Personal Development

If you’re looking for a good few articles to read, here are the ones I enjoyed in the past few days:

• DLM: How To Get Better Sleep While Spending Less Time in Bed
• Whakate: What is Wrong with GTD?
• Whakate: The Closed List: Regaining Control Over Your Day
• Zen Habits: Sound of Silence
• Mark and Angel: 22 Tips to Increase Productivity

Hope you like these too, and if there are posts you enjoyed last week and would like to share – just post links in the comments area!

It’s impossible to place this post under one of the main categories of my blog, but I’m going to post it anyway: if you have 3 minutes and want to see the incredibly fresh and creative approach to using sticky notes, watch this video!

I’ve never seen anything like it before, nothing less than amazing!

EepyBird’s Sticky Note experiment from Eepybird on Vimeo.

It was bound to happen: I’ve joined Twitter! Some of you probably know that it’s a micro-blogging platform with tiny (up to 140 characters) updates you can leave through your browser or many specialized applications.

It would be great to get connected, so look me up:

http://twitter.com/PerfectBlogger

Please leave your Twitter name in comments below as well!

This is a guest post by Mark McManus from MuscleHack.com. Mark is a muscle and nutrition enthusiast who has spent years in independent research finding the most effective strategies for building the body of your dreams. Mark will help you build muscle & lose fat. He is the author of the book ‘Total Six Pack Abs‘, the guaranteed system for burning fat & sculpting chiseled abs.

There is something you can do which can improve virtually every area of your life.

Weight-training

You say, “Weight training can enhance my quality of life?” Yes it can.

Any fitness program can, but here’s a few brief reasons why weight-training beats them all…

1. Less fat, more muscle. Weight training burns calories all day long. You’ll lose fat and build muscle. Ladies, you’ll get that toned look. Fellas, you’ll be brawnier and more defined. With resistance training, it’s not just about weight-loss but about body recomposition, losing body-fat and gaining lean muscle tissue.
2. It’s not exhausting. Long-distance running, for example, is fatiguing to say the least. If you workout correctly, you can be in and out of the gym in 30-45 mins max, taking 2 minute breaks between sets.
3. Increased Strength. Weight-training obviously beats them all for strength gains, this can come in handy in your every day life.

Ok, with that said, how can training like a bodybuilder improve your life in general? Glad you asked.

Here’s 5 ways weight training can enhance your quality of life:

1. More energy – Energy begets energy. People tend to see the amount of energy they feel as only a result of calorie intake. However, you know as well as I do, that movement and activity make you feel energetic. Lack of movement makes you lethargic, regardless of how much you eat – it’s simply a fact of physiology. Movement in the form of exercise, causes the desire to move more, creating a positive feedback cycle of energy and enthisiasm. With weight training, you’ll perform brief workouts almost every day which ensures that you’ll feel vibrant and passionate in all other areas of your life!
2. Excitement – As readers of this blog, you know all about goal-setting. However, how many of your goals produce quick, tangeable results? Using an effective workout plan can produce remarkable results. In a few short weeks you can see your body change before your eyes! I don’t know of many things more exciting than that.
3. Confidence – Looking good makes you feel confident. It’s not vanity, it’s empowerment. Apart from the fact that your physical body will make you feel confident, you’ll begin to ask yourself, “If I can control my body with the conscious use of my will, what else can I control?” This is the beginning of unbounded confidence and a mental attitude that will propel you to success.
4. Sexual attractiveness – No point in dodging this one. Your physical appeal and magnetism will increase. That’s great news for single people and also great news for the spouses of those of you in relationships ;)
5. Better Health. Here’s some health benefits of weight-training:
   • Increased muscular strength
   • Reduced body fat mass and increased lean body mass
   • Strengthened tendons and ligaments
   • Positive changes in lipid profile (cholesterol & triglycerides)
   • Improved bone strength and density
   • Improved glucose tolerance and insulin sensitivity (warding off diabetes)
   • Increased metabolic rate – You’ll burn more calories even when resting
   • Decreased blood pressure

So what are you waiting for? You can get your free workout plan here, get started with a bodybuilding diet, and head over to the bodybuilding forum anytime where you’ll meet people who’ll be glad to offer help and support.