Most people that I talk to about health and fitness talk about “getting in shape”. But I don’t think they realize that their words are actually counterproductive to their aspirations of burning fat. You hear a lot of people lamenting about being out of shape and saying, “I need to get in shape and burn fat”, or, “I want to get in shape and burn fat.” What you don’t hear them saying is, “I want to get in shape, burn fat, and stay that way.”

They may want to stay in shape, but their mindset is focused on getting in shape. This makes you more susceptible to the fad diets and latest exercise gimmick on the market. You’re so focused on getting in shape that you’ll try almost anything regardless of how silly or difficult to follow it might seem, because you’re entirely focused on the short term goal.

A simple change in the “quick fix” mindset to one of long term success will steer you down the correct path. You’ll be less enticed by the late night TV hype, and more focused on doing the right things most of the time. Wouldn’t you agree that life long health and fitness is what’s most important?

Of course creating an environment in your body that allows you to burn fat fast is essential to this goal. A person who is in shape in their 50s and 60s is a lot more impressive to me than someone who is lean and fit in their 20s and 30s. That’s because the dedication to maintaining the proper exercise plan and a sensible nutrition strategy for the rest of your life is rare to find. It’s a rare mindset.

If you really want to transform your physique and your health for good, you must make it a lifestyle, a habit. And that starts in your mind. That’s what the people who are lean for life do. In fact, if I think about all of the people I personally know that are in great shape and have been for a while, I start to understand that they have their minds on staying in shape.

They think about it day and night, not obsessively, but with each thing they do…they subconsciously think, “Is this going to positively or negatively impact my long term health and fitness?”. “Am I doing everything I reasonable can to burn fat and live a healthy lifestyle?”.

The good news is that research shows you can develop simple habits like those involved in eating and exercising properly in under a month…sometimes even sooner. And with the type of exercise and diet tips I recommend to my Fat Burning Furnace students, you don’t need o give up your life’s pursuits so that you are working out every day, nor do you need to follow a wacky diet you can’t reasonably make a lifestyle out of.

And after a few months of practicing these methods, I’ve found that your body will start telling you it wants to keep exercising and eating right…you just won’t feel right with out it. Why? Because your body naturally wants to be healthy and lean.

So I urge you to forgo the “get in shape” mindset, and instead embrace the idea of staying in shape and creating that fat burning furnace that is so essential to life long health and fitness.

Imagine yourself in the body of your dreams, today, tomorrow, and 5, 10, 20 or more years from now. What will you be doing then, in your lean, strong, and healthy body? Chances are, you won’t be trying to “get in shape”. Instead, you’ll be burning fat 24/7, and enjoying life as you should…full of vitality and passion.

As with a good majority of the things we do in life, we rely heavily on our vision or eyesight as the determining factor in whether or not we believe something.  And this is unfortunately the case in trying to burn fat as well.  What’s the old cliché?  A picture is worth a thousand words, right?

Well, when we lock our eyes onto that photo of that buff guy or buxom bombshell on the cover of the latest fitness or weight loss product, something happens.  We get excited.  We may even get very excited!

Unfortunately, this is something that many in the fitness industry are preying on. They know this and use it to their huge advantage.  The process is simple: put a great looking and in-shape guy or girl on a product and it will sell.  They don’t even have to tell you you’ll look like that person – they already know your subconscious will assume it will happen.  When you’re desperate to burn fat, this is an easy game for the fitness industry to play.

And of course a few weeks later if it doesn’t, you may start to lose hope and realize that it’s going to be tough to keep up with the unrealistic and overly strict guidelines.   You’ve got a life, right?  Sure, you want to burn fat, but you’ve got a job, maybe a family, and other interests in life.  Don’t get me wrong, I love a great fat burning workout, but I know you don’t want to spend every waking hour for the rest of your life working out!

All of this happened to me several times over as a young man.  I wasn’t happy with my weight, wanted to burn fat, and was in search of the most efficient way to get lean, strong, and healthy, but while not spending too much time in the gym, or having to follow crazy diet plans for long periods of time.

After more than a decade of experimenting on myself, friends, relatives, and perfect strangers, I assembled some of the secrets that I found to work best at burning fat and in the shortest amount of time, on myself and the others that I worked with.  Now, what led me to do this was an incredible amount of frustration that I know thousands of others are going through right now.

Why?  To answer that, I want you to understand the psychological aspects of what we are up against in the world of health and fitness.

What do you call doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result?  OK, I’ll answer this one…Insanity!  In some ways, the fitness industry is making you insane in your quest to burn fat and get a lean, strong, and healthy body.  Their promises are too good to be true and often they can’t typically deliver on them.   They are over-promising and under-delivering in many cases.

It’s a big psychological game that the fitness industry is playing with us, and it dates back to our childhood.  When we were kids, we were all taught in school that we could do anything we wanted to do when we grew up.  Your parents might have even told you that you can achieve anything you want if you believe in it strongly enough.  I know mine did.

While this can provide great inspiration in life’s pursuits, it can also be used against you by others, and without you knowing.  You are largely a product of your genetic makeup.  Just as Mini-Me from the Austin Powers movies could never play in the NBA, a guy like Woody Allen could never win a heavyweight bodybuilding competition.

The reality is that these two guys can burn fat and get in the best shape of their life, but our genes are responsible for much of what we end up looking like when in that best shape.  But this isn’t what the fitness industry will typically tell you – they want you thinking that anyone can look like a genetic freak of nature…if you just follow their programs, that is.

Please know that I am not saying you are doomed by your genes…everyone can make amazing improvements in their physiques with proper exercise and nutrition habits.  It’s when we start comparing ourselves to the guys or gals in the magazines that we get into trouble, and get lost in that vicious cycle of hype and sensationalism all too prevalent in fitness and fat burning today.

As I mentioned before, you’ve got a life.  You’re a busy person.  We all are.  We live in a fast-paced society, the information age, where we have so many tasks to complete and so little time to complete them.  I don’t know about you, but I find myself trying to cram everything I do into those few hours between waking up and going to sleep.  It’s not easy.

Then comes along the fitness gurus telling you that to burn fat and get in great shape you’ve got to workout everyday or close to it.  You’ve got to do aerobics or cardiovascular exercise to burn fat, several times a week.  You’ve got to weight train several other days each week, so that you are literally working out 5-6 days each week, every week.  If you want it, you’ve got to do it, they say.

I’m here to tell you that nothing could be further from the truth! Many of these programs will also tell you that you’ve got to follow some crazy diet to burn fat.  This might include cutting all or most of your carbs, ingesting loads of supplements or other magic weight loss potions.  On top of that, when their programs don’t deliver, they’ll tell you that everyone is different and that you’ve got to find what works right for you.  Wait a minute…weren’t they just telling you that their program promises the body on the cover?

What they are doing is keeping you in that fitness insanity that I mentioned earlier.  They keep you doing the same thing (trying then next hot product or workout and diet regimen) and promising the same great fat burning results.  If it doesn’t work, they recommend the next great thing.  And too many people go on to that next miracle product or promise and the fitness industry uses this to their advantage!

Unfortunately the fitness industry, in many ways, has become a cycle of hype and sensationalism.  Sure, there are some good-hearted trainers and professionals out there, but even some of them are being controlled by the fitness center owners, magazine publishers, and supplement companies.  That’s where the money is!  Even if they are trying to help you, they can become unwitting victims to the machine.

They advertise their products, programs, and diets by using the cream of the crop in the genetic gene pool.  Hey, if it worked for that guy or gal with the amazing physique, it will work for me.  I fell for it, too, many times, until I did some serious research and experimentation as I mentioned before.

Then one day I finally woke up and discovered for myself the secrets that few people are aware of.  Secrets that will never dominate the fitness industry’s general recommendations because they are unpopular with the people that control the industry.  Why?

Because these principles won’t sell loads of crazy exercise gimmicks, gadgets, or magic potions.  My Fat Burning Furnace students are schooled in the proper application of brief, progressive, and intense resistance training, eating a diet full of nutrient rich foods, drinking tons of water, and getting plenty of quality sleep and rest.

But our subconscious mind is powerful, and you have to watch out…even today, I can get sucked in to a compelling late night TV ad, even though I know better.  So you’ve got to stay on guard.

If people would pay more attention to proven principles like those I teach my students, and spend less time with the latest “butt buster” or “fat stripper” on the market, we’d all be healthier, leaner, stronger, and happier for it.  And we’d also be burning a heck of a lot more fat in the process.