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• Tony's 11 Laws for a Lifetime of Fitness
• The Power of Starting Your Own Thread
• Recipe of the Week: Dijon Garlic Bean Salad
• Tip of the Week: Write It Down!

"Life is always at some turning point."

Irwin Edman

This is part one in a series on Tony's guide to health and fitness. The "11 Laws" will be examined in greater detail in subsequent issues.

		Variety. Variety is the spice of life and fitness. A lifetime of health and fitness is achievable when you can think outside the box. You have to mix it up all the time. Stay curious, creative, and stick with the kinds of workouts that you enjoy. A variety of exercises, workouts, and sports will allow you to avoid injuries, plateaus, and boredom.
		Consistency. Improvement and change occur when you do things often. Stopping and starting all the time will kill any momentum you need to succeed. You must find ways to stay in the game. Moderate forms of exercise, done consistently, provide far better results than the occasional full-body pummeling. A lifestyle that includes multiple forms of exercise five to six days a week guarantees results.
		Intensity. YOU'RE TOUGHER THAN YOU THINK. The fear of pain or injury from working out is a mindset steeped in failure. You must learn to "Find the Line." Do the extra rep or two, increase your range of motion, and increase resistance as you get stronger. Intensity goes hand in hand with Variety and Consistency. The combination of the three work together as a triad that creates a platform for success. The programs provide variety. Your plan will keep you consistent.
		Purpose. Your purpose is to have a better life. Exercise and eating right help you feel better. When you feel better, you do more. When you do more, you meet other people. A healthy lifestyle gives us the energy to be better than before. We want to participate, share, communicate, and build a community—have purpose in our lives. If you had never found Beachbody, you might be right back where you were—isolated, with nothing to share, no purpose, because you weren't doing anything with anyone.
		Reality. Why do we want life to be different than it is? Why do we think about who we were and who we're going to be more than who we are? We certainly talk a good game about who we are now. Why do we try to predict the future with the hope that wishful thinking is enough to change it? Life is NOT the way it was. It's the way it is. Life is not our fantasy predictions of the future or our glory days of the past. Life is that thing that is happening to you as you read this. We fall into the trap of living in the past and future because right here is not good enough. Back then and up there are keeping you from right now.
		Sports. Take the onus off of weight, inches, and body fat percentages and put the focus on MOVING—from dancing, rock climbing, and mountain biking to table tennis. I love that ping-pong! Think in terms of "can do" instead of "look like." Sports are fun and help develop balance and coordination—which in turn accelerates your results. Jump, kick, run, spin, throw, skate, shoot, hit, score, compete . . . PLAY!
		The Plan. SCHEDULE ALL WORKOUTS IN ADVANCE. This creates accountability. Plan an entire month ahead of time. Try to schedule as many workouts as possible with friends who have similar goals. WOWY was developed so that we could find an easy and effective way to stay accountable and work out together. Now we've got people in Trumbull, CT (my hometown), doing Power 90 at the same time with people in Hollywood. That is cool!
		Sleep (and stress). Stressed out, sleep-deprived people don't eat right and exercise regularly. Stress depletes energy, strength, and desire, while poor sleep habits affect your moods and immune function along with cognitive and motor performance. Burning the candle at both ends makes it impossible to be fit and healthy.
		Loving It. Exercise and workouts involve commitment, determination, planning, consistency, and intensity. If you don't like what you're doing, there's no way on earth you'll succeed. Enthusiasm is a very big piece of the puzzle. Get creative and stay curious. If you enjoy doing Power 90 exclusively and it works for you, then keep doing it until it doesn't. If you get part way through P90X and it's not your cup of tea, then stop, and do something else. Something's got to bring you back day after day, week after week. Love it (tolerate it) or leave it.
		Flexibility. Flexibility is the fountain of youth. Flexible people are much less prone to injury. Yoga and stretching allow you to bring more intensity to your workouts. Flexibility is the key component to becoming less vulnerable and more durable. Aging has a funny way of making everything we do harder. Staying limber and flexible is the way to prevent that from happening.
		Food and Supplements. You are what you eat! Food and supplements are your fuel. The right fuel supplies proper energy and recovery through balanced brain chemistry. The right supplements simply fill in gaps in your diet.

Tony Horton has been one of the most popular fitness trainers in L.A. for the last 20 years. He's designed numerous home fitness programs, including Power 90^®, Power Half Hour™, and P90X^®.

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The Power of Starting Your Own Thread

Four weeks into Slim in 6^®, Leah was ready to give up. As a last-ditch effort, she started a thread on the Message Boards asking for help. This initiated a roller coaster of support from members, as well as encouragement from Debbie Siebers herself.

I joined Beachbody in October 2004. I did Slim in 6 and stuck with the program to a "T." I changed my diet, started taking the vitamins and supplements, and I even did the two-day fast before I started round one. Going into my 5th week, I had only lost 2 pounds and about 4 inches total. I became very depressed and thought about giving up. I posted a thread on the Message Boards titled "I GIVE UP" because I hoped that someone would see it and help get my motivation back up. By the third day, I had received so many responses from Beachbody members encouraging me and refusing to let me quit!

I kept on going to my last week of the program and I also ordered the Power Half Hour tapes to give me something different after my first round of Slim in 6 was up. I posted to my thread after about a week to tell everyone that I indeed had not given up and was continuing through it, because I knew that it was not a six-week miracle that I wanted anyway, it was a lifestyle change. And I knew I was going to have to work hard to get there. It took me four years to get the weight on, and I knew from the start I was not going to perform miracles.

I put some very encouraging posts on the thread about how I was having ups and downs, but kept pushing through it. One day I received a post from a member THANKING ME for my thread. She said that I had actually turned her around and encouraged her to do the program. She said she wanted to hear from someone who had not gotten miracle results in six weeks, but was still making progress and enjoying the program. Even Debbie Siebers stopped in to give me some encouragement and said that she was glad that I was encouraging others through my story.

I have stuck with it and I am now rotating between the SI6 videos and the Power Half Hour tapes (which I love, by the way). To date, I have lost 12 pounds and a total of 11 inches. I went home to Louisiana last weekend to see my family and everyone noticed my new body. I felt like a walking Beachbody commercial. Now, my mom, stepmom, and my aunt are all ordering one of the programs. If I had given up and never come to the Message Boards, none of this would have happened.

To anyone out there who may be having doubts or may not be getting results right away, keep at it and NEVER give up. You can get the results you want. It just takes the will and also the wonderful support from Beachbody. Thanks to all the members who are now my friends and have helped me through this. I wish everyone the best of luck.

Keep Pushing Play!

Leah G.
Houston, TX

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In these times of strife and uncertainty, what the world really needs is more bean salad, so when Dana M. wrote in with this saucy twist on an old favorite, we were all over it.

You just couldn't ask for a better side dish to a hunk of roasted chicken or tofu. Thanks, Dana. Enjoy your T-shirt and keep making the world a better place, one legume at a time.

Ingredients
1 can Romano beans
1 can lentil beans
4–5 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 small red onion, thinly sliced
1/4 cup cilantro, chopped
1/4 cup basil or chives, chopped
1 cup cherry tomatoes, sliced in halves
4 Tbsp. Dijon mustard
1/2 cup Japanese rice vinegar

Rinse the beans well and drain. Mix all ingredients together and let the flavors meld for at least one hour. And remember, we all need to get along because we're all just human beans.

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Start a journal and record a summary of your daily or weekly workouts and/or your diet. Once in a while, review what you have written. The act of writing down what you've done works twofold. One, you'll be less apt to skip a workout and eat a Ding Dong if you know it's going in your journal. Two, writing promotes memory patterns, where, even if you don't reread your diary, you'll retain the knowledge of what works for you and what doesn't much better.

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The boards are full of motivating threads. You can jump on to one or two depending on where you're at on your fitness journey. But every once in a while, you get a thread that has the kind of soul-baring bravery that Success Stories are made of. I sat down and read HEAVENUP's thread, called "The Truth Will Set You Free" (from a tip emailed to me by MARYCECY), and was so moved. This is a person who has seen some dark days and had the courage to do the kind of soul searching necessary to come out of them and make a change.

Eloquently written and thorough, this thread is inspiring—not for the results or "before" and "after" pics (yet) but for its honesty, for its openness and willingness to begin a journey from the inside out. As HEAVENUP begins the journey back to "light," we can all learn a thing or two from her thread about commitment—what it takes to really bare your soul and commit to change. HEAVENUP is using all the tools that Beachbody offers—including setting up a schedule for herself in WOWY, listening to Steve Edwards's advice on the use of a heart rate monitor, and, of course, constantly going back to Tony Horton's "Eleven." Best of luck to HEAVENUP and thanks for having the courage to share your journey with us. It's what Team Beachbody is all about.

Speaking of sharing, KARISSAEB may win a National Geographic award for her photography skills on the recent Tony Horton Fitness Camp.

They are speaking a whole new language in FOODNAZI's thread (or maybe I'm just old). I recently got an email from AZTLGRL with some examples: "Dude, Fly, you are dropping the ball on this scoop homey! You must be huffing Raid." If anyone wants to get back to me with a translation of that sentence, you can email me at gadfly@Team Beachbody.com. But on to the actual scoop: As many of you know, FOODNAZI began yet another fitness challenge and has brought over 100 people with her. "Traci's 8" is a new WOWY group whose description is "Starting on April 25th, let's all lay out an 8 week, 6 days a week exercise PLAN!! 8 weeks of commitment to a healthier you and bringing our 'CAN DO' numbers to an all time high!" So click here to join her. And Homey: "It's all Rad. I was waiting for the number to hit over 100 before I gave it shout Yo." Seriously though, this thread has got such a great group supporting it . . . the vibe is intoxicating.

I don't usually post fan mail, especially to Tony Horton—that guy probably gets enough of it. But this is more than a fan letter. This is a great story about a teacher using the Tony & the Kids! workout video for her class:

Dear Tony,

We are K-1 Special Day Class students at Horace Mann Elementary School in Glendale, CA. Miss Glassner, our teacher, bought us the Tony and the Kids movie. The parts we like the best are: Wacky Jacks, pulling the rope, pushing the walls and ceiling and punch punch duck! We like this movie because it will help us to get muscles. It helps us to calm down so we can do our best work in class. Jason says "I want to do good handstands." Steven says "I like doing the train." Anthony says "I am getting stronger." Jeremy L. says "I love it!" Miss Glassner does a grownups' workout at home called Power 90. She got us this tape to make us strong. We like you a lot and want you to come to our classroom to do exercise.

Love,

Horace Mann Elementary School—Room 23

Gadfly, Out.

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