselves. Those guys were huge and insanely strong. Did they change up their routine all the time? Nope.

Neither did the ancient Greeks with those bodies people started trying to duplicate (which is how bodybuilding started). They just did the same stuff and got some amazing bodies.

Ok, so I hear some people saying that they only get a certain size though. Fair enough, they got big enough to get their job done and then they didn’t push their muscles harder so they didn’t grow any more.

Maybe they would need to change it up at that point for some reason if they decided they needed to compete for Mr. Olympia or something but I don’t think that’s true. I have seen no need to change up a program all the time in order to keep getting results.

Yes, you need to constantly be pushing yourself harder and either increasing the frequency or intensity of your exercise to get huge muscles, but you can stick with the same exercises and get increased results.

I cannot say from personal experience as I have no desire to get huge, so I don’t try to build huge muscles. However, there are a lot of people that train without the muscle confusion method and continue to grow and get great results.

In essence, I think the only benefit of the “confusion” theories is it keeps things more exciting if you get bored easily. Otherwise, there is no need to try to confuse every part of your body.

Shawn Horwood

P.S. I think my article may have been a bit confusing, so I went and found someone who shares a similar opinion in a much better form. I think it’s pretty much mandatory reading, so check it out! http://doubleyourgains.com/muscle-confusion-101-why-muscle-confusion-and-p90x-is-bullsht

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My Opinion of Acupuncture for Weight Loss

Posted on February 19, 2011 by Shawn Horwood

From my research, there are three possible ways acupuncture can supposedly help you lose weight:

  1. It relieves stress, and we all know stress can cause you to gain weight for a number of reasons (perhaps I’ll touch on that in the future).
  2. It can control cravings, so you’ll eat less and obviously stay in better shape.
  3. It can stimulate the metabolism

So here’s my opinion. First, the thought of getting stabbed a bunch of times doesn’t really appeal to me – it actually would probably make me kind of stressed if I was about to have it done.

But if I thought it was great, I’d probably get over it quickly and just have the doctor stab away!

So let’s take a look at the science behind it. Apparently stabbing you with needles in just the right points releases endorphins, which relieve stress and allow you to get on with life. Ok. It’s been at least somewhat proven, but not fully. I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt though.

Second, it supposedly helps control cravings – it is not clear why (from the doctor’s who said this anyway; they didn’t really explain why they just said it does), but my thinking is that because it relieves stress, it keeps you from binge eating. That one is a bit of a stretch (since cravings don’t just come from stress), but I’ll believe it helps control cravings a bit.

Last, it boosts your metabolism. I have no idea why, how or what the proof is behind this, but apparently it does. Personally, I’m not buying it. I’ll give the first two the benefit of the doubt, but not this one without a lot more studies and hard evidence (and an explanation rather than just a statement).

That all sounds well and good, but is paying someone else to stab you a couple hundred times really that beneficial for losing weight?

In short, not really. Studies have been done on the subject, but most of them included a good diet & exercise regime, which in and of itself should cause weight loss. The studies are inconclusive and inconsistent, so when some doctors decided it was fact I’ll never know.

Plus, it doesn’t deal with the root problem. If the goal is to reduce stress, shouldn’t you deal with the things that are causing the stress? Otherwise for the rest of your life you’ll be doomed to be stabbed regularly.

I personally rarely get stressed out. I’ve realized stress makes things worse, and so I’ve learned how to deal with stress and keep myself from losing control. The only area of my life I haven’t been able to control stress levels is with women. Sorry ladies, but you really know how to mess with a guy’s head. That’s why I’m currently single and staying out of a relationship (I still have friends that are female) until I have a few issues worked out in my life (like getting my business more stable).

The last reason – wait, second last – I don’t like the idea of acupuncture is because it’s really a cop out. You can’t deal with things in your life, so you look to some magic solution (like sticking needles in your body) to deal with it.

Besides, I think half of the effects (or more) come from simply from believing it works - not from the actual needles (though I can’t prove it because I can’t fund the proper studies).

Now the last reason I am not a fan of acupuncture, and possibly the most important – is that it hasn’t been proven safe. Studies have not conclusively shown that there are no adverse affects from acupuncture.

It’s generally assumed to be safe, and people think it must be safe because doctors do it for people all the time, but just because people assume it’s safe, that doesn’t mean it is. Most people think teflon is fine, but it actually releases toxins that kill birds (if you have a pet bird in the vicinity when cooking on teflon, don’t expect to have the bird long) and it’s been proven to be unsafe when cooked at regular cooking temperatures!

So as you can see, of acupuncture I am not a fan. (Don’t ask why I worded that sentence that way…it just sounded cool at the time of writing)

Instead, find the root problems of your stress and deal with those. It’ll make your life a lot better in multiple areas – and no stabbing required!

Shawn Horwood

P.S. My sister (not the one that lives with me, the one still living with my parents) gets acupuncture done and she is overweight. I have seen no difference in her health, size or anything. I actually for a while didn’t even know she was getting stabbed. So I have seen first hand the lack of benefits. Of course, that’s a small sample study – highly inconclusive.

P.P.S. This is my most violent blog post yet. It’s got more stabbing than 300.

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My Opinion of Weight Loss Detox Diets

Posted on February 18, 2011 by Shawn Horwood

As you can probably see, I’m sharing a lot of my opinions on different weight loss methods. I figure it’s a good way to show you what I believe in general about losing weight. I’ve got 4 more “My Opinion” posts coming after this, then I’ve got a lot of other stuff lined up as well.

In fact, I came up with over 70 topics for me to post on, so I’ll be trying to post 5-7 days a week. However, tomorrow I leave for my parent’s house where we’ll subsequently head to Banff for a week of squash, skiing, swimming, hot tubing (especially after a day of skiing!) and spending time with my family.

So starting tomorrow, I honestly have no idea if I’ll even post for a week or so – but I’ll try to write out a few posts before I leave and schedule them to publish automatically so it’ll be like I never left (except I told you I’m leaving…)

Now on with my opinion of weight loss detox diets!

The point of a detox diet is to “cleanse” your body of toxins, waste, etc. that has piled up through your unhealthy habits. Many companies claim this is the reason you’re fat, and if you do a cleanse (particularly using their cleanse crap) you’ll be skinny and awesome!

I’ve even seen doctors say that a detox is necessary before beginning any program otherwise you won’t get results.

Of course you don’t just have to use a detox pill or powder – there are entire detox plans detailing what to eat and what not to eat (often very limited food & drink choices). I’ve even heard of people just eating watermelon for a week to cleanse their body.

Now my take on cleanses – yes, if you have bad lifestyle choices your body can pile up some crap. In fact, if you aren’t “going number 2″ every day, your plumbing is probably clogged up a bit.

However, you don’t need anything special to clear it out. Just take some psyllium and voila. You’ll clear out the crap. There are obviously some guidelines with that, but I’m not an expert on the subject so ask a doctor or someone who knows.

Plus it is not necessary for you to clear out your system before beginning a fat burning program in order to see results. If you follow a program like Combat the Fat, it’s got the “detox” built into the program – but it’s just a small part of it.

Cleansing is not the key to weight loss. I mean, if your body needs to be cleansed, then you’re doing something wrong in the first place, and you’re just going to end up right back where you started.

That’s like cleaning out your plumbing and then sticking everything you pulled out right back in – it’s stupid, it makes no sense and it’s a waste of time, money and effort.

Cleansing is basically a bandaid solution. If you cleanse your body without dealing with the problems that caused the issue in the first place, it’s not really that useful.

Oh, and the people that say it’s necessary to do a cleanse before beginning any program in order to get results, that’s a load of malarky (I’ve never said that before…it sounds funny…not sure why I said it there…oh well).

I know people who have lost a ton of weight without cleansing. I personally have never gone on a cleanse, never taken supplements or pills to clean out my body (actually, I have a “say no to drugs” stance…but I’ll have to talk about that later) and I’m in great shape.

Now before you say that maybe it’s because I never ended up with toxins in my body let me just say one thing: 8,000 calories/day of McDonalds food 4-6 days/week for roughly 1 year. If that’s not toxic, I don’t know what is.

Guess how I fixed my system? I switched to cooking my own meals (because I moved and was no longer working at McDonalds) and eating all sorts of good food.

Looking back I probably could’ve taken some psyllium to help the process go a bit quicker so I could get healthier faster, but it’s not necessary.

In short, detox’s can be a small part of transitioning to a healthy lifestyle, but you don’t need to do a cleanse in order to get in great shape – just eat better food, make better lifestyle choices and watch your body fix itself!

Shawn Horwood

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My Opinion on Weight Loss Surgeries

Posted on February 17, 2011 by Shawn Horwood

Recently I’ve been seeing a ton of ads all over the internet for weight loss surgeries like Slimband and fat removal surgeries.

I don’t know if you’ve looked into these things or if you’ve considered any of them, but here’s my personal opinion on the whole idea of weight loss surgeries.

First, let’s look at the ones that just remove the fat. Ok, that’s great. Almost instant fat loss, but it doesn’t solve the root problem. You got overweight in the first place because of poor choices, and if you continue to make poor choices then you’re going to put all the weight back on after the surgery.

So that’s a total waste of time and money.

Then there’s surgeries like Slimband. They basically make your stomach smaller so you feel fuller faster and it slows your digestive process.

I see two immediate problems.

1. We don’t eat till we’re full – we usually eat way past that point (especially on Christmas and Thanksgiving). Half the time we don’t even know we’re full…we just keep eating. So hunger doesn’t have as much to do with it as some people would suggest.

2. Why the heck would you want to slow down the digestive process? That may help you lose weight, but why would you want to pay to have your body function less efficiently? Maybe it’s medically safe, I don’t know because I’m not a doctor, but it just doesn’t sit well with me.

In short, I have a low opinion of weight loss surgeries. I have about as much respect for them as I do for programs like Jenny Craig.

They are unnecessary, usually expensive, and you don’t get the side benefits of losing weight by simply making better lifestyle choices (such as increased self esteem/self confidence, more satisfaction because you worked hard for your result, increased discipline, etc).

If you always look for the easy way out, you’re never going to live a full life. If you think weight loss surgery is the best way to lose weight, then how do you deal with your relationships or your financial matters?

Do you look for bandaid solutions for those as well? My guess is if you seriously consider weight loss surgeries then yes, that’s probably the way you attack life in general.

In my opinion, that’s no way to go through life. And if that’s how you want to go about it, then this blog isn’t for you, and nothing I share will benefit you.

Getting in great shape comes down to making good lifestyle choices – not pills, surgery, special berries or any other “magic solution”. If any of those worked well, would North America be so obese? I think not.

By looking for the “easy way” to lose weight, people in general make it harder on themselves as they spend time and money on things that just don’t work and actually end up damaging the body, making it even more difficult to lose weight.

Don’t look for the easy way, look for the right way and things will become a lot easier.

Shawn Horwood

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