FreeYouNow.com

3 Weight Loss Tech Gadgets You’ll Need If You Want to Lose Weight in 2015

by 4 Comments

I love gadgets.

If you ask any of my friends and family members, I’m always playing with some new fitness gadget, tracker, system or website.

Sadly, in reality, the majority of the gadgets I end up buying or getting sent to me for review end up sitting around collecting dust.

Most of them I never use for more than a few days, or perhaps a few weeks.

However, there are three gadgets that have stood the test of time and I think are absolutely essential to helping you achieve success with your weight loss plan.

#1 – The Fitbit Aria Wi-Fi Smart Scale

This scale is just awesome.

It connects to your Wi-Fi network and allows you to automatically track your weight so easily that you’ll actually step on it on a daily basis.

Over the years I’ve had many different scales, and I’ve tried various ways to track my weight, and my body fat % etc., but I always ended up giving up as the tracking process just took way too long.

Meaning, I would go into the bathroom in the morning and step on my scale, and then look at my weight and then have to remember what I weighed and what my body fat % was…

…THEN I would have to walk from the bathroom to my computer, load up a tracking spreadsheet of some sort and type in my new weight…

…that’s IF I wasn’t interrupted by someone or a phone call, or if my dogs didn’t need me to let them out or if someone didn’t text me or some other interruption didn’t cause me to completely forget what my weight was.

I hated the process tracking my weight using such a manual method, so I ended up giving up.

Since getting the Fitbit Aria Wi-Fi Smart Scale though, it’s been super easy to track my weight.

I simply step on the scale, it automatically detects that it’s me (based on my weight), and it measures my weight, my body fat %, and it connects to my Wi-Fi network and uploads my data to the Fitbit website where I can get a detailed analysis of my weight, and my body composition.

It’s simply awesome.

And the FitBit website is a great tool as well for tracking your weight and activity levels.

Although I haven’t actually been on a weight loss plan for the past few years, since getting the scale about a year ago I’ve been tracking my weight pretty consistently every few days and now I have all that data available to me, so I can see exactly how much weight I’ve put on in the past 12 months etc.

I’m a firm believer that in order to lose weight you must track your progress regularly on a daily basis while on a weight loss plan, and several times a week if you’re just on a maintenance plan.

This scale makes that easy.

If you don’t keep track of your weight daily, it makes it way harder to lose weight as you then have no idea what’s working and what isn’t.

This brings me to the 2nd tech gadget that I think is a must-have for a weight loss plan.

#2 – The Fitbit Activity Trackers

The Fitbit family of activity trackers is awesome for tracking your daily activity.

I had a Fitbit Force activity tracker for the first half of 2014 and loved it, except for the fat that there was a recall on the rubber they used for the band which caused a little bit of irritation in some people.

I ended up sending mine back in order to get a $140 credit from Fitbit as I wanted to try out using the Samsung Gear watch instead, which also tracks activity and also heart rate.

I like the Samsung watch I have, as it syncs with my Samsung cell phone and I can answer calls on it, read emails and text messages, but I’m not too impressed with it’s activity tracker system.

Yes it counts steps like the Fitbit, but what I like about the Fitbit system of activity trackers is that they integrate with the Fitbit website.

This way I have my weight tracking and graphing and my activity tracking and graphing all in one place.

I can also track my meals on the Fitbit website as well, or track my meals using MyFitnessPal and then synchronize automatically with Fitbit.

Overall, after testing several different bands from Nike, BodyMedia, Samsung etc., I still like the Fitbit system the best.

I’m currently using a Fitbit Flex but will be upgrading to the new Fitbit Charge HR bands when they come out in the near future.

#3 – The MyoTape Body Measuring Tape

The MyoTape body measuring tape is not really a “tech” gadget but it’s still really cool and I think it deserves a spot in my top 3 favorite weight loss tools.

This very simple tape measure allows you to easily measure your body measurements such as your waist, hips, thighs, biceps, forearms, neck, chest or whatever else you want to measure without the need of a second person.

Ever try measuring your bicep with a regular measuring tape?  It’s nearly impossible.

With this tape it’s really easy!

And it’s very inexpensive, so I definitely recommend getting one of these.

Keeping track of your measurements is extremely important especially if you’re embracing on a weight loss program that is going to combine dieting and exercise/fitness.

The reason for this is that if you’re building muscle, your weight might not drop, but your body measurements will improve.

By combining the scale measurements you get for body weight, and the body fat % and your body measurements with this tape you’ll have a very good way to measure your weight loss progress with a lot of accuracy.

These are the three tech gadgets that I recommend picking up if you want to lose weight in 2015.

Out of all the things I’ve bought and tested, these are the gadgets I have used the most and continue to use.

Little Known Secret that Will Change the Way You Think About Freedom

by 4 Comments

Most of us think that what we really want is freedom.

But is that what we really want?

Have you ever thought or said to yourself that what you really want is total freedom to do whatever you want, whenever you want, with whomever you want?

I know I have!

I’ve heard many personal development gurus using that kind of language as well, encouraging you to become financially wealthy so that you can do whatever you want, whenever you want, with whomever you want.

When I do coaching with people, and I ask them what they want to manifest in their lives, they will often say something along those lines as well.

At first glance “total freedom” sounds like a cool dream / goal to have, but here’s the truth that I realized about total freedom.

Chasing Total Freedom Is a Fantasy That Will Destroy Your Life

The truth is that so called “total freedom” is impossible for us as human beings.

The moment we as free spirits decide to incarnate on this earth, we give up “total freedom” in exchange for a chance to experience life as a human being who doesn’t have total freedom.

I mean ask yourself… can you REALLY ever have this so-called “total freedom” to “do anything you want, whenever you want, with whomever you want”?

Is there anyone on this planet who has this so-called “total freedom“?

No – there isn’t.

Yes there are people who have MORE freedoms than others – that is absolutely true, but there’s a HUGE difference between wanting to have more freedoms in your life, and trying to just have “freedom” in general.

Let me explain…

Some Freedoms That I’ve Manifested

Way back in 1996, shortly after graduating from high-school I got a job at a tech company that was located about 45 minutes away from where I lived.

Every morning I would wake up and either drive or car-pool for 45 minutes to get to work.  After work, it would take me another 45 minutes to get home.

That was a total of 1.5 hours of driving in traffic, every single morning, 5 days a week.

After a while, I just started to really hate having to deal with spending 1.5 hours every single day in traffic, so one of the FREEDOMS that I decided to pursue in my life was to find some way to NOT have to spend so much time in traffic every day.

Fast forward to 2003, and I was living in a house that was literally less than a block away from my work.

I could walk to work in about 2-3 minutes or roll down the hill in my car and be there in about 30 seconds.

Manifesting this very specific freedom from spending such a big part of my life in traffic was important to me, and so I manifested it.

Today I work from home so I don’t have to even spend one SECOND in traffic on a typical work-day.

Here’s another one of the FREEDOMS that I’ve manifested for myself.

I used to have to wake up to an alarm clock to get to work at a certain time.

For someone like myself, who is a night-owl, waking up early is the equivalent of torture to me, and absolutely hate it.

So about 5 years ago I decided that another one of the freedoms I’d love to manifest was the freedom of NOT having to wake up before 9am.

Today, I have that freedom.

On a typical day I can wake up at 9am, 9;30am, 10:00am or even later – just depending on when I went to sleep the night before.

Most of the people I know who have jobs, they don’t have that specific freedom – because it’s not something they specifically got clear on and pursued.

Specific Freedoms vs Total Freedom

Now you might be wondering, what’s the difference between these two freedoms I mentioned and “total freedom”?

Aren’t the two examples I gave just two examples of having total freedom?

If we pursue total freedom, aren’t we going to get all these other freedoms automatically anyways?

No.

From my experience, when people say that they want total freedom, or the freedom to do whatever they want, whenever they want, with whomever they want, what they’re really saying is that they don’t know WHAT they want.

They are undecided.  They are uncommitted to manifesting ANY kind of freedom.

They are deluding themselves by saying that they want this concept of “total freedom” but in reality they know damn well that they will NEVER achieve such a thing, and so they don’t even bother trying.

You see, the way our minds work is that our minds are AMAZING goal seeking / goal achieving machines.

If you give your mind a SPECIFIC goal to go after that it believes you can achieve, it WILL activate all the faculties of the mind – conscious, subconscious and superconscious – to help you achieve it.

But if you give your mind a VAGUE goal that it DOES NOT it can ever achieve – it will do NOTHING.

This is why I say that chasing total freedom will destroy your life, because by telling your mind you want total freedom, you are essentially setting yourself up to never achieve ANY of the wonderful freedoms that you COULD have in your life.

In other words – the main reason for the lack of specific freedoms in your life that you DO want and that you COULD have already achieved by now is that you’ve been chasing TOTAL FREEDOM – which is a flawed / impossible concept.

Why is Total Freedom Impossible?

Now I know some of you might be thinking that I’m being negative or pessimistic by saying that total freedom is not possible.

Let me explain why I’m simply pointing out the truth.

Let’s say that you tell your mind that you want “Total Freedom”… okay…fine…your mind gets the message and it tries to manifest “total freedom” in your life…

… okay, the next morning you wake up and you have the idea that you’d like to manifest a new car to replace your current car, and you’ve decided that you want that new car to be a BMW.

… okay, so a part of your mind is now being told that what you want is to manifest a specific car – a BMW – yet another part of your mind is still trying to manifest “total freedom”.

Now, think about this for a second… total freedom would mean that you have the freedom to choose to drive ANY car, at ANY time… but if your mind helps you to manifest a BMW, which is ONE type of car, then it’s also going to be cutting you off from the freedom of having a different car – such as for example a Mercedes.

In other words, by helping you manifest ONE car, such as a specific BMW, your mind is also taking away one of your freedoms (the freedom to choose a different car).

Also, if buying the new car means that you’ll be having to make monthly payments for 5 years to pay the car off, that also takes away some of your financial freedom as well, which your mind will not like, so it will fight you on it.

Here’s another example…

Let’s say you want to manifest a wonderful relationship with someone that you can see yourself marrying.

Well, by getting into a relationship with one person and marrying them, you are also cutting yourself away from the “freedom” to marry someone else, right?

No matter how you look at it, every time you gain one type of freedom, you are giving up another type of freedom.

If you manifest the freedom of driving a Ferrari, you are also potentially giving up the freedom of being able to park your car anywhere you want without having to worry about someone stealing it.

I mean if right now you drive a piece of crap car, one of the freedoms you DO have that a Ferrari owner doesn’t have is the freedom of not really worrying about someone stealing the car. 🙂

Let’s say you decide to join a gym and work out every day because you want to have a buff body…okay, but isn’t that giving up the freedom to NOT go to the gym and instead to just sit and watch TV?

See, every freedom we manifest and gain in our lives, carries with it some other freedom that we are giving up.

This is why “Total Freedom” is IMPOSSIBLE.

There’s always a trade off.  You give up one freedom to gain another.

What’s Exciting About This

Now at first you might be thinking that the realization that you’ll never achieve “total freedom” as a human being on this earth sounds a bit depressing…

…but in reality it’s actually VERY LIBERATING and exciting… here’s why.

See, the second you realize that chasing “total freedom” is MENTAL TRAP that paralyzes your mind and accomplishes NOTHING,  you can begin to ask yourself which FREEDOMS are important to YOU (not someone else) and activate your mind to help you achieve those specific freedoms.

You see, a mind that is instructed to go out and create very specific freedoms in your life that are important to YOU is a very powerful mind.

But a mind that is just generally told to pursue “freedom” as a whole concept is a very weak mind.

You MUST get specific with the freedoms that you want.

Here’s a quick exercise you can follow to help you gain some clarity on this:

  1. Write Down a List of Freedoms – Get a pen and paper and write down a list of very specific freedoms that you’d like to manifest in your life.  Be specific.  The more specific you get, the better it will be.  Instead of writing down “I want the freedom to always wake up whenever I want.” it’s better to say “I want the freedom to sleep in until at least 9am most days”.   Instead of writing down “I want to never worry about money ever again.” it’s better to write down “I want the freedom of having at least $25,000 cash in my emergency fund, and a net worth of at least $5 million dollars.”Concepts like “Never have to worry about money again” are too generic, too hypothetical, too confusing as to what you really mean by it.  I mean are you asking your mind to help you manifest a specific amount of money, or are you asking your mind to figure out a way to get you to stop worrying about money?  I mean technically speaking, your could get into a car accident and hit your head and go into a coma and never wake up and never have to worry about ANYTHING ever again, right?  But is that what you want?  Probably not right?  So you have to be specific.Try to start with some simple freedoms that are more easily believable and achievable for your mind.
  2. Prioritize Your List of Freedoms – Next what you’ll want to do is to go through your list and get clear on which freedoms are most important to you right now in your life.  You’ll want to give priority to the most important things, but also to the things that are most easily achievable as well which can take you towards more important freedoms.For example, before I manifested the freedom to not spend ANY time in traffic (by working from home), I manifested the freedom to NOT spend 45 minutes in traffic, instead cutting that down to about 25 mins in traffic (by changing jobs), followed by manifesting the freedom to only spend about 1-2 minutes getting to work (by buying a house literally a block away from my office), to finally manifesting the ability to work from home full time.The idea here is not to necessarily pick which specific freedom you’re going to focus on first, but more to just help you gain more clarity as to which freedoms mean more to you than others, and which freedoms might be more achievable more quickly.
  3. Track and Recognize Your Current Freedoms – Another important aspect to this process is to become aware of the freedoms you have already manifested in your life and to express a feeling of gratitude towards them.  The truth is that most of us have SO MANY more freedoms than others on this planet, but we take those freedoms for granted and never feel any gratitude for them.For example, do you have a drivers license?  Do you drive a car?  Can you get into your car and drive somewhere if you wanted to?  Then that is a freedom you manifested already in your life that other people may not have.  They might not have a driver’s license or a car, and might be stuck taking the bus everywhere.  See my point?You already have MANY freedoms right now, that other people may not have.  That doesn’t mean you should feel bad for other people who don’t have the same freedoms you have.  That is not the point.  The point here is to simply become aware of the fact that you’ve already manifested a whole bunch of freedoms in your life, and if you did it for THOSE freedoms, then your belief will go up that you can manifest the NEW freedoms your currently working on.

Don’t underestimate the power of this key distinction between trying to manifest FREEDOM vs trying to manifest SPECIFIC FREEDOMS.

Trying to manifest FREEDOM is a fools errand…

… you’ll never manifest TRUE FREEDOM as a human being…it’s impossible, and that’s not why we are here on this planet.

We are here to DECIDE and CHOOSE which SPECIFIC FREEDOMS are most important to us and then to pursue manifesting those freedoms and then to enjoy them!

I remember the day when I stopped chasing FREEDOM as a whole, and realized that I’ve been trying to manifest this massive, impossible fantasy…

… it felt like a huge burden was lifted off my shoulders…

… not having to pursue this concept of FREEDOM anymore…

… and instead to just pick specific freedoms that are important to me now, in my current life, and in comparison to ‘Total Freedom” , those individual, specific freedoms seem so much more achievable and believable!

NOT chasing FREEDOM is one of the most freeing and liberating experiences you will ever experience in your life.

Try it out…you’ll see what I mean.

Give yourself permission, right now, to STOP chasing this stupid illusion of “total freedom” that NOBODY in the history of humanity has ever achieved.

You’ll see how liberating and fun it is to instead decide which freedoms you want to go after and to then go after and achieve those freedoms!

Meditation Hacks For Quieting Your Mind

by 2 Comments

Do you have trouble keeping your mind quiet during meditation?

Most meditation systems try to get you to stop thinking during meditation. This is very difficult to do, especially for beginners.

A much better system that I have found to work for me is to instead keep your conscious mind engaged with simple visualizations to keep it occupied during meditation.

Here are some very simple visualizations you can use to keep your conscious mind occupied during meditation:

  1. Start Off With The Elevator

    Start off by closing your eyes and imagining yourself being inside an elevator. Imagine standing in an elevator, facing the door and looking up at the digital display up top which shows the current floor as 50. Now imagine feeling the elevator going down, and watch as the digital display starts to count down from 50 down to 49, 48, 47 all the way down to zero.

    Not only does this keep your conscious mind engaged with the exercise of counting backwards from 50 to 0, but it also puts you into a deeper state.

  2. Enter The White Room

    Once you go all the way down to zero.  Imagine the elevator doors opening and you now see a white room that seems to go on forever.  You step out of the elevator and you’re in a white room with no walls.  The white glow of the room makes you feel safe and welcome and relaxed.

  3. Enter Your Board Room

    Once you’re in the white room, imagine seeing a rather large room ahead of you that has glass walls all around.  It’s a board room with a board room table in the middle and chairs all around.

    Walk into the room, and sit down in the chair at the head of the table.

  4. Invite Others In

    If you prefer, you can imagine inviting others to join you in your board room.  You can invite your mentors in, your friends, family, a pet or pets, a fictional character, or anyone you’d like.  It doesn’t matter if they are alive or passed away, if they are a real person or a fictional character like Yoda.  Feel free to invite anyone in that you like.

  5. You Can Chat With Them

    If you invited anyone into your boardroom, you can have an imaginary conversation with them, or just simply hang out in their presence.

    You could imagine a caterer coming into the room and bringing a delicious lunch for everyone.  It’s totally up to you.

  6. You Can Be Alone

    If you prefer, you could also imagine being in the board room alone.  Just being there quiet with your thoughts, or with some animals. You could make the boardroom table disappear and your chair could become a massaging recliner that gives you a full body massage.  It’s totally up to you.  Just try to make the experience as relaxing and enjoyable as you can.

  7. The Simplified Version

    This type of visualization will keep your mind “busy” enough to get you to stop thinking about your TODO list or the things you forgot to do this morning etc.

    However, if you find this type of visualization too difficult for you to imagine, another simple method of keeping your conscious mind quiet is to imagine a symbol, like for example the infinity symbol and just imagine drawing it out in your mind.

    Imagine drawing the symbol with a pen made out of light, going around in one direction and then coming back in the other direction, and then back again.  Just keep mentally drawing that symbol over and over again ,and as you do this, it will keep your mind occupied.

    You could even time the drawing of the symbol with your breathing, such as make it so that it takes one breath in and out to draw the symbol.

    It doesn’t really matter what symbol you choose to use.  You can pick a symbol, a letter, a word, or even just focus on a sound, but the important thing is to just keep your mind occupied with SOMETHING, while you just sit, breathe, and relax.

    Over time, you may find that your conscious mind just kind of “falls asleep” and no longer needs to be occupied and you’ll then enter this state where you’re awake, and aware, but just not really thinking about anything.

Give it a try and see how it works for you. Leave me a comment below and let me know if you enjoyed this post.