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To be great and excel in anything you do, its important to first and foremost get your mind right. Mental Attitude is one of the most important ingredients in any 'success' recipe.

"Failure or success in business is primarily not determined by mental capacity but by MENTAL ATTITUDES" ~ Walter Dill Scott

And that applies to anything not only to business.

But don't take my word for it, check out Arnold Schwarzenegger's mental attitude. I have listed some of his quotes throughout his life. If you I can resolve to practice the same mental attitude or better nothing will be impossible for you to achieve:

If you eat more oatmeal you can drastically improve the quality of your life.

1. Over 40 studies show that eating oatmeal may help lower cholesterol and reduce the risk of heart disease. According to Quaker, all it takes is 3/4 cup of oatmeal each day to help lower cholesterol. The soluble fiber in oats helps remove LDL or "bad" cholesterol, while maintaining the good cholesterol that your body needs. In January 1997, the Food and Drug Administration announced that oatmeal could carry a label claiming it may reduce the risk of heart disease when combined with a low-fat diet.



2. The soluble fiber in oatmeal absorbs a considerable amount of water which significantly slows down your digestive process. This result is that you'll feel full longer, i.e. oatmeal can help you control your weight.



3. You probably already have oats in your kitchen. It's estimated that eighty percent of U.S. households currently have oats in their cupboards.



4. New research suggests that eating oatmeal may reduce the risk for type 2 diabetes. In fact, the American Diabetes Association already recommends that people with diabetes eat grains like oats. The soluble fiber in these foods help to control blood glucose levels.



5. With the exception of certain flavored varieties, the oats found in your grocery store are 100% natural. If you look at the ingredients on a canister of rolled oats, you will usually see only one ingredient... rolled oats.



6. According to recent studies, a diet that includes oatmeal may help reduce high blood pressure. The reduction is linked to the increase in soluble fiber provided by oatmeal. Oats contain more soluble fiber than whole wheat, rice or corn.



7. Oatmeal contains a wide array of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants and is a good source of protein, complex carbohydrates and iron.



8. The fiber and other nutrients found in oatmeal may actually reduce the risk for certain cancers.



9. Oatmeal is quick and convenient. Every type of oatmeal can be prepared in a microwave oven. Even when cooked on the stovetop, both old-fashioned and quick oats can usually be made in less than 10 minutes. And what about instant oatmeal… a hot breakfast in under a minute... incredible!



10. Oatmeal can be absolutely delicious! Whether instant, cooked on the stove or baked in the oven, the combination of flavors you can fit into a serving of oatmeal is limited only by the imagination. V



I eat oatmeal everyday.



So go ahead try it for yourself.



Craig "The Business" Geswindt

Ingredients



6 egg whites

pinch cream of tartar

1 3/4 cups of rolled oats / oatmeal

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon maple extract (Optional)

1/2 teaspoon almond extract (Optional)

1/2 cup natural apple sauce

4 scoops vanilla protein powder

1 teaspoon nut or grapeseed

1/2 cup raisins




Directions

Preheat oven to 325 F



Beat egg whites with cream of tartar

Slowly add the extracts. Separately, combine the apple sauce with oil, add raisins to the mixture, then slowly add the oats and protein powder.

Pour in the egg whites so all ingredients are evenly distributed.



Spray baking pan with cooking spray of your choice. Make 12 cookies. Bake at 325 F for 17 - 20 minutes. Each cookie contains 15g protein and 15 g carbs.

Enjoy! ;-)

Over the last few weeks I have been toying with the idea of competing again.



I have spent the summer hitting the gym hard and getting back in to shape. Most say but you didn’t need to lose weight. When I tell them I haven’t lost any weight they look confused. In fact I have gone down a dress size, so to those who don’t train and or don’t realise muscle weighs more than fat I look like I’ve lost weight.

All this training and simply being in the gym daily has given me the bug to compete again. I don’t think the bug really went away, just got buried a little deeper under work commitments and lack of access to a gym. So as the summer drew to a close and the commitments of work was upon me, I armed myself with a set of dumbbells (thanks to a new friend) and took to working out a home routine. To maintain and develop the body I sculpted over the summer.

I worked each body part first thing in the morning and ran cross country 3 times a week. Now I know it’s the wrong way round. I should be running in the morning and doing weights in the evening. However here at work I run a cross country running club in the evenings so I train weights before work. The buzz I have on my way to work is great. Weight training really sets me up for the day. The good positive feeling from training is with me all day. So at the moment, it’s working for me.



Now I’m seeing more of my abs and greater definition in my muscles. I am more motivated than ever to get back to competing. So a bit of research and science later and I now have my new routine for diet and exercise.

The science for the diet.



I worked out my BMR – Basal Metabolic Rate, then factored in the exercise and worked out how many calories I can consume without gaining weight.



I measured my body fat.



I measured my weight.



Currently I’m around 22% body fat and I weigh 154 lbs.



My aim is to be about 14% body fat for the competition. That means I have 8% body fat to lose. That is about 12 lbs of body fat.



Now 1l lbs of body fat equals about 3500 calories. So that’s 41,000 calories I need to burn.



So my daily BMR including exercise is about 2300 calories daily. That’s 16,100 calories a week.



Now to lose 12 lbs of fat, I need to create a calorie deficit to burn the body fat.



I want to burn the 12 lbs of fat in 8 weeks. That means that I need to burn 5,125 calories a week.



So 16,100 calories (Maximum weekly consumption to prevent weight gain) – 5,125 (calories of fat I need to burn) = 10,975 calories (Maximum weekly consumption to lose 12lbs of fat in 8 weeks)



Now that means a daily consumption of 1,567 calories. However if I stick to consuming this each day my metabolic rate will slow down and therefore I’ll store that fat I want to lose.



So, this is what I’m going to do.



Mon – Wed, Fri and Sat – My maximum daily consumption will be 1495 calories



Thurs and Sun – My maximum daily consumption will be 2000 calories.



This means I will keep within the maximum weekly consumption and prevent my metabolic rate from slowing down.



In the hope I’ll gain maximum fat burning.



Next time I’ll let you know what I’m eating to stay within these limits..... see you soon.....x

The word diet congers up many different thoughts but generally it leads us to think that when a person states they are on a diet that they intend to lose weight. But the first thing we should all realise is we are all on a diet of some sort or another. Some of us are eating to get fit, some to gain muscle mass, some to lose fat, and others are simply eating. What we eat is our diet. What we should be aiming for is a ‘Healthy Diet’, one that enables us to reach our goals.

I thought I ate pretty well, I thought I had a reasonably healthy diet, that was until I recorded what I ate. I did this for about 2 weeks; it was a real eye opener. It’s amazing the calories I was consuming without even realising. I was rewarding myself not every day but about twice a week with sugary treats for going to the gym and training hard. When I worked out the calories I had consumed and the calories burned over the week, I was still consuming more than I had burned, I was storing calories, which in the long term means gaining body fat. So what did I do.......?

I began by cutting out the rubbish from my diet. By rubbish, I mean all the things that have no nutritional value and generally have a negative impact on or in your body.

I was eating breakfast if I had time, prepared food from my work place, lots of fruit and eating a meal at home in the evening and a couple of snacks. So the first thing I did was to replace the variety of snacks with just fruit. So no more sandwiches, crisps or cakes at break. I also forced myself to have breakfast. As missing breakfast meant I ate more at break time, which meant I ate more at lunch and so on. So for the first three weeks I just cut out the junk, no fast food, no crisps, no chocolate. This was a challenge as I worked many hours and generally grabbed food to go.

After three weeks of no junk I began to change the content of my 3 main meals. I began to eat my evening meal before 6pm, as calories not burnt before sleep, get stored! I then began to increase the protein content of my meals and reduce the carbohydrates. I also began to introduce protein shakes as a snack. I kept this going for about 6 months, during this time I didn’t lose a single pound let alone a kilo. I stayed 12 stone 2lbs.

I had cut out the refined sugar and rubbish food from my diet and trained hard, I became fanatical, and I didn’t cheat. I knew my clothes felt looser but didn’t know by how much, I was becoming demotivated by the lack of weight loss. I would whinge to my friends, they would say how good I was looking but I just didn’t believe them. I suffered and still do sometimes from always seeing a fat girl in the mirror no matter what size I am. So I bit the bullet and went for a body fat test, I was surprised to find out it was 21%.

I began to read more and study the effects of diet and training, I learnt that, I had lost fat but gained muscle mass at a similar rate. Muscle is 4 times denser than fat, so although I weighed the same my body had got smaller, 2 dress sizes smaller. This is the reason you should record your waist, hip, thigh, chest, calf, neck and arm circumference as well as your height and mass.

About six months out from the competition, when I realised that the competition was becoming a reality, the diet changed again, but that’s another story for later......

Before we all start a ‘healthy diet’ we should realise what we are already eating. Just as I said in part 2, record everything. This means your diet too, what are you eating today? So before you even start to cut things out, write down everything you eat, and I mean everything down to the last snack and each drink. This is your foundation, this will help you to work out what to add, change or cut from your diet. So before you do as I did, record everything that goes in your mouth for at least a week, then you’ll be ready to make changes that will enable you to reach your goal.

If you need any advice, just ask...... you can post a question here and I’ll do my best to answer it. I promise if I don’t know the answer I’ll find out for you.....