Dont Just Melt Fat Off - Burn It Off With A Blow Torch!
September 1, 2008
Cardio Exercise…
A huge variety of fitness activities provide cardiovascular benefits. If you’re breathing hard and can feel your heart beating, you’re doing cardio. Because walking is fun, easy, and requires little time and no financial investment, it’s our top choice for cardiovascular activity.
Walking uses your body’s largest muscle group, your legs. Because it’s rhythmic (you repeat the same basic movements), and it’s aerobic (you take in and use more oxygen than usual), when walking is sustained for more than several minutes at a time it provides fantastic cardiovascular benefits - including weight loss - and can be quickly and easily implemented into your daily routine.
Walking at a moderate pace for about 30-60 minutes burns stored fat, and can build muscle to help speed up your metabolism, burning fat even while you sleep! So, let’s start moving…
First, wake up your muscles by walking at a warm-up pace for five minutes, signaling to your muscles that they can’t just sit back and burn up the available sugars, they need to tap into your fat reserves. This means not starting your daily walk at a high speed. On the contrary, a low-intensity or low-speed start signals your muscles that you are engaging in a long-term activity, prompting the burning of stored fat, and not just sugar burning.
The TRUTH About How to Lose Weight
August 28, 2008
The huge companies stealing your money by promising impossible results if you just drink their shake, take their pill, or do 10 minutes of exercise on their wiz-bang machines are abusing your trust in the name of profits and market share.
The real truth is that most (if not all) the products they’re peddling are worthless ? to you, that is. To them, the products are incredibly valuable ? because they’re raking in huge profits at your expense.
· Are you sick of the hype and outright deception being fed to you by the weight loss and fitness industries?
· Are you tired of being led to believe it’s your fault when the junk they push on you doesn’t work?
· Do you want someone you can trust to tell you the truth about real, lasting weight loss and fitness, and show you how to quickly and easily adapt your eating and exercising habits so you can achieve the results you want and deserve?
If you answered "YES!" to any of these questions, then this may be the most important article you ever read.
Why is it so EASY to GAIN WEIGHT during the HOLIDAYS?
August 23, 2008
I’m sure you have pondered this question, for it is no secret that we all tend to put on a few pounds during this magical time of year! For many of us across the globe it is a tradition to ring in the New Year with our belts loosened and seams bursting. Read on for 5 reasons why it is so easy to gain weight during the month of December, and what you can do to avoid them!
REASON #1: Have Yourself a Merry Little Eggnog
What tastes better on a cold December day than a mug of Hot Cocoa, Spiced Apple Cider, or Rich Eggnog? The holidays are filled with occasions for us to congregate and indulge in calorie packed beverages. An average glass of Eggnog packs over 340 calories and close to 20 grams of fat! Drinking just 10 glasses of Eggnog during the month of December will result in a 1 lb weight gain! This year steer clear of the calorie filled beverages and stick to drinking water.
REASON #2: Deck The Halls with Boughs of Finger Food
Learn the Truth About Weight Loss and Getting Great Abs
August 17, 2008
Debunking The Ab Myth
Ab training has been done to death but it’s time to take another look. Why? Because people are still training their abs wrong so all that ab training information must not be doing the job.
1 - No Spot Reducing - Endless crunches will not melt away the fat from your midsection. It just doesn’t work that way. And despite the “burn” of high rep ab exercises, you barely burn any calories while doing those endless crunches.
Your fat burning time is best spent elsewhere on more effective training. You also don’t work the ab muscle intensely enough to develop it.
So endless high rep crunches fail on both counts - poor muscle building and poor fat burning. Two thumbs down as the cliche goes.
2 - The Abs are a Muscle and should be trained as such. You don’t need high reps and lots of sets to work your abs. This just leads to overtraining.
Now, abs are a more endurance oriented muscle so slightly higher reps may be more effective. However, you should keep the reps at 20 or lower and work on increasing the resistance.
For Effective Weight Loss - Curb Hunger And Avoid The Binge
August 15, 2008
Curb Hunger and Avoid The Costly Binge
Everyone’s been there - you miss a meal or you are getting used to a lower calorie phase of your nutrition plan when the munchies hit. You grab the nearest and quickest food available - usually a high carb snack food - and you chow down. And to add insult to injury you find yourself hungry again just as quickly as someone who didn’t snack!
The best thing you can do to avoid this is to plan ahead and always have a meal ready to go quickly. Sure, this can’t always be done but it’s your best bet to avoiding binges.
When hunger pangs hit - DO SOMETHING! And I don’t mean eat. Drink water, go for a walk, etc. You’ll find that the hunger pangs subside in about 10 minutes or so - unless you’ve missed a meal and are really hungry.
If you must snack, make sure to always have high protein food available. You’ll stay fuller longer as it takes your body more time to digest protein.
Try to keep some of these things handy -
Cooked kitchen strips - one cup has 38 grams of protein and only 180 calories
Lose Weight and Get Fit by Getting Fat
August 12, 2008
Getting enough of the good fats will help you lose fat, build muscle, and recover faster from your workouts. In addition, it has myriad health benefits, including being good for your heart.
Good fats include: polyunsaturated (especially Omega-3’s), such as those from fish and nuts, as well as monosaturated fats, such as those from peanut butter, olive oil, egg yolks, and fish oil.
Bad fats include saturated fats from things such as animal and coconut fats. Then there is the worst kind of fat the man made kind, trans fatty acids which can be found in our typical, of no redeeming value, junk foods such cookies, chips, fries and margarine.
Limit, if not stay completely away from, the bad fats and try to get about 30 - 35% of your calories from the good fats.
“Studies show that higher-fat diets make more sense for fit people than low-fat diets,” says Liz Applegate, Ph.D., author of Encyclopedia of Sports & Fitness Nutrition. “In one study, endurance athletes ran up to 24 percent longer before they fatigued when they ate a diet that was above 30 percent fat compared to one that was below 20 percent,” she says.
How Many Calories Can I Have And Still Lose Weight?
August 6, 2008
How to Estimate How Many Calories You Can Have and Still Lose Weight
To figure out how many calories you should have, first start with where you are. In other words, figure out how many calories it takes to maintain your present size and then reduce from there. You can go about this in many ways. Most people simply choose an arbitrary number like 1200 calories and that’s what they eat, but in nearly every case that’s not nearly enough calories to ensure adequate nutrition, not to mention the deprivation that sets up.
While losing weight and to this day, I eat over 2000 calories a day on average and I’ve maintained a good weight for my height for over 17 years. Remember, your body requires calories to maintain itself.
Basic Calorie Requirements Calculation Based on Activity Level:
Sedentary : 13 X Weight = Avg. cal/day Sedentary is not exercising at all
Moderately Active: 16 X Weight = Avg. cal/day Moderately Active is exercising approximately 3-4 times per week
Very Active: 19 X Weight = Avg. cal/day Very Active is 5-7 strenuous exercise sessions per week.
Mastering the Motivation to Stay Fit
August 2, 2008
Have you ever just felt like you were doing everything you were supposed to in order to lose weight and STILL weren’t dropping the pounds?
During her journey to lose 40lbs in 16 weeks, my good friend Kim faced some pretty serious challenges with regards to her level of motivation before being featured on my YourBestBodyNOW web site.
Another friend of mine, Antonio Goodwin, who lost 4 inches from his waistline in 9 weeks with my program, faced the same frustration.
The problem was that at several times during their weight loss, they both felt as if they were not losing much weight and were not seeing results.
Now, a look at either of their before and after photos on my web sites shows that each of them made quite a substantial improvement in their bodies.
So what would make someone who’s losing weight each week feel as if they were not?
I’ll tell you exactly what. Its referred to as the emotional roller coaster.
This is how it usually goes:
You start a new diet or weight loss program. You’re all excited to be doing something great for your health and the way you look, and you’re sticking to the program, step by step.
How to Exercise and Lose Weight on a Busy Schedule
July 29, 2008
In my fitness consulting business, I get the opportunity to talk with people from all walks of life about their health, fitness, and weight loss goals. Whether their goal is to lose weight, gain muscle, stick to a diet plan or program, improve their cardiovascular health, or simply to maintain their current fitness level they all have one common enemy—TIME.
For most of us, the #1 challenge in the quest to stay in shape and/or lose weight is not exercising itself but being able to actually fit an exercise program into our busy schedules.
So how do you do it? How do you balance the demands of family, career, important errands, relationships, organizational responsibilities, and working out? I have found that there are five keys that will help you to be able to fit a consistent workout plan into your already hectic life.
When you fail to plan you plan to fail. Don’t try to haphazardly fit your workouts into your schedule without any rhyme or reason. Don’t think you’re guilty? If you’ve ever told yourself “I’ll workout as soon as I get some time”, you were in direct violation of this key principle.
Weight Loss Maintenance Tip - Staying Aware
July 26, 2008
Stop Weight From Creeping Up By Staying Aware
Everyone has small weight gains and losses but if those gains aren’t noticed, and if the trend toward weight gain continues, then those extra pounds can become permanent. You’ll know it because your clothes start to be too tight. If they get tight and stay tight, then you’ve got a decision to make. For me, when this happens, I notice the trend, and then work to reverse it if I’m getting a bit too comfortable at a higher weight (body fat) than what I really want.
For me a small weight gain is difficult to notice because I tend to gain it evenly all over. I can lose 10 pounds and no one will notice but me, but my clothes fit better, my disposition is better and I feel so much better. They do notice the spring in my step and the smile on my face.
Winter Weight Gain
