12 Things You Didn’t Know Successful People Do Before Breakfast

The “Golden Hour”

Successful people often talk about the “Golden Hour”, which is the first hour after you wake up in the morning. According to this article from the National Institutes of Health, while we are asleep, our brains are hard at work de-cluttering and detoxifying themselves. This means that our brains are at their best right after we wake up, when they’re squeaky-clean from the night’s mental hygiene activities. Successful people have discovered that the “Golden Hour” is the best time of day to prepare ourselves mentally, physically and spiritually for the upcoming day.

The 21-Day Mental Diet

Technically I’m not “successful” yet…but I figured, if I ACT like a successful person, sooner or later I’ll BE a successful person, and in the meantime, I’ll FEEL like a successful person. Which, since none of these practices cost anything except some discipline and a couple hours of sleep, is pretty much a win-win, if you ask me.

It was while I was looking up “how successful people think” that I stumbled onto Brian Tracy’s 21-Day Mental Diet. And guess what? It includes several of the practices mentioned in articles on what successful people do before breakfast. Imagine that! I am currently on day seven of this mental diet, and let me tell you, doing these has really brought a new sense of focus and productivity to my days — which is a tough thing to do when one doesn’t have regular office hours.

Here’s a quick rundown of what you do on this mental diet:

1. Wake up early – Most top executives get up in the morning at 6:00 AM — at the latest! I get up around 5:00 AM most days.
2. Exercise –  While Brian Tracy suggests doing any physical exercise before mental exercise, I usually have to wait until later in the day to do any physical exercise because of schedule limitations.
3. Read motivational, inspirational or educational material for 30-60 minutes. Personally, I love the Abraham-Hicks material, which really gets my mind and spirit soaring for the day. Other favorites include the books by Wallace D. Wattles, (The Science of Getting Rich) or any of the other New Thought authors. There is a tremendous wealth of free reading material available in the public domain. If you like audio books, look to librivox.org, or for visual reading, check out this New Thought online reading list.
4. Write down your top 10-15 life goals. There is tremendous power in the act of writing, so yes, actually get out a pen and a notebook (What are those?) and physically write these down. Really. Just thinking about it doesn’t cut it. Use first-person, present-tense language: “I am making ___ dollars a year; I weigh ___ pounds; I drive a ___ car, I have ___ friends”, and so on. And don’t look back at your goals from the day before. By the way, this is a LOT of fun!
5. Write down everything you need to do that day.Again, yes, use a real pen and a notebook. Seriously. Organize this list according to priority, starting with the one thing you most want to get done that day.
6. Begin immediately to work on the biggest, most important task of the day. If you can finish this project while your mind is still fresh, it won’t loom over you and worry you for the rest of the day.

Throughout the day, but not necessarily before breakfast:

• Listen to educational audio programs while driving
• Pick up the pace between activities

Other Things That Successful People Do Before Breakfast

These are practices that aren’t part of Brian Tracy’s 21-Day Mental Diet, but are part of the morning routine of many successful people:

7. Write down things they’re grateful for. This is a favorite of mine. Two years ago, I started writing a “Daily Ten” of things that I was thankful for, liked, made me smile and so on.

8. Meditate. Another personal favorite, and if I can’t squeeze it in before breakfast, I do my best to fit it in another time during the day.

9. Work on a personal passion project. It is very easy to let what we love slip to the last item on our priority list, where it gets put off…and put off…and put off. I know — I never seem to get around to practicing violin!

10. Spend quality time with family/connect with spouses. My husband and I usually sit and talk over our plans for the day over morning coffee while we’re petting the dogs.

11. Network with coworkers, clients, or friends over coffee.  Early morning or breakfast meetings tend to be more productive in the mornings–because guess what? Everyone else’s brain is clearer, too!

12. Read the news. Find out the problems in the world so that we can figure out ways to solve them!

Eating Ancestrally: How To Start Eating and Living Like A Human

I have struggled with my weight and body my entire life. When I was young my mom always called me “big boned” while other kids (and myself) knew that I was really just “chubby”. It also didn’t help that my parents didn’t know anything about eating right. My dad cooked all the time, but we sure did eat a lot of processed, sugary, and just generally bad foods while I was growing up.

So, in the last 4 weeks I have really committed to making a complete life change. I have cut out all processed foods, grains and wheat products, started eating lean, beef and chicken, and have gained a dramatic level of energy that I have never had in my life. I have also effortlessly lost 13 pounds in the process.

I’m sure you have heard of it. It’s called eating Paleo or Primal, but I like thinking about it as eating like our Ancestors did. Below I’m going to hook you up with a primer on eating this way and direct you to some awesome resources so you can start your own primal journey. Just like Robb Wolf suggests (a Paleo blogger, nutritionist, author and pundit), just try it for 30 days and see how you feel. You will be amazed.

The Gist of Eating Like a Human

The whole basis of eating and living a Paleo lifestyle is to use “scientific evidence and evolutionary clues” to decide how we should eat, exercise, and play. The basics of the diet is as follows:

• Eat a bunch of meat. Preferably grass-fed and natural. Try to go lean, but it’s not that big of a deal.
• Don’t eat any cereal grains, wheat, dairy (sparingly), nasty seed oils, processed sugars and processed foods. If it’s in a box or a bag it probably isn’t good.
• Eat seeds and nuts (sparingly)
• Overdose on green leafy vegetables or pretty much any vegetables for that matter.
• Eat some fruit too. Don’t go too crazy if you want to lose fat.

That’s it in a nutshell. The idea is to eat like our “caveman” ancestors did and with that kind of eating comes a vibrant, natural kind of feeling and health. Like I said before, it is tough to explain but you can try it to feel its full effect.

How To Exercise and Play Like a Human

Next is exercise and play. Mark Sisson has some really good suggestions about this topic. Here is what he suggests:

• Move slowly. Our ancestors didn’t run a rat race on a treadmill. But they sure did walk and rummage for food a lot. Try to walk around 3 to 5 hours a week. Nothing crazy. Just nice and easy walking.
• Sprint every once in awhile. About 3 times a week. Just like we had to run to catch our food back in the day.
• Lift heavy things. Well, after our ancestors sprinted and caught their food, they had to drag it back to their site for eating. And, if it was a big catch it was definitely heavy. So, you can lift weights, climb, do pushups, dead lifts, etc. About 3 – 4 times a week.

Most people are convinced that they need to exercise and lift weights for hours and hours a week to get “ripped” and be healthy. That’s not really the case, especially if your diet is awesome and you are treating your body right. Just take a look at Sisson’s physique. He is no slouch.

The Benefits

Here is a list of benefits of eating and living the Paleo lifestyle. These are things that I have noticed and also things that other people have experienced:

• Ability to skip meals without a crash of blood sugar.
• Reversal of type 2 diabetes.
• Reversal of insulin resistance.
• Rapid and effortless fat loss.
• More energy throughout the day.
• Less doctor’s visits
• Loss of allergies
• Reduction in symptoms of ADD and ADHD
• Clearer skin.
• Lowering of bad cholesterol, triglycerides, blood sugar, blood pressure.
• Ability to lose the last “10 pounds” that you couldn’t do so before.
• More restful sleep
• Increased sexiness.
• And the list goes on…

Seriously, eating and living this way is amazing. I can’t stress enough how much better I feel and how much more alive I am even only after a little under a month. If you have experienced anything in this list or something else from eating and living this way, share it below.

The Resource Shortlist

So, if you are interested in learning more about the Paleo lifestyle, you are in luck. There are a ton of blogs, books, and podcasts out there for your learning pleasure. This is the shortlist of the best resources that I have run into so far.

• Mark’s Daily Apple
• Robb Wolf. Also his FAQ and podcast is pretty awesome.
• Latest in Paleo
• Weston A. Price
• Primal Body, Primal Mind

That should be plenty to get you started. Also, these sites are great for the scientific evidence that shows that living this way is effective and even superior to what you think you know about a healthy diet. Of course, make sure you question everything. It’s the only way to be sure.

The whole idea is to challenge conventional wisdom and find out what our bodies really need to be the best they can. Eating and living like our ancestors is all about learning and gaining a better understanding of who we are as humans. So, if you have been struggling with your physique, your energy, blood sugar, weight, etc., take some clues from our ancestors and become a better human.

How to Stay Healthy Juggling School and a Full-Time Job

Trying to balance work and school is difficult task by itself, and throwing in your New Year’s Resolution of getting fit makes it even more difficult. The thought of having all this on your plate is enough to make most people order a pizza, sit on the couch and drop their annual fitness goals around February, but I urge you not to believe the misconception that you can’t work full time, go to school, and stay healthy. I’ll show you exactly how I’ve been doing it for years!

Schedule

One of the reasons why a lot of people find it difficult to balance work, school, and a healthy lifestyle is because they don’t schedule anything and just try to “fit in” gym visits. When you have plenty of free time to work out at your leisure, you might be able to get away with this, but working 40+ hours a week and dedicating around 20 hours a week to school doesn’t give you much leeway in terms of working out and eating right. You need to develop a set schedule of when you’re going to go to the gym and when you’re going to eat meals.
When you create your schedule, make sure that it’s reasonable and something you can stick with. If you know you can’t wake up at 5 Am to hit the gym (I’m not a morning person at all), schedule it for another time because you’ll end up throwing your entire schedule out of whack by making an inconvenient plan that you won’t be able to commit to.

Pack your lunch

Nutrition was a huge issue for me when I first started trying to get healthy, and it’s something that I’m sure a lot of you struggle with as well. I learned the importance of making sure I packed my own food when I was working at night and going to school 4 days a week right after I finished work.
When you’re constantly on the move, it’s very tempting to hit the closest fast food restaurant you can find and get something to eat ASAP because you’re usually going a long time in between meals—as soon as you get a little free time you want food immediately and will grab whatever is convenient (which isn’t healthy food 9 times out of 10). In order to fix this, start making your food and taking it with you. My go-to meal was chicken, rice, and mixed veggies that I made ahead of time, which could be stored easily in little plastic containers and taken to work. Some other good food choices are:

• Smoothies
• Sandwiches (use whole-grain bread)
• Mixed fruits
• Greek yogurt

These were all things that I kept on hand because they can be consumed quickly, are good for you, and don’t require cooking! Start eating 6 small meals throughout the day to decrease cravings and to avoid starvation. If you need more help in the nutrition department, here are some helpful tricks for healthy eating.

SEE ALSO: 100 Healthy Recipes That You Can Learn in 15 Minutes

Keep a gym bag in your car

I once put off going to the gym after getting out of class because I didn’t want to go home, get my gym stuff and go back to the gym. This is when I realized that I needed to start carrying a gym bag in my car, packed with shorts, shoes, and a shirt. This way, I’d be ready to go to the gym at any time. You don’t want to give yourself any reason not to go to work out. If you took the first tip and penciled gym time into your schedule, you should already have your gear ready to go, but sometimes things come up and your schedule gets altered. Also, if you get out of class or work early one day, you can get in a workout before you go home!

Join your school gym

If you’re fortunate enough to have a gym on campus, take advantage of it. Today, it’s no longer just universities that have gyms for students: many community colleges also have gyms on campus that’s accessible to students. You just have to fill out some paperwork and present your school ID to get access. My school’s gym is completely free for all who attend it, so it saves time and money. I still have a gym membership elsewhere though because I like to have a gym close to my house— if you can afford it, it’s nice to have two options available like that.

Start slowly

The entire idea of getting fit and improving your life is very fun and exciting, and because of this, it’s easy to just go all in right away and immediately want to hit the gym 5 days a week. Commitment is great, and necessary, but you want to try to pace yourself into it. If you start out by going to the gym 5 days a week on top of your hectic schedule, it’s easy to wear yourself out quickly. Getting fit is not a sprint, it’s a marathon, and pacing yourself will really benefit you in the long run.

You’re already dedicating over 60 hours of your week to work and school, so trying to stretch yourself to go to the gym another 10 hours a week is a lot. It’s certainly not impossible, but chances are your body isn’t accustomed to such a strenuous schedule. Just like your muscles, you have to gradually develop your schedule. Consider starting out by going to the gym 2 days a week, and after doing this consistently for a while, add on another day or two.

Use Apps

I love fitness apps, and really grew to appreciate them while both at school and working full time. Because we’re always running around, it’s hard to track things like our workouts, calorie intake and even daily schedules. At the very least, you should have an app for tracking your diet/calories, but if you’d like to track your workouts, get an app for that too. There are many great fitness apps out there, and you can check some out here: The Top 10 iPhone Apps for Losing Weight and Getting in Shape

Balancing work, school, and a healthy lifestyle is hard, but using these tips and tools helps me stay on top of it all. Don’t give up on that New Year’s Resolution just yet—let’s get fit!

SEE ALSO: 5 Fitness and Nutrition Hacks to Build Muscle Fast

Gradually Eliminate Processed Foods From Your Diet

If you prefer to avoid anything that has undergone artificial modification, then you are probably already aware of the facts about processed foods. Many people choose to forgo extensively processed foods that are commonly found in grocery stores. They instead try to shop at farmer’s markets for local sourced nutrition. How to go about cutting out processed food? Take a look at these “mini-pledges” that you can try over the course of several months instead of going cold turkey.

For example, one mini-pledge is to only consume locally-raised meat for a week. “Local” is within 100 miles of your hometown. It certainly sounds like that could be more of a hassle than simply going to the grocery store, but for some, this is a challenge worth the effort!

Another example is to avoid all foods if they are advertised as “low-fat” or “light” (or any variation of that trend). This is a compelling pledge because the decades-old attempt to sell these reduced-fat alternatives has actually backfired. It turns out that taking the fat out of foods increases the carbohydrate concentration, which in turn can lead to increased incidences of diabetes.

Want to start cutting out all processed foods? Review these pledges to get started!

How Fish Oil Supplements Can Help You Lose Weight

Do you want to lose weight? If so, doing something as simple as taking a fish oil supplement can help you lose a few extra pounds each month. Unlike most weight loss supplements that usually contain caffeine and other stimulants, it doesn’t make you feel jittery and nervous. Your energy levels will never come crashing down a couple hours after taking it either.

Unlike weight loss supplements your overall health will benefit from fish oil. In addition to helping you lose weight, taking fish oil every day can help your brain, heart, and joints health. No weight loss supplement on the market can make these claims.

In this article I list and explain 4 different ways fish oil supplements can help you lose weight. After reading them you will see how this inexpensive and popular product can give your weight loss program — and overall health — a boost.

1. Fish Oil Enables You Lose Fat and Build Muscle. Simply popping a couple of fish oil capsules daily can help you lose fat and build muscle. All you need to do is take enough every day. The study I review below reveals just how much. In this study, subjects took about 2 grams of Omega 3 fatty acids (EPA and DHA) every day for 6 weeks. At the end of the study they lost more than 2 lbs. of body fat. The subjects also gained about 1 pound. What’s really cool about this is that they didn’t exercise, change their diet, or do anything else to lose weight. All it took was taking a couple of high dose fish oil capsules every day.
2. Fish Oil Supplements Decrease Your Appetite. If you want to stay full longer between meals, popping a couple of fish oil capsules after you eat may help. In one study, women who did this stayed full longer after their meal and ate less overall. Over time, this will help you lose weight without feeling hungry and suffering with the hunger pangs that occur when we diet. The most likely reason fish oil helps you stay full is that it is able to regulate the release of a chemical called serotonin. Serotonin helps to regulate your appetite and mood. This effect is also what gives fish oil its antidepressant benefits. I also believe that this benefit may also enable fish oil to stop sugar cravings.
3. Fish Oil Makes Your Diet and Weight Loss Workout Program More Effective. Taking a fish oil supplement can make your diet and exercise program more effective too. In one study, subjects taking fish oil lost more weight than those taking a placebo supplement. Both groups followed a diet that had them eating less and also had them working out several times a week.
4. Fish Oil Helps Minimizes Fat Storage. One study shows that fish oil supplements can minimize the risk that the food you eat is stored as fat. This is because it increases something called insulin sensitivity. Keeping the cells of your body sensitive to insulin is key to losing weight and staying healthy. The reason it’s so important is that the more sensitive your cells are to insulin, the less likely it is that the food you eat will be stored as fat.

What to Look for When Buying Fish Oil

When you’re shopping for a fish oil supplement, make sure you buy one that’s guaranteed to be free of impurities and potentially harmful substances like heavy metals and pesticides. The supplement you choose should also state on its label that it is concentrated. This means you’ll get the most possible Omega 3 fatty acids per serving. A good product will contain at least 750 mg of the EPA and DHA, the Omega 3s that give fish oil its benefits per capsule.

What to Expect When You Take Fish Oil

Research shows that taking 2-3 grams of fish oil daily can help you lose about 2 pounds a month. While this isn’t a lot, it adds up over time. It also doesn’t require any extra effort and costs very little. Following a diet that eliminates processed foods and simple sugars and performing a proven and effective weight loss workout 3-5 days a week will enable you to lose weight even faster.

Determining Your Daily Fish Oil Dose

Figuring out how much fish oil is in every capsule you take is easy. All you need to do is look at the Supplement Facts label on the product’s bottle. In this panel look for the amounts of DHA and EPA in every serving.

I like to think of taking fish oil for weight loss as a bonus. You lose a few extra pounds you wouldn’t have otherwise, and get lots of other health related benefits too. Given that there are no side effects and minimal risk for a healthy person to take fish oil, it’s definitely a winning proposition.

(Photo credit: Rainbow Trout with Fish Oil Capsules via Shutterstock)

Sources:

1. Hill AM, Buckley JD, Murphy KJ, Howe PR. Combining fish-oil supplements with regular aerobic exercise improves body composition and cardiovascular disease risk factors. Am J Clin Nutr. 2007 May;85(5):1267-74.
2. Noreen E, Sass M, Crowe M, Pabon V, Brandauer J. Averill L. Effects of supplemental fish oil on resting metabolic rate, body composition, and salivary cortisol in healthy adults. Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition 2010, 7:31.
3. Parra D, Ramel A, Bandarra N, Kiely M, Martínez JA, Thorsdottir I. A diet rich in long chain omega-3 fatty acids modulates satiety in overweight and obese volunteers during weight loss. Appetite. 2008 Nov;51(3):676-80.
4. Ramel A, Martinéz A, Kiely M, Morais G, Bandarra NM, Thorsdottir I. Beneficial effects of long-chain n-3 fatty acids included in an energy-restricted diet on insulin resistance in overweight and obese European young adults. Diabetologia. 2008 Jul;51(7):1261-8.
5. Thorsdottir I, Tomasson H, Gunnarsdottir I, Gisladottir E, Kiely M, Parra MD, Bandarra NM, Schaafsma G, Martinéz JA. Randomized trial of weight-loss-diets for young adults varying in fish and fish oil content. Int J Obes (Lond). 2007 Oct;31(10):1560-6.

Lose Weight Effortlessly By Adding Life-Changing Fruits In Your Diet

How much natural juice do you drink everyday? Watered down juice with loads of sugar doesn’t count.

If you’re like most people, drinking the healthy beverage is not an everyday practice. In fact, fruits are usually the last food group to be prioritized, over vegetables and meat.

There are numerous reasons why you should be drinking more natural juice.

First, it can save you time. No more cooking and washing pots and pans. All you have to do is blend a day’s worth of fruits and put it in the fridge.

Next, you can add vegetables. This is extremely convenient for those who don’t like eating greens. The taste of fruits are strong enough to mask the unwanted flavor without adding sauces that are full of fat.

Lastly, fruits give you energy. If you’re on your 6th cup of coffee, maybe it’s time to find an alternative.