Michal Stawicki - The Fitness Expert Next Door: How to Set and Reach Realistic Fitness Goals in 10 Minutes a Day (How to Change Your Life in 10 Minutes a Day)

I plan to make a series of booklets sharing my experiences of my life transformation. The one about weight loss is first. I am not a fitness guru; not even a personal trainer. I'm not a diet specialist. On the other hand, while not being any of the above, I did manage to lose 15 percent of my body weight (I'm a short and skinny guy; in absolute numbers, it is just 25 pounds). I can do 100 consecutive pushups, 54 consecutive dips, 33 consecutive chin-ups. And I didn't need any fitness guru, personal trainer, gym membership or diet consultant to do this. I didn't spend a lot of time or a lot of money. Weight-loss is just a by-product of my life's transition. And my fitness form is just a by-product of my weight loss.

I'm a busy person a full-time employee (I spend about 18 hours a week commuting), father of three and a husband, a church community member, a blogger. But I discovered I don't need a lot of time (in daily terms) or money to lose weight. By sharing my story and advice, I want to convince you that you don't, either.

I intended this book to show purely my personal story, but then I ran across an old friend of mine that I hadn't seen in 10 years. He is also a busy father, husband and employee. And he lost about 12-percent bodyweight on his own. It made me think that my story is not so unique. Well, it is, of course, because every human being is unique; nonetheless, there are lots and lots of ordinary people's stories about getting fitter people who changed their lives for the better.

I was already writing this book when I stumbled upon research published last year in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine showing exactly that. They surveyed over 4,000 obese people (BMI >29.9), among whom over 2,500 reported an attempt to lose weight. Over 1,500 got significant results. Research showed also that simple strategies were a greater success factor than participating in a commercial weight-loss program.

Over 60 percent of fatties who attempted to lose weight got significant results!

Weight-loss is not rocket science. It's not something reserved for the privileged, movie stars and TV presenters. Ordinary folks burdened with duties, jobs and families can do it, too. Thousands of people like you and me do it every year, every month, every day. Your neighbor did it. You can do it, too.

Les Brown said: "You will fail your way to success."

And he is so right! I failed my way to weight loss. I had vague thoughts about losing some weight as long as 5.5 years ago. I started seriously losing some pounds a year ago. 54 months of failure! I did everything backwards. I started from the totally wrong point and gradually drifted in the right direction. And I found tactics which bring results.

I'm not going to impose my super-effective fitness program on you and charge $39 for it.

You don't need my knowledge to lose weight. Not that it is insufficient; it allowed me to get my results. The knowledge is at your fingertips the Internet is full of diets, workouts and fitness programs. They work for some people; for other people, they don't. I don't accuse the fitness industry of preying on the naivety of their prospects. All those different programs have their advantages and are effective under specific conditions. If you do what they say, when they say and in the way they say, you (usually) get the results. But the problem is, you must bend to those rules, and there is no universal detailed method which will work for everyone.

Imposing my rules on you will not be necessarily effective, anyway. For example, my wife decided to lose some weight when she noticed she was several pounds heavier than me. She asked me for advice. I answered, "Eat carrots as a snack," because that was what worked for me. She did it and got a stomach pain. I didn't even propose she follow the murderous workout program I practice, due to one simple reason she hates physical exercises. From all the physical activities, the one she enjoys most is shopping. To be specific shopping for outfits.

What you need is an incentive. An internal motivation. A story which will make you think that this is actually doable in your case, too. A few simple tips that will point you in the right direction. A fundament of "10 minutes philosophy," which you can make your very own life philosophy. This book is intended to help you to come up with your strategy one that will work for you, so you can decide on your conditions, your time frames, your methods and your results. And above all, that will be believable for you, so you actually will start, will take action, based on this strategy.