Many people assume (or you might have been told) that you need to spend hours each and every day grinding it out in the gym if you want to lose body fat or gain muscle.

There are two main points to make here:

Firstly, cardio isn’t the best use of your time when it comes to losing body fat. There is scope for a small amount of cardio in a well-crafted body recomposition programme, but you’ll get far more bang for your buck by simply lifting heavy things. And that goes for anybody, male or female.

Cardio just isn’t the best way to go here. Building muscle not only burns significant calories, but it is also is one of the few things you can do that will actually increase your metabolism. So the fat-melting benefits of having lean muscle mass will be accruing to you 24 x 7, even when you’re sleeping.

Secondly, when it comes to lifting heavy things (also known as resistance training), you don’t actually need to spend hours and hours in the gym every day to get the body you want. In fact, you can do very well indeed with just 45 minutes of weight lifting or body weight exercises, three or four days a week.

And just so you know, that’s also about the amount of time that I spend in the gym myself. It varies week-to-week, but most weeks I spend less than four hours doing relatively high-intensity weight lifting, plus a small amount of cardio.

And of course, there are many shortcuts and strategies you can employ to incorporate additional movement into your day-to-day routines. Think about little things like getting off the bus or train one stop short of your destination and walking the rest of the way. Or taking the stairs instead of the lift. It all adds up, and when you’re layering things by increasing your energy expenditure while doing things that you needed to do anyway (like get to a different floor), it hardly takes any time at all.

This myth is closely related to Myth #3, which was around the idea that the quantity of the food you eat is much more important for weight loss than the quality of the food.

But this myth is more about the fact that there are two sides to the energy balance equation. And even if you’re burning a lot of calories by doing exercise, it is still surprisingly easy to eat more calories than you’re burning, and negate the exercise altogether.

This is particularly true when you consider that the ‘energy in’ side of the equation is easier to manipulate than the ‘energy out’ side. That is, you get more bang for your buck by controlling the number of calories that you eat than you do trying to increase the number of calories you burn with movement and exercise.

You may have heard the saying that you can’t outrun a poor diet. The idea there is the same, and if you’ve ever done the translation between the number of calories that are in a confectionery bar, to the amount of exercise you’d need to do in order to burn that amount of energy, you’ll know what we’re talking about here.

So be aware that cardio is not the most effective way to lose weight, and even if you are doing lots of cardio, it’s surprisingly easy to over-compensate for that in your diet.

You may have heard of the Twinkie Diet.  A Human Nutrition professor at Kansas State University spent 10 weeks straight eating sugary cakes every 3 hours and not a lot else. He was out to prove that when it comes to weight loss, the nutritional value of the food doesn’t mean much and that it’s really all just about pure calories.

His diet over the 10 week period consisted of Twinkies, Hostess and Little Debbie snacks, as well as nutty bars, powdered donuts, sugary cereals, Doritos and Oreos. He also drank a protein shake every day as well as taking a daily multivitamin, and he did also include a very small amount of vegetables.

At the end of the 10 weeks on this ‘convenience store diet’, the professor had lost 27 pounds (12 kilograms).

He had carefully measured the calorie content of all the junk food he ate, and kept his total consumption to 1800 calories per day. This represented a calorie deficit of about 30% for his size, weight and activity level. That means that he was consuming about 30% fewer calories than he was burning every day.

1800 calories worth of junk food is not a physically large amount of food, because that sort of food is so calorie dense. So there’s no doubt that the professor spent a lot of his time in a state of hunger.

But the key takeaway here is that it isn’t the quality of your food that makes the biggest difference to weight loss, it’s the quantity of calories in that food (compared to the total number of calories that you burn).

Artificial sweeteners were first marketed to consumers in the 1950s, and have been controversial ever since.  Scientific research is now telling us that artificial sweeteners have many dangerous side effects.

They can lead to weight gain, not weight loss. 

Participants in a recent heart study who drank more than 21 diet drinks per week were twice as likely to become overweight or obese as people who didn’t drink diet soda.

The journal of the Canadian Medical Association recently published a meta-analysis of high-quality trials relating to artificial sweeteners and body weight. The review found little connection to weight loss, except in a couple of long-term trials that were sponsored by the artificial sweetener industry itself.

Another review of a large number of observational studies found that people who used artificial sweeteners over time gained weight and had a larger waist circumference.

They also had higher rates of high blood pressure, metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular events. Researchers discovered that daily consumption of artificially sweetened drinks led to a 35% increase in the risk of metabolic syndrome and a 67% increase in the risk for type 2 diabetes.

How and why does this happen?

Carbohydrate gets a bad rap these days, especially on social media and in some of the trendy diets.

But weight gain is the result of the quantity and type of carbs you eat — not the carbohydrates themselves.

It’s true that some types of carbohydrate are better for you than others, but it’s not as simple as some would have you believe and there’s no one size fits all.

Carbs aren’t evil. In fact, complex carbohydrates in whole foods are generally healthy. On the other hand, most of us would do well to eat less highly refined sugar than we do.

Fruit is awesome, so don’t shy away from the carbohydrate content that comes with fruit. The fibre you get at the same time as the fructose really smooths out the post-prandial blood glucose spike (post-prandial means "after eating"). The health benefits of fruit totally outweigh any concerns about carbs and calories.

Fresh fruit is mostly made of water and fibre, so fruit is not nearly as calorie dense as most people think. In fact, the evidence suggests that fruit actively helps you lose weight when eaten as part of a balanced diet.

It’s the simple sugars in highly processed foods, snacks, and confectionary that can be a problem. Those are highly refined, and really should be minimised or avoided altogether.

Soft drinks might be the worst offenders. If you drink soft drink, the biggest bang for your buck will be replacing it with sparkling mineral water or just plain water. Drinking your calories is one of the biggest mistakes that most people make when they’re trying to lose weight.

“I’ll believe it when I see it”

I generally hold an attitude of healthy scepticism.  As such, I’ve said those words quite often.

But how useful are they, really? Does the phrase serve me?

I don’t know how you feel about the Law of Attraction, but I think Wayne Dyer really hit the mark when he turned that idea on its head with this one:

"You’ll see it when you believe it"

This is about more than just the power of positive thinking and self-belief. We all interpret new evidence in ways that confirm our pre-existing beliefs, and this can be crafted into a virtuous cycle: Our vision and beliefs can be positively reinforced by what we see around us, while what we perceive to be occurring in our lives can support and reinforce that vision in a positive way.  

The upshot is that once you get clear about your goals and intentions, they’re much more likely to be realised. But it starts with belief.

Self-limiting beliefs will be some of the strongest forces in your universe, but positive belief and visualisation is just as powerful a counter-force.

The first car I owned as a teenager taught me this lesson. This isn’t a Tai Lopez-style gloat about a garage full of exotic cars (I wish).

No, this story is about a poo-brown second-hand 1972 Toyota Corona.

The internal passenger door handle on this car was really stiff, and it took quite a bit of effort to open compared to normal door handles. Whenever I had a new passenger in the car, the exchange at the end of the journey would go something like this:

1. The passenger would try the door handle and say “I can’t open this door.”
2. I would say “Yes you can, you just have to pull on the handle quite hard.”
3. The passenger would then try the door handle more firmly, and the door would open for them.
   

Think about the flow of events there. At first, my passengers couldn’t get the door open. Then I told them they could get the door open, and then they actually could get the door open.

See what's going on here? The only thing that changed in my unfortunate passengers, between when they couldn’t and when they could, was them forming the belief that they could. They didn’t suddenly get stronger, and the door handle didn’t suddenly get easier. All that changed was their belief in the outcome. That’s all it takes.

You’ll see it when you believe it.

An old Indian parable for us today:

When we enter this world, we all enter as babies with our fists clenched, kicking and screaming and crying. When we leave, we all leave at peace, with our hands open. There’s a reason why this is: We all carry into this world a special and unique gift -- a gift you clench in your fists as a baby.

Your job, the point of your life, is to discover what that gift is and then give of that gift. When you are done giving of that gift, then it will be your time and you will pass at peace.

A step-by-step guide to meditation for people who have never done it before, but want to give it a go.

How To Harness Your Body’s Natural Energy systems to Reach Your Goals

The cells in our muscles tap into three different exercise energy pathways, each tuned for efficiency over three different time frames: (1) instant-on; (2) short-term; and (3) long-term.

We can tap into a similar sequence of energy systems in the real world.

Let’s start with a quick high school biology refresher, and take a closer look the three phases of energy production going on in our cells:

Instant-On Energy

The first energy system is the anaerobic a-lactic system, also called the phosphagen or creatine phosphate system.  This system initially kicks in when a lot of energy is needed in a very short amount of time. It doesn’t involve oxygen, but converts the creatine phosphate in your muscles into energy.

Our muscles don’t store a lot of phosphate, so the fuel for this system is exhausted after only about ten seconds.

Short-Term Energy

The second energy pathway is the anaerobic lactic system, otherwise known as glycolysis. This system converts carbohydrate from the muscles into energy, and can deliver power for about two minutes. The anaerobic lactic system bridges the time period between when muscles first begin working, and when the body can begin to deliver oxygen to the muscles via the aerobic system.

Long-Term Energy

The final energy system is the aerobic system, which depends on a continuous supply of oxygen to convert blood glucose, glycogen and fat into energy. Remember your high school biology class? This is mitochondria being the powerhouse of the cells.

This energy system can go all day, and is what powers most of our day-to-day bodily processes.

The Big Picture

So that’s what your body is doing at a microscopic level in your cells, in order to move you. But what happens at a macro level to move you?

This is where we find the beautiful parallel.

Just as in our cells, there are three distinct energy systems at the macro level which operate over different time frames in succession. These are (1) motivation; (2) discipline; and (3) habit.

Let's look at each one.

Motivation

This energy system is what initially stirs within us, calling us to move from where we are currently, to where we want to be. Motivation is the drive that directs our gaze to the mountain on the horizon, and moves us to head towards it.

But like the phosphagen in our muscle cells, motivation is in short supply. It provides a great initial burst of energy to overcome momentum and set us in motion. But unless a different energetic pathway is recruited to keep the ball rolling, motivation will soon fade away. A longer-term energy source is needed, to take over before we stall.

Discipline

Grit, determination, perseverance. Discipline takes over once the terrain starts to get difficult, and the initial jet fuel of motivation has been burned up. Discipline is really important, and can be developed. But like motivation, we only have a limited supply of discipline. Motivation and discipline can be enough to get us to the base of the mountain, but to get to the top requires the third and most important energy system: habit.

Habit

Routine and habit might not sound like winning strategies, but this slow-burning spiritual fuel can last forever.

While motivation pushes us into motion, and discipline gets us to the base of the mountain, getting to the top requires taking your eyes off the summit and looking down at your feet. One foot after the other is the only way to get to the top, and habit is the system that works best here.

Putting It All Together

Like the ‘coupled reactions’ that occur at the microscopic level in our muscle cells, we can use each of these macro phases in turn to carry our momentum all the way to the top.

Here are the steps:

Our initial motivation feels like explosive jet fuel, pushing us off the mark. But what you might not realise is that jet fuel is basically kerosene. That’s right, kerosene – which is actually a lot more like the boring, slow-burning fuel that is habit.

It’s all about how you use what you’ve got.

If one goes climbing in the Alps, one is probably led to do so in the first instance by the beauty of the mountains. When one starts to climb, however, one finds it is a matter of working one’s way along patiently, step by step, progressing with great care and caution....  It is the same with Zen. We take it up in search of the meaning of life, or in hope of solving the problem of our existence, but once we actually start, we find we have to look down at our feet, and we are faced with practice followed by more practice, training followed by more training. It must be done patiently and seriously.

Katsuki Sekida, "Zen Training: Methods and Philosophy"

Intentionality (noun): the fact of being deliberate or purposive.

Intentionality is a type of mindfulness that I practise often.

The thing I love about it is that it can be a purely internal state. It's a way to frame whatever I'm doing in a positive way, and one that doesn't necessarily require me to choose or change the activity.

Having intentionality lays guardrails around whatever I'm doing. It can help me to adjust and align the practical details of the activity with its context. Or if no adjustments are needed, it simply adds clarity and drive.

Intentional cycling - an example

Perhaps the easiest way to describe it is with an example: I love riding my bicycle, and in the summer months I go on long bicycle rides at least three times a week.

I like to ride with intention every time I go out. My intention for a particular ride might be to lose some body fat. Or it might be to get some conditioning into my legs. Sometimes my intention is simply to keep up with my cycling buddies, or it might be to unwind and clear my mind.

I'll often make certain adjustments to stay aligned with my intention for that outing. So for example if my intention for a particular ride is to lose body fat, I might do that ride in a fasted state. On the other hand, if my intention is to keep up with a bunch who are generally faster than me, then I might align to that intention by having a big high-carb breakfast beforehand.

Those examples are fairly obvious, but there is a more subtle aspect to intentionality.

On a given day of the week I'm usually following the same route on my bicycle, with the same cyclists, at about the same time as the week before. The routine might be identical, but my intention for that ride defines my why. This in turn might influence some of the what and how - as in my earlier examples - but it doesn't have to.

Sometimes the only thing that changes with intentionality is, well, the intention! And that's fine. In fact, to me that's the cool thing about intentionality - it doesn't have to influence the activity in any overt way, it may simply frame it in a way that aligns everything to your goals and desires.

Try it yourself

When you wake up tomorrow morning, before you get out of bed, think about your intentions for the coming day. What's your plan? Why? How do you want to feel? What do you want to get out of the day?

After you've mentally outlined your intention for the day, silently count backwards from 5 to 1, and then get your feet on the ground and go get it!

It may be that none of that results in any specific changes to your plans, schedules, or activities. However you'll feel better having thought about why you're there in the first place, and how your plans align with that.