I have come across a new health and fitness articles directory.  While there are many article submission directories, this one focuses only on health, fitness and nutrition. While I think article marketing is great no matter what directory you use, I noticed that the bigger directories build page rank yet send very few visitors back to my blog.  I also found that many of the big article directories contain very spammy articles that don’t even attract readers.  I think niche article directories will be the new wave of article marketing since they can build page rank and send a stream of targeted traffic.

Basically article submission helps your promote your blog in two ways.  It builds a link back to your blog or website.  Most article directories let you do this by including links in the article you submit to them.  You can just have those links pointing back to your own site.  Building these so called back links is great for increasing your blogs search engine rankings which just means more search engine traffic.  Article submission also helps you get visitors to your blog or website.  Most article directories attract lots of traffic and many of the readers of your articles will click your article’s links and end up right back on to your blog or site.

Often when one wants to lose weight they focus on how to eat right and exercise more. While both are necessary to lose weight, they are the outer game of weight loss. There is a whole other aspect which is the inner game of weight loss. This aspect is often neglected and I believe it’s the reason most people never lose weight and keep it off.

If you take the average overweight person and magically make the extra 20-30 pounds he’s carrying disappear guess what will happen? Over the next year or two he will most probably gain back all that weight. How come? Because he still has bad eating habits and inconsistent exercising habits. So how do you replace bad habits with healthy ones? This is where inner game comes in.

The inner game has to do with building discipline. A practical example is exercising when you don’t feel like it. Understand that you wont always feel like going to the gym, so when you don’t feel like it just do it anyways push through it. The same with healthy eating. Often you wont feel like eating healthy foods yet you must do it anyways. After practicing exercising and eating healthy it will become habitual and will feel natural.

Almost everyone focuses on the “outer game” of weight loss: dieting, eating right, exercising and so on.  This is why they never lose weight or if they do, they always gain the weight right back.  Many people have never even heard of the “inner game” of weight loss.

The “inner game” of weight loss is simply your thoughts, emotions, and attitudes that you need to work on to lose weight.  Say what? But I thought it was all about dieting…WRONG.  Here is a quick example.  Ever find yourself craving junk foods and reaching for them when you are depressed even though you’ve promised yourself to eat healthy?  I hope now you are starting to see how emotions can play a big role in permanent weight loss.

To deal with tough emotions you must do two things.  First you must try to eliminate the original source of those emotions if possible.  If it’s a stressful job, try looking for a new job, or talking to your boss about it.  Secondly you must find other relaxation activities instead of eating (taking a walk, calling up a friend, going to the movies etc.)

Another “inner game” factor of weight loss is your thinking.  Your thoughts are very important.  If you’ve tried to lose weight in the past and always failed, you’ve probably got lots of negative thoughts in your head.  You probably think the following “I’ll never be able to lose weight”, “What’s the point of trying when I failed too many times”, or “Maybe I should just give up and accept being fat”.

These thoughts are holding you back, they are causing you to doubt yourself and sabotage your weight loss efforts.  Each time you find a negative through going through your head, you need to stop, and rephrase the thought positively.  So if you hear your mind saying “I’ll never lose weight”, say to yourself “I will lose weight” etc.

Once you take care of the “inner game” of weight loss, the “outer game” (like exercise, eating healthy etc.) will take care of itself.  Not only will you lose the weight but you’ll also be able to keep it off.

Here is an introduction video to my weight loss challenge..

Click HERE to visit Weight Loss Window NOW.

I’ve found that emotional eating is the most common cause of weight gain.  Emotional eating is charactrized by consuming comfort food or junk food. Here is a great resource for emotional eating.  I highly recommend you check it out even if you don’t think you’re an emotional eater yet wonder why you haven’t been able to lose weight.