Drink this 2 hours before bed to sleep better (plus 5 tips for insomnia)

by Mike Geary - Certified Nutrition Specialist
Author of the best seller: The Top 101 Foods that FIGHT Aging

I've noticed in my travels and with working with clients that a large majority of people in today's fast-paced stressful world are struggling at least part of the time with falling asleep at night.
Over the years, I've also struggled on occasion with insomnia because of the stress placed on me by running a large publishing business.  And I've researched and learned quite a few tips and tricks over the years to help fight insomnia and fall asleep faster.
Without diving into every single technique I've learned over the years, I'll just touch on a few really simple, but powerful tips, foods, drinks, etc that I think can help you to fall asleep easier and faster too!
Here goes:
1.  The most important sleep tip to start with:
This one isn't a specific food or drink, but rather probably THE most important tip I can give you... if you don't follow this one, your chances of being able to wind down at night and fall asleep fast are unlikely...
You NEED to eliminate use of devices, computers, emails, and any other work related to your job (or other stressful things) at least 3 hours before you plan to go to sleep. Using devices or computers for casual reading at night is fine, but don't do any work that gets your mind overly activated, such as anything dealing with work or other stressful things in life. Also, even for casual reading, it's best to turn off devices at least 1 hour before bed as keeping your eyes focused on the light from devices is one thing that some researchers are saying could interfere with getting quality sleep.
An overly active mind late at night is one of the BIGGEST things keeping many people from falling asleep. As a success-driven entrepreneur myself, I used to work really late at night and then I'd find that my mind was always too active to actually be able to fall asleep, so I'd lay there for hours sometimes until I could get my mind to slow down so I could fall asleep.
This may sound weird, but one trick that's worked for me is to grab a book while I lay in bed on something that I find sort of boring and try to read the book in bed.  Because the topic is "boring" to me personally, it keeps my mind away from things that I find more interesting, and it allows me to fall right to sleep. So for example, if you find health and fitness interesting (I hope you do!), but you find economics boring, try reading an economics book as you lay in bed.  I bet you'll get sleepy and fall asleep much faster than if you laid in bed letting all your thoughts about daily life race through your mind.

2.  No caffeine after mid-day:
You've probably heard this tip many times, so I'll keep this one short... It takes about 6 hours for caffeine to be fully processed and eliminated by your body, so make sure your last caffeinated drink of the day (coffee, black tea, mate, etc) is at LEAST 6 hours or more before your planned bedtime.  And if you've been showing any adrenal fatigue from lab hormone tests, you should also consider reducing your daily caffeine intake if you currently use it.

3.  Tart cherries or tart cherry juice:
Tart cherries (Montmorency) actually contain a natural form of melatonin that can help you to naturally get sleepy and more easily fall asleep.  I've found frozen tart cherries a few times in specialty grocery stores and I use them for a late night smoothie occasionally.
I've also found a tart cherry concentrate in Whole Foods and other health food stores that you can add to a drink or caffeine-free tea at night to help get you that low dose natural melatonin.  I use 1 spoonful of this tart cherry concentrate in a cup of chamomile or mint tea late at night.  This helps immensely for calming down and falling asleep at night.
A side benefit is that tart cherry also contains powerful antioxidants that fight joint pain, gout, and other inflammation related problems.

4.  DON'T overdose on melatonin supplements (most contain TOO MUCH)
Did you know that MOST people overdose on melatonin supplements.  Most melatonin supplements come in either 3 mg or even 5 mg doses.  However, according to some researchers, anything more than 1 mg might be too high of a dose, which can disrupt your sleep cycle the following day, making it hard to wake up in the morning, and harder to fall asleep the following night, disrupting your overall sleep cycle.
The proper dose seems to be something less than 1 mg from most experts on this topic (this was even discussed on the Dr Oz show too), which is why I choose to NEVER use melatonin supplements, and only get the small natural quantities found in tart cherries or tart cherry juice.

5.  Night time teas:
Try "night time teas" that have relaxing qualities such as chamomile tea, mint tea, lemongrass tea, or all of them mixed.  A side benefit of chamomile tea, and another reason that I try to include it in my weekly night tea repertoire is that chamomile tea contains unique phytonutrients that can help fight estrogenic overload from all of the xenoestrogens that we are exposed to from chemicals, pesticides, etc in today's chemical laden world.
Also remember that you can add a spoonful of the tart cherry concentrate and you'll get a double-whammy of sleep aid!  This works well about 1-2 hours before bedtime to help your body and mind relax.
One more tip...
If you still have troubles falling asleep even after implementing all of these tips, make sure to pay attention to fixing any hormonal issues you might have, including any possible adrenal fatigue, since being overly stressed out during the day can cause imbalances in your natural cortisol cycle which can make you more awake at night and more tired in the morning (obviously the opposite of what you want).
Eliminate any stressors from your life that you can, and also trying other relaxation techniques including meditation as a way to deal with stress if you still feel that you're too stressed out each day.
I hope today's topic gave you some immediately useful tips that you can use to start falling asleep easier and faster and feeling more rested and energetic when you wake up in the morning!
Make sure to pay attention to ALL of the tips above (especially #1) as they can all combine into a powerful regimen that relaxes you to sleep each night without any more insomnia, leaving you more energetic and ready to be productive when you wake up each day!
If you want to sleep better, balance your hormones, and fight against the aging process, don't miss the 'next page' below...
Go to the next page to see powerful natural remedies for:

• Lowering high blood pressure
• Controlling or reversing Type 2 Diabetes
• Boosting your sluggish metabolism
• Cutting off excess body fat
• Improving your brain health and memory
• Slowing down the aging of your skin, joints, and organs
• Healing your digestion problems

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Please share with family and friends if you think they could benefit from these tips, thank you. 

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Lean-Body Fitness Secrets Ezine - Do You Have a Beer Belly?

In today's issue of Lean-Body Fitness Secrets Ezine, 
Do you have a Beer Belly?
I'm going to answer a question I get quite often. Many people find that they can stick to a reasonably healthy diet during the week, but think that they're totally blowing everything on the weekends.
Below is a question I just received recently from a customer and some ideas I came up with for him. I think you'll get some good ideas from this on how to deal with the issue of not letting the weekend wreck your whole program.
Q: "Hi Mike, I haven't emailed in a while, so I wanted to update you. I haven't missed a workout yet and I just finished the third week on your program. I am feeling pretty good, and can already see a bit of a difference in the mirror. I'm still far from a 6 pack, but I'm making progress and I'll definitely get there.
I would give myself a grade of B-, because during the week I do very well with my routine and diet, but on the weekends I drink too much beer (empty calories) and my diet suffers a bit with eating out and weekend activities. But all in all it is going well, and I think I'll be a great success story for your testimonials. If you have any nuggets of wisdom or just any suggestions on how to deal with the weekends, I'm all ears."
-Brandon, Saint Louis, MO
A: Good to hear from you Brandon, and it sounds like you're on your way. I can fully relate to your issue of doing well on the weekdays and then drinking a lot of beer and eating late night junk on the weekends. Here's what I've done over the years that helps to keep the lbs off while still enjoying the weekend social scene that involves alcohol and eating out.
If you're gonna drink, try and keep it to light beers or hard alcohol mixed with something non-caloric like club soda. *By the way, tonic water is NOT calorie-free like club soda... it actually has just as much sugar as regular soda.
Anyway, those are the options that would do the least caloric damage, but realize that you're going to take in a TON of extra empty calories any time you drink more than a couple alcoholic drinks.
Also, you're probably going to end up at restaurants and bar situations where everyone is getting deep fried bar food. In this case, whatever you can do, ALWAYS avoid anything deep fried. My best option is I get a burger or grilled chicken sandwich and replace the fries (I call them devil sticks) or potato chips (which are also deep fried) with some sort of steamed veggies or a side salad. That way you eliminate the most evil portion of the meal (the fries) but you still enjoy your burger (which isn't really all that bad) or your chicken sandwich.
Also, if you're doing things right 5-6 days/week, don't stress too much over a bad day or two on the weekends, as long as you keep your calories reasonable and always avoid anything deep fried and any sodas as well. As I've said before, anything loaded with trans fats (like deep fried food) or high fructose corn syrup (in sodas) are the absolute worst things you can put in your body.
If you're serious about your body and health, these should never be consumed, not even occasionally. Trans fats and HFCS are the only two items that I'm a stickler on personally. I'll eat as much of anything and everything else, at least occasionally, like pizza, burgers, ice cream...you name it! But I'll never even touch a HFCS-laden soda or something deep fried in trans fats. They are pure poison in my mind.
As for working out, just follow the general guidelines in my book and the routine I set up for you, and make changes as described in the book when you start to plateau. Also, enjoy the good weather and get outside a couple times a week to do wind sprints. This is one of the easiest ways to get rid of the fat. It doesn't matter if you can't handle all out sprints just yet, but just run as hard and as fast as you can for 50-100 yard dashes, rest 1-2 minutes, and repeat 5-10 times. It's one of the best workouts you can get in only about 10-20 minutes total. Mix those a couple days/week with your normal strength training routines on other days and you'll be kicking a** in no time flat!
Alright, that's all for today. Brandon (from above) is just one of my great customers who is now motivated like crazy after reading through my Truth about Six Pack Abs Program. Because of the fact that he's armed himself with the knowledge and motivation to do it, he's well on his way to enjoying a lean, rock hard body for life!
Check out what some other customers from around the world are saying about this Program - Truth About Abs Testimonials

I'll be back in touch soon with more body-changing tips and strategies.
Stay Lean,

Mike Geary
Certified Nutrition Specialist
Certified Personal Trainer
Founder - TruthAboutAbs.com

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Body Part Isolation vs. Complex Movements in Strength Training

What you need to know about Weight Training for a strong lean body that both looks good and is injury resistant
by Mike Geary - Certified Nutrition Specialist, Certified Personal Trainer

Working as a personal trainer & fitness professional, there is one type of question I get all the time that shows that many people are missing the big picture regarding the benefits of strength training. This popular question usually goes something like this:
“What exercise can I do to isolate my _______ (insert your muscle of choice – abs, quads, biceps, triceps, etc)?”
It doesn’t matter which muscle someone is asking about, they always seem to be asking how to ‘isolate’ it. My first response to this question is always – “Why in the world would you want to isolate it?”
The first thing I try to teach my clients is that the body does not work well in muscle isolation. Rather, it works better in movements along a kinetic chain; that is, large portions of the body assist other portions of the body in completing a complex movement. In fact, there really is no such thing as true muscle isolation. There is almost always a nearby muscle group that will assist in some way with whatever movement you are doing. However, this article compares attempting to ‘isolate’ body parts via single-joint exercises to the much more effective strategy of performing multi-joint complex movements.
When you attempt to ‘isolate’ muscles by performing single-joint exercises, you are actually creating a body that is non-functional and will be more prone to injury. Essentially, you are creating a body that is a compilation of body parts, instead of a powerful, functional unit that works together.
Now if you really want to end up hobbling around in a body bandaged up with joint problems, tendonitis, and excess body fat, then by all means, continue trying to ‘isolate’ body parts. On the other hand, if you would rather have a lean, muscular, injury-free, functional body that works as a complete powerful unit to perform complex movements (in athletics or even everyday tasks), then you need to shift your focus away from muscle isolation.
Believe me, focusing on how well your body functions will give you the side effect of a body that looks even better than it would have if you focused on muscle isolation. For example, take a look at the physiques of any NFL running backs, wide receivers, or even world class sprinters. Trust me when I say that these guys pretty much NEVER train for muscle isolation (their strength coaches wouldn’t be crazy enough to let them), yet they are absolutely ripped to shreds! Just look at guys like Maurice Green or Terrell Owens and tell me who wouldn’t want a physique like those guys.
Another benefit to moving away from the ‘muscle isolation’ mindset in weight training to a more ‘complex movement’ mindset is that you will find it much easier to lose body fat. The reason is that by focusing more on multi-joint complex movements as opposed to single-joint muscle isolation lifts, you not only burn a lot more calories during each workout, but you also increase your metabolic rate, and stimulate production of more fat burning and muscle building hormones such as growth hormone and testosterone.
Let’s look at an example. The machine leg extension is a single joint exercise that works mainly the quadriceps, can potentially cause knee joint instability in the long run, and doesn’t even burn that many calories. On the other hand, exercises like squats, lunges, step-ups, and deadlifts are all multi-joint complex movements that work hundreds of muscles in the body (including the quadriceps) as a functional unit, create more stable and strong joints in the long run (when done properly), and also burn massive quantities of calories compared to the single-joint exercises. 
Now although I do feel that multi-joint exercises should comprise the majority of your weight training workouts, I also think that there can be some benefits with just minor inclusions of single-joint exercises for variety, etc.  I choose to build my training programs with about 90-95% multi-joint exercises and about 5-10% single-joint exercises at most.

If you’re interested in discovering more ways to create a body that looks as good as it functions, pick up a copy of my innovative book The Truth About Six Pack Abs

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Lean-Body Fitness Secrets Ezine - Fat Loss Success & Failure Habits

Is This You At The Beach!
Or are you just a little overweight, want to get in shape, want to be proud when you remove your clothes on holiday! Then read on........

I just returned Sunday night from a very relaxing vacation in warm sunny Jamaica, and I'm not happy about being back in snowy, cold New Jersey...but I guess I'll deal with it.
Yes, I'll admit that even a fitness freak like me ate until I was stuffed everyday, and drank more rum than I can remember, packing on a few pounds while I was there. But now it's back to my normal lifestyle and the extra fat gained last week will be gone by the end of this week...I guarantee it! No excuses!
Anyway, I wanted to share something with you all that I noticed while I was in Jamaica on the beaches and in the pools.
One of the things that I do on a regular basis to help me continually learn about fitness success and failure is observing people's habits and actions. I feel that these observations are equally as important as reading books, journals, articles, etc. for improving my knowledge of what works and what doesn't in fitness.
Something that happens to me on a regular basis when I meet people is that once they find out that I'm a fitness professional, they start asking me questions about the things that they eat or how they exercise, and what my opinion is on it. I don't mind this, because it gives me some insight on exactly what people do, what they believe, and how things have worked for them.
I will qualify that I only give my advice if it is asked for. I never preach about fitness to someone who didn't ask for my advice. After all, I know I don't want people preaching to me about their expertise if I didn't ask for the advice.
So, one thing I noticed while on vacation last week was that out of hundreds and hundreds of people from all different countries that were walking around the sunny resorts in bathing suits, I only saw a grand total of about 4 people that had anything resembling six-pack abs. That's only 4 people out of probably close to 1000 that I saw throughout the 7 days!
This observation has nothing to do with their actions on vacation, just about their current state of fitness. Now obviously most people, including myself, are not following their normal actions and behaviors on vacation that they would in normal life. That's not the point.
I make observations about the habits and actions of both the fit people and the fat people on a daily basis to help determine successful vs. unsuccessful actions regarding weight management and general fitness. It could be at grocery stores, at the gym, at restaurants, at the office, at someone's house...all are potential spots to learn why people are either fit or fat.
Start paying attention to the actions of the people around you on a daily basis, and their corresponding body shape, and you'll learn a lot. Here are some examples of things you may notice...
You might notice that the overweight woman at the office who claims she can never lose any weight is actually the first one in the kitchen whenever someone brings in free donuts or cookies.
You might also notice that the guy with the beer gut, who says it's impossible for him to get rid of the gut, is skipping breakfast on a regular basis (a killer for your metabolism), and drinking 2 or 3 sodas a day without even realizing it. No wonder he's got a beer gut!
On the other hand, you might also notice that the girl with the slim figure, who seemingly eats all kinds of junk food (and everyone gripes that she should be fat with all of that crap she eats), never actually finishes more than half of what she's eating. When you take a closer look, she's actually not eating that many calories day in and day out, and that's why she's lean. It's not always as it appears on the surface.
The point is that there's always an underlying reason why someone is either fat or fit, and it revolves around their lifestyle, their actions, their habits. Look a little deeper and you'll learn a lot about what people do successfully and where they fail in their quest for a lean body.

If you want to be included among the fitness elite, those 4 out of 1000 people that have six-pack abs, your fully comprehensive guide, revealing all of the secrets of the super-fit class is found in my Truth about Six Pack Abs program. Action mean results!

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