Burn Calories and Lose Weight

Fat Loss

1. Eat smaller more frequent meals – not only is your metabolism boosted every time you eat something, your body can more efficiently process smaller meals. Instead of having 3 large meals in a day, try to break them up into 5 or 6 smaller meals.

2. Drink more water - regular water intake helps to flush away waste products in the body. Get at least six to eight 8 oz. glasses per day. An easy way to do this is to keep a water bottle handy and drink from it frequently.

3. Be inefficient – do you need to go to the kitchen to get a couple of things? Break it up into to two trips even if you can do it in one. Being inefficient like this can easily double your activity level, burning calories without even trying.

4. Eat more protein – sources of protein include foods such as chicken, fish, eggs, dairy, beans, lean red meats, etc. Your body burns more calories processing protein than either carbohydrates or fats. Protein also helps to support your muscle tissue, which burns calories all day long!

5. Take the stairs instead of the elevator – any time you can add in a little more physical activity, do it. This doesn’t mean you need to slog up 20 flights of stairs. Even a flight or two done regularly will add up.

6. Don’t let yourself get hungry – when you get hungry you will have a much greater tendency to overeat when you do finally get something to eat. As well, because your body is starting to go into starvation mode, it will be much more likely to hold onto whatever you give it.

7. Order small portions at restaurants – it’s tough to order small french fries when “supersizing” your order is such a great “value.” Take note, however, your real savings will occur in the calories that don’t end up on your backside.

8. Eat more fiber – fiber is very filling. By eating more fiber you will find yourself full sooner. This feeling of fullness will last a long time as well.

9. Wait 20 minutes between servings – your brain takes at least 20 minutes to register that you’re full. By waiting that long, you’ll give your brain a chance to realize that you don’t really need any more food.

10. Cheat on your diet – one thing I always make my clients promise is that they will cheat on their diet. The only thing I ask that they do is to cheat ONLY when they have planned to cheat. By planning when you are going to eat the foods you crave, you take back control of your eating habits.

This way you no longer “give in” to your cravings. You “reward yourself” for sticking to proper nutritional habits. Do this once or twice a week and you will feel far more in control of your eating.

In conclusion, if you follow even a few of these 10 easy tips in the long term, you will certainly notice a difference in your overall weight and health.
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Nick Nilsson is Vice-President of the online personal training company BetterU, Inc. He has a degree in Physical Education and Psychology and has been inventing new training techniques for more than 16 years. Nick is the author of a number of bodybuilding eBooks including “Metabolic Surge – Rapid Fat Loss,” “The Best Exercises You’ve Never Heard Of,” “Gluteus to the Maximus – Build a Bigger Butt NOW!” and “The Best Abdominal Exercises You’ve Never Heard Of” all available at BetterU. He can be contacted at betteru@fitstep.com.

The speed of your metabolism is the real key to burning
fat quickly and efficiently. Here are seven easy tips
for boosting your metabolic rate.

Your metabolism or metabolic rate can determine exactly how quickly you gain or lose fat. Here are some quick tips you can put to use immediately to help crank up your metabolism and increase your fat burning.

1. Eat Breakfast
It’s no myth that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. If you skip breakfast thinking you are saving calories or time, consider this…
Your body has been in a fasting state for 8 hours or more. When you wake up and don’t give it any food, its natural reaction is self-defense. It thinks “famine” and automatically slows your metabolism to a crawl to conserve calories. Not only does everything you eat for the rest of the day have a far greater chance of being stored as fat, your chances of burning any fat off that day are low.
And here’s the whammy… you’re going to get really hungry later and will probably want to eat something that’s not so good for you. With your now-slower metabolism (because you skipped breakfast), you’re going to store a lot more of that “not-so-great” meal than usual.

2. Eat Frequently
Besides skipping breakfast, the next biggest metabolism-killer is long waits between meals. Every time you eat something, your metabolism ramps up to process the food. The more frequently you eat, the more frequently your metabolism will get a boost.
The real key, however, is to be sure you’re eating smaller meals (eating 5 big meals instead of 3 big meals isn’t good for losing fat!). Try to eat 5 or more times per day, even if it’s just healthy snacks between meals.

3. Exercise With Intensity
Your metabolic rate is directly related to the intensity of the exercise you perform. Walking will burn calories while you’re doing it and give your metabolism a small boost for a little while after but it doesn’t compare to high-intensity interval training. That type of training can boost your metabolism for a full 24 hours or more after.
Even if you can’t handle high-intensity training, you can always find ways to make the easier exercises such as walking more intense, e.g. walk faster, walk up hills, wear a weighted back-pack, etc.

4. Train With Weights
Weight training builds muscle and muscle is a huge factor in determining your metabolic rate. Muscle tissue is very metabolically active. Your body burns a lot of calories just to maintain it.
Weight training gives your metabolism a triple-shot. Not only do you burn calories during the exercise, you also increase your metabolic rate long after the exercise (provided the training you are doing is intense). Add to that the extra muscle you build from the training and you can see how effective weights can be for boosting your metabolism.

5. Eat More Protein
Of the three major macronutrients (protein, carbohydrates and fats), protein requires the most energy to digest. Protein is also less likely to be stored as fat because of this. Protein will also help you to build up your muscle.
I don’t recommend that you overload on protein, however, focusing on getting plenty of good-quality protein from a variety of sources (e.g. lean meats, chicken, fish, eggs, soy, etc.) can help keep your metabolic rate high.

6. Take Your Vitamins
Your metabolic rate basically boils down to chemical reactions in your body. Vitamins and minerals (and water) are important parts of these chemical reactions. If you don’t have enough of these components available for your body to use when it needs them, your body will have to limit itself to what you’ve got.
Think of your metabolism as a car assembly line. You can’t build a complete car until you have all the parts available. If, for example, you only have enough doors available to build 100 cars but you have 200 doorless cars on the line, you’re missing out on a lot of potential production.
By taking a multivitamin on a regular basis, you will not only support your metabolism but your health as well.

7. Reduce Your Fat Intake
Fatty foods take longer for your body to digest and they leave you feeling fuller longer. While not being hungry is certainly fine when trying to lose fat, eating meals that encourage you to wait longer periods between eating can slow your metabolism.
This goes back to the point about eating frequently. If you eat fatty foods for breakfast, you may not want to anything again until lunch, which could be 5 or more hours away. Ideally, you should eat approximately every 3 hours.

If you’re looking to give your metabolism a boost, give these tips a try. A faster metabolic rate can help you tremendously with fat loss.
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Nick Nilsson is Vice-President of the online personal training company BetterU, Inc. He has a degree in Physical Education and Psychology and has been inventing new training techniques for more than 16 years. Nick is the author of a number of bodybuilding eBooks including “Metabolic Surge – Rapid Fat Loss,” “The Best Exercises You’ve Never Heard Of,” “Gluteus to the Maximus – Build a Bigger Butt NOW!” and “The Best Abdominal Exercises You’ve Never Heard Of” all available at BetterU. He can be contacted at betteru@fitstep.com.

An interview by Geovanni Derice with Mike Geary – Certified Nutrition Specialist, Certified Personal Trainer

I had the pleasure of being interviewed recently by a fitness professional from NYC, Certified Personal Trainer, Geovanni Derice. The interview is below and I think you’re going to like it… I reveal some of the hardest hitting strategies for getting rid of that stubborn stomach fat to uncover those flat six pack abs that everyone wants.

“GD: Welcome Mike to our 4-ever-Toned Fitness Journal. For those who do not know you, please tell us a few things about yourself and how you can help our readers with their fitness and health.

MG: Thanks for having me, Geo. Well, to go back a little, I have been heavily involved in fitness and sports for about 17 years now, ever since I was a teenager. Being involved in sports in high school got me interested in strength training and conditioning.

At that point, once I started feeling more energetic, getting stronger, and looking better, I was instantly hooked for life. I’m 33 now and still addicted to the way living a healthy and fit lifestyle makes me feel energetic, confident, strong, and youthful on a daily basis.
I decided earlier in my 20’s that I wanted to make the commitment to help other people experience the excitement of being fit and getting in the best shape of their lives, especially since we’ve reached an epidemic of obesity, heart disease, diabetes, cancer, depression, etc. That’s why I became a fitness professional. It just gives me so much satisfaction to help others, who have struggled for years to get in good shape, and show them that it can be done, and it can be fun in the process.

I’ve expanded over the years from just reaching local individuals with personal training, into being able to help people all over the globe achieve their fitness goals with the reach of the internet. I only hope that my passion for fitness inspires people to take action and improve how they look and feel for life.

GD: Now Mike, there’s so many things out there as to what works and what does not work… if you had to pick 3 things that work time and time again to get flat lean abs, what would they be?

MG: The first and most important thing to get control of in order to lose your belly fat and get flat abs is cleaning up your diet. Exercise is important, but your diet is king when it comes to losing body fat so that you can see your abs.

There’s so much confusion these days about what a healthy diet that promotes fat loss really is… after all, we are bombarded by conflicting messages in the media about what is healthy and what is not, and you have all of these gimmicky diet books about low carb, low fat, high protein, vegetarian, fasting, atkins, south beach, liquid diets, and hundreds more. There’s so much conflicting info, that the average consumer doesn’t even know where to start when it comes to eating for fat loss.

The second thing that works time and time again, is to focus on the intensity of your workouts and focus on working the body as a whole in order to get the best metabolic response to lose that stubborn stomach fat.

In order to really get lean, the workouts should have a high intensity, with short rest periods, working the largest muscle groups of the body, instead of trying to isolate specific small muscles like the biceps, triceps, or calves.

For the third thing, let’s talk about actually training the abs specifically. When it comes to training the abs, if you want real results, I always recommend forgetting about the crunches and situps for the most part. They are ok for someone that is really deconditioned, but most people that already have some training under their belt need a much better stimulus for their abs than crunches. Crunches are one of the abs exercises that actually provide the least amount of resistance, and remember that resistance is what develops and tones the muscles.

I provide a ton of great abs exercises in my book, but one of THE highest resistance exercises for the abs, is hanging leg raises (but NOT the way you see most people at the gym doing them). The key to doing these and actually working the hell out of your abs is to curl your pelvis up as you raise your legs. Almost nobody ever does this right. To be honest, the majority of people cannot do this at first, but I provide some strategies in my book as to how to progress to doing these correctly.

GD: What are people doing wrong when it comes to developing the coveted “6 pack abs”?

MG: Well Geo, I know this sounds funny to most people, but the MAIN thing that people are doing wrong to get those flat 6-pack abs is… are you ready for this?

They spend entirely too much time focusing on training their abs! WAY too much time spent on abs exercises. Sounds crazy, but it’s true.

Remember, having a flat and visible six pack of abs is all about getting down to a low body fat percentage. In order to do that, your workouts must focus on stimulating a fat burning hormonal environment in your body, and increasing your metabolic rate. That just does not happen when you focus too much time training a small muscle group like the abs.

Instead, you must use the majority of your time focusing on training the largest muscle groups of the body like the legs, back, and chest. That’s what stimulates your metabolism and the fat burning hormones that will get you truly lean and sporting a flat sixxer!

GD: Which exercises are the top exercises that people need to do if they are to get maximum defintion with their midsection?

MG: When it comes to developing the abs themselves, I again refer to any kinds of hanging abs exercises, as well as some good floor abs exercises like lying leg thrusts (all described and illustrated in my book).
However, maximum definition in the abs and midsection comes from losing bodyfat, and the most effective exercises featured in my program for that goal are various forms of swings and snatches (unique dumbbell or kettlebell exercises that almost nobody ever does in normal gyms), squats, deadlifts, lunges, step-ups, clean & presses, mountain climbers, sprinting, and other full body exercises and calisthenics. If you want great looking flat abs, focus on those instead of focusing so much on training the abs directly!

GD: When it comes to diet Mike, people really have tried millions of ways to get one thing… and that is fat loss. What recommendations have you used to successfully help your clients lose body fat and keep it off?

MG: I have included a fully comprehensive discussion of this topic in my book, which accounts for almost half of the book, but I’ll try to make some nice simple generalizations to get people started on the right path immediately. The most important thing is that your diet is as natural and unprocessed as possible. It almost always comes back to the overprocessing of food that makes it unhealthy, and makes it totally wreck your metabolism and hormone balance in your body.

For example, why eat refined grains, when you can eat whole grains (even better are sprouted grains, as I usually recommend limiting grain foods overall for best results).

Why eat refined sugar, when you can get natural sources of sugar from a high nutrient whole food like fruit. Why eat highly processed, refined, and hydrogenated vegetable oils (these are THE worst thing in the modern diet), when you can eat natural sources of healthy fats like nuts, avocados, fish, eggs, coconut milk, organically raised meat, and so forth.

The point is to not fall for some gimmick like extremely low carbs (although I do believe in a fairly reduced carb intake as that is a big problem for most people), low fat, super high protein, or any other combination that has you focusing on one macronutrient vs. another.

Your body needs all macronutrients to thrive and obtain a variety of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, etc. Trying to cut an entire food group out just works against what your body needs. I get into much more detail on this vitally important topic towards losing body fat (especially that stubborn stomach fat) for life in my book.

GD: Thank you very much Mike for sharing with us all of this great information.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this interview and plucked several nuggets of info to get you motivated and started on showing off your flat abs shortly. If you don’t already own a copy, be sure to pick up a copy of my Truth about Six Pack Abs book and discover the entire system I’ve developed for ridding yourself of that extra ab fat for good!

A quick fat loss diet is not hard to find, but finding the correct one is very difficult.

How do you know which diet is the right one for you?

Below are listed 5 simple steps to follow for your quick fat loss diet.

When planning your diet you must first look at how many calories you eat.

How do you know how many calories you should consumer per day?

You can find formulas almost anywhere with a little research that you can use to find out how many calories you should have per day.

You should lower your caloric intake by only 15-20% only.

You should not cut calories drastically when trying to plan a quick fat loss diet.

Proper nutritional requirements are a must when following a quick fat loss diet.

As part of a quick fat loss diet, you need to have a specific amount of each of the macronutrients each day.

Each day you should aim for 45% Carbohydrates, 35% Protein and 20% Fat.

Space out your meals each day.

You will need to eat more frequently on the quick fat loss diet than just the 3 square meals a day that you are probably used to.

Eating 5-7 small meals every 2-3 hours is what you should aim for each day.

You will have many negative effects on your body during a quick fat loss diet if you only eat 1-3 times per day.

The quick fat loss plan requires that you drink more water each day.

To reshape your body and lose weight you must increase your water intake.

Not drinking enough water will force your body to become dehydrated, and this is not a good thing.

There are many negative side effects of dehydration, and these side effects will be a problem for other steps in your quick fat loss diet.

Adding exercise is probably the most important step in your quick fat loss diet.

It is crucial that you start exercising as soon as possible if you are not already exercising.

When trying to lose weight, you cannot just lower your caloric intake and do nothing else to reach your goals.

If you have more lean muscle mass, your body burns fat quicker.

Lean muscle mass is built through exercise.

A quick fat loss plan requires both cardio exercise and weight training.

You must research many factors before choosing the best quick fat loss diet for you.

To reach your goals quicker you should follow all of the steps listed above.

These are a great start to a quick fat loss diet plan.

By Alwyn Cosgrove, CSCS and Charles Staley, MSS
Staley Training Systems

Since the inception of the Escalating Density Training system, one of the most common inquiries we receive at the office is “When are you going to write about EDT for fat loss?”

How about right now?
As it turns out, EDT is perhaps the simplest and most effective training technique available for body composition training. I was recently talking to my colleague Alwyn Cosgrove, owner of Results Fitness Training in Newhall, California has been using EDT-inspired training programs to facilitate rapid losses in bodyfat with his clients for several months now. In fact, Alwyn claims an average loss of 2% bodyfat per month with no dietary changes at all. However, there is a price to be paid for quick results, and this program does exact a heavy toll. Cosgrove joking refers to it as “Rambo training” it’s not for wussies. I agree, but at the same time, this is about as fun as hard work can be. Have a look:

The Program
This EDT cycle is simple, brief and yet quite brutal. You’ll perform (3) 15-Minute “PR Zones” where you’ll attempt to accumulate as many total reps as possible and then improve upon that number every workout (see “EDT Loading Parameters” for more details).
Each and every workout you know how long it’ll last and you also know exactly what you need to accomplish. It’s that simple. Here’s your program, make exercise substitutions if equipment or injury restrictions warrant.

Monday
First PR Zone (15 Minutes)
A-1: Chins
A-2: Hack Squat
Rest: 5 Minutes
Second PR Zone (15 Minutes)
A-1: Rows
A-2: Seated Leg Curl
Rest: 5 Minutes
Third PR Zone (15 Minutes)
A-1: Overhead Press Machine
A-2: Incline Board Sit-Ups

Wednesday
First PR Zone (15 Minutes)
A-1: Dips
A-2: Back Extension
Rest: 5 Minutes
Second PR Zone (15 Minutes)
A-1: Incline Press Machine
A-2: Leg Extension
Rest: 5 Minutes
Third PR Zone (15 Minutes)
A-1: Flat Dumbbell Bench Press
A-2: Reverse Trunk Twist on Ball

Friday
First PR Zone (15 Minutes)
A-1: Dumbbell Deadlift
A-2: Push Press
Rest: 5 Minutes
Second PR Zone (15 Minutes)
A-1: Preacher Curl
A-2: Lying Dumbbell Triceps Extension
Rest: 5 Minutes
Third PR Zone (15 Minutes)
A-1: Standing Lateral Raise
A-2: Prone Ball Roll

COSGROVE: Note that you can also reduce the rest periods between PR zones thereby further increasing the density. I also prefer to have a bigger rep “buffer.” In regular EDT, I allow 20% more reps before I increase the loads.
In Fat Loss EDT, I don’t increase the loads until you perform 30% more reps. I think the higher volume helps with fat loss (this assumes a good load selection initially). Another rule I use is that the eccentric phase should be controlled, the concentric should be accelerative.

EDT Loading Parameters
For those not yet familiar with EDT’s unique loading parameters, here’s the nuts and bolts:
Escalating Density Training is based on the concept of doing more and more work from workout to workout. Therefore, it’s critical that your exercise biomechanics (i.e., technique) is consistent on every workout. If you perform strict curls on one workout and loose form the next, you aren’t really doing more work (for the arms at least!)
• I recommend 10-15 minutes of light to moderate cardio, followed by 10-15 minutes of light stretching on ìoffî days for the purpose of promoting active recovery and reducing soreness.
• Each workout in this cycle consists of (3) PR Zones of 15-minutes duration separated by a short (5-minute) rest periods. In each PR Zone, you’ll generally perform two exercises, for a total of 3-4 exercises per workout.
• In each PR Zone, you’ll typically perform two antagonistic exercises in alternating fashion, back and forth, using the same weight for all sets, until the PR Zone has elapsed.
• After warming up the first exercise(s), select a load that approximates a 10RM for each exercise. Ideally, the weight used for each exercise should be equally difficult.

Sets/Reps/Rest Intervals: This is where EDT is truly unique. Most people will find it most productive to do higher repetition (but not maximal effort) sets and shorter rests at the beginning, and then gradually progress to fewer reps per set and longer rest intervals as fatigue accumulates.
As an example, you might begin by performing sets of 5 with very short (10-15 second) rests. As you begin to fatigue, you’ll increase your rest intervals as you drop down to sets of 4, then 2, and as the time limit approaches, you might crank out a few singles in an effort of accomplish as many repetitions as possible in the time allotted.

NOTE: Do not perform early sets to failure, or even near failure. My recommended starting point is to do 1/2 of what is possible (e.g., 5 reps with a 10RM weight) at the beginning of the time frame. As the time limit approaches however, you’ll find yourself working at or near failure as you attempt to break your rep record.

Progression: Each time you repeat the workout; your objective is to simply perform more total repetitions in the same time frame. As soon as you can increase the total number of reps by 20 percent or more, start the next workout with 5 percent more weight and start over. Similarly, if you manage to improve upon your last performance (for the same workout) by 40 percent, then you’ll increase your weights by 10 percent on the next workout.

PROGRESS ACCELERATION TIPS:
I like amino acids as the post workout meal – an hour later I have a shake with fiber when training for fat loss.
Aerobics: avoid like the plague – they cause you to lose muscle, and they help you to become more efficient at burning fat. So how would you like your fat burning machinery to get smaller and more efficient when you are trying to lose fat ? Thought so.
For the EXTREME RAMBO HARDCORE ADDICT: Do EDT using hybrid lifts – see below. Another very cool yet brutal tip is to do TWO 15 min periods in the workout but perform TWO EDT workouts per day. Brutal but it’ll carve you up.

Day One:
First PR Zone (15 Minutes)
A1 Alternating max lunge
A2 Seated Cable Rows
Second PR Zone (15 Minutes)
B1 Step Up
B2 Push up-prone tuck combo
Third PR Zone (15 Minutes)
C1 DB Squat and Press
C2 Close Grip Pulldown

Day Two:
First PR Zone (15 Minutes)
A1 Bulgarian Split Squat
A2 Push Press
Second PR Zone (15 Minutes)
B1 SHELC
B2 Seated Row to neck
Second PR Zone (15 Minutes)
C1 Good morning squat hybrid
C2 Incline Db Press

Day Three :
First PR Zone (15 Minutes)
A1 Deadlift
A2 Pullover
Second PR Zone (15 Minutes)
B1 Lateral Lunge and touch
B2 Arnold Press
Third PR Zone (15 Minutes)
C1 DB Swiss Ball Crunch
C2 Bent Over DB Row

Fuel For EDT
To maximize the effectiveness of this EDT fat-loss program, employ the following nutritional strategies:
1) Reduce consumption of refined carbohydrate (breads, pastas, white rice, potatoes, grains, cakes, cookies, etc.) to a bare minimum, especially later in the day.
2) Virtually all meals should contain a fiber source, expect for post-workout meals, which should ideally be a fast-absorbing protein/carb shake. Check out a cool product called Fiber Smart. This is a unique, dietary fiber made from flax seeds and other top quality ingredients to support proper function and health. It also contains Acidophilus and Bifidus to promote a health bacterial balance and amino acids to support a healthy digestive lining.
2) Eat every 3 hours for a total of 5 to 6 meals per day. No exceptions. Schedule meals as if they were appointments with yourself, because that’s what they really are when you think about it.
3) Calculate or estimate your lean body mass (total weight – fat weight) and eat one gram of animal-source protein per pound of lean bodyweight per day, divided into 5 or 6 meals. For an individual who weighs 200 pounds and is 15% body fat, this would mean 170 grams per day, which would equate to 5 meals containing 34 grams of protein per meal.
4) Hydrate! My recommended water intake is 60 percent of your bodyweight in pounds, converted to ounces, per day. For example, if you weigh 150 pounds, drink 90 ounces of water per day.
5) Watch out for “hidden” sources of fat and sodium such as various salad dressings and condiments.
6) Educate yourself on the caloric value of what you eat. If you’re not losing weight (fat) you’ll need to eat slightly less calories, and/or increase caloric expenditure (via exercise). There may be some trial and error at first as you learn more about how many calories you’ll need to create an energy deficit. COSGROVE: this is key. Violate this rule and you are toast.
7) Develop strategies to cope with difficult situations, such as family get-togethers and going out to eat. COSGROVE: Fast food? Yesó it’s called grilled chicken sandwich. Fries, no.
Virtually all breakfast cereals are to be avoided – they almost always contain high levels of calories, sugar and non-existent protein and fiber content – the worst possible type of food. COSGROVE: the only cereal you can have is oatmeal. Nothing else.
9) Some saturated fat is OK, but it’s easy to take in more than you realize – be careful with salad dressings, condiments, grilled meats, fried foods, Chinese food, gravies, etc.
10) Stop analyzing everything to death and get down to basics – it’s not that difficult to figure out how to eat right. Which brings us to…
11) Staley on “simplexity”: OK, let’s get down to brass tacks here – EAT LESS! I’m often asked about the fat loss value of various foods like grapefruit, cider vinegar, etc. My patented response is “Any food will make you lose weight- if you eat too little of it.”
A little trick is in order here – the next time you feel hungry, instead of giving in to it and feeling deprived, tell yourself “OK- this is good – it’s a sign that I’m doing the right thing.” Trick yourself into believing that being hungry is desirable.
12) Here’s what Cosgrove has to say about cheating:
If you cheat: DO NOT, I repeat DO NOT change your next meal. I see many clients who overeat at one meal and then under eat at the next meal as a kind of “payback.” All you did now was screw up TWO meals.
If you cheat: get right back on track. A lot of people think after cheating – I’ve blown it – so I might as well REALLY blow it! Let me ask you – if you get a flat tire do you get out of your car and slash the other three? Hey, you have a flat tire – might as well have four, right?
13) Cosgrove on hunger: Hunger is a sign that your body is lacking in energy. At this point your body will use stored fat as a fuel source. It’s a good thing. While I agree with Dr. Eric Serrano that calories are not created equal – it’s tough to argue that eating less calories will cause anything other than weight loss. It’s the law of thermodynamics.
________________________________________

About The Author
Charles Staley…world-class strength/performance coach…his colleagues call him an iconoclast, a visionary, a rule-breaker. His clients call him “The Secret Weapon” for his ability to see what other coaches miss. Charles calls himself a “geek” who struggled in Phys Ed throughout school. Whatever you call him, Charles’ methods are ahead of their time and quickly produce serious results.
Click here to visit Charles’ site and grab your 5 FREE videos that will show you how to literally FORCE your body to build muscle, lose fat and gain strength with “Escalating Density Training,” Charles’ revolutionary, time-saving approach to lifting that focuses on performance NOT pain.

By Nick Nilsson

Metabolic Surge – Rapid Fat Loss

If you want to lose fat as quickly as possible, you have to be inefficient…
the more inefficient you are the faster your results will be!
Find out why and how exactly it works…

So here’s the thing…when you’re training to lose fat, efficient is the LAST thing you want to be. Now don’t look at me like that. Allow me to explain…

Let me set the stage for you…you began your fat-loss training and all the weight training exercises were new and tough. All the cardio was challenging. The diet was rough. Yet you started losing fat FAST. Then you started getting into the groove – you learned the exercises and training techniques, you got good at the cardio and could really power through it. Even the diet part was getting easier. Now, you would think with things going this well (your training and eating actually improving as you were going) that your fat loss would actually be accelerated.

But then things started to slow down. You’re training just as hard. The cardio is tough but you’ve found your stride with it. The diet part is going well. Is your metabolism slowing down? You take a few days off and eat more to try and reset your metabolism and then jump back in but things still aren’t moving. What now?

Time to go back to the drawing board and quite literally go back to when you were BAD at things! Because when you were BAD at things, everything you did seemed to take more energy. It was inefficient. And in that inefficiency, you burned a LOT more calories…getting the idea now?

Let’s take running as an example as this is a very visual thing. Look at two people…one is a first-time jogger, trying to get into shape. The other is an experienced runner. Let’s also assume these two people weigh exactly the same so they SHOULD be burning the same number of calories when they cover the same distance, right?

But when you see the poor guy slogging his way down the side of the road, barely lifting his feet off the ground and you see the OTHER guy practically floating past him, who do you think is burning more calories and challenging their body to a greater degree?
The guy who is completely inefficient is driving his metabolism to a whole other level than the experienced runner, even though the runner is probably going 3 or 4 times faster!

So here’s the take-home lesson. When fat loss starts to slow down, you don’t necessarily need to work harder at the same things you’re already doing…you may just need to do something completely different! Let’s say you’re used to doing barbell bench press for chest and rarely ever do dips. Even if you push yourself on the bench press, what do you think will get you cranked up more…bench press or dips? You’ll be so unused to doing dips that your body will have to work a lot harder just to perform the exercise. Then when you get too good at dips, switch to dumbbell bench press. Keep doing stuff you’re NOT good at!

You want to really lose fat? Put together a program based on exercises you STINK at or rarely do (maybe because you stink at them). You may have to use a lot less weight but I can promise, you’ll kick your metabolism into gear far more than when you cruise through even tough sets of exercises you ARE good at. Try a workout based on weighted dips, front squats, wide-grip barbell rows, hang clean and press, and stiff-legged deadlifts.

Or if you’re good at those, go with exercises you’re NOT good at. Force yourself to do them until you GET good at them, then move on to something else. When it comes to cardio training, do you do interval training on the treadmill? Get out to an athletic field and do sprints there instead. Kick butt on the stair machine? Try some real stairs and see what happens! Or, even better, do something TOTALLY different like swimming.

I think you’re getting the idea…when the body gets good at something, it gets lazy and efficient. It uses as little energy as possible and CAN use very little energy because it IS so efficient. It might be tough on the ego, but by working with exercises you’re not good at, you’ll actually be speeding up your fat loss significantly. And, as a bonus, you might just get good at exercises you used to stink at!

Now, if you’re interested in a fat-loss program geared towards keeping you inefficient, I’d definitely recommend checking out my Metabolic Surge program.

The training and eating are constantly changing, never allowing your body to get accustomed to (or efficient at!) really any of it. This not only gets you better results, it keeps things challenging and interesting.

Metabolic Surge – Rapid Fat Loss

——————
Nick Nilsson is Vice-President of the online personal training company BetterU, Inc. He has a degree in Physical Education and Psychology and has been inventing new training techniques for more than 16 years. Nick is the author of a number of bodybuilding eBooks including “Metabolic Surge – Rapid Fat Loss,” “The Best Exercises You’ve Never Heard Of,” “Gluteus to the Maximus – Build a Bigger Butt NOW!” and “The Best Abdominal Exercises You’ve Never Heard Of” all available here. He can be contacted at betteru@fitstep.com.

Much research has been done into the seemingly impossible task of “spot reduction” of body fat.

You know…like how to burn fat directly off of your belly WITHOUT taking away from the butt you’re so proud of.

While experts have claimed that there’s no way to “spot reduce” where you’re able to take of the fat, recent studies are showing that it may in fact be possible.

For example, scientists have studied exactly WHERE fat is burned from in order to fuel certain activities.

It seems that there may be a unique connection where the fat cells in the location of the muscles being exercised may actually provide the bulk of the long term fuel for your training.

This is NOT definitive yet, but it holds promise.

It also supports my theory (and again, this is ONLY my theory!) that your MIND-MUSCLE CONNECTION plays a STRONG role in how much, and WHERE you can burn fat.

In this article, I reveal a unique tip that I use to increase the “mind-muscle” connection to (again, in theory) burn more belly fat from your training by implementing a crazy “cardio fat blaster”…

How To Burn More Belly Fat During Exercise

1. First, if you have my best-selling “Combat The Fat” program, you know that I’m a HUGE supporter of LOW intensity cardio as a fat-burner.

Sure, you can get your panties all in a wad while you preach to me about how HIGH intensity is better, but I lay out the FACTS in my book and the men and women who have used CTF know the real deal.

Anyhoo, I digress…

2. For this exercise session, you’ll do a quick, low effort warmup of about 5 minutes on a treadmill, bike, or other exercise equipment.

3. Next, do a set of WEIGHTED CRUNCHES until failure. Just one single set.

4. Now, go and do a 10 minute LOW INTENSITY cardio activity that uses primarily either an upper body or lower body movement (e.g. – Rowing machine/jumping rope primarily works upper body while jogging, bike, works lower)

5. When 10 minutes are up, do one set of HANGING LEG RAISES (with your legs straight) to failure and then go on to your 2nd 10-minute bout of low intensity cardio using the opposite area of your body as your last set.

(i.e. – if you jumped rope in your last cardio round, switch to an exercise like jogging on the treadmill this time.)

6. When done, do a single set to failure of HANGING ROTATIONAL KNEE RAISES…then on to your 3rd round of cardio using the opposite half of your body.

And so it goes on, switching back and forth between an abs exercise and low intensity cardio.

For your follow up abs exercises, I suggest (in order)…

=> Hanging Knee Raises

=> Either crunches or V-ups

As you can see, we slowly decrease the intensity of the abs exercise choices with each set as you get closer to the end of your workout.

But in essence, by training your abs throughout your cardio session, you send a “message” to your body WHERE you want all that fat-burning cardio to do most of it’s work.

You may think I’m crazy, but give it a try and see if it doesn’t make a difference in where your measurements start reflecting results!

by Mike Geary, Certified Personal Trainer, Certified Nutrition Specialist

I was at the grocery store the other day picking up some ingredients for a black bean & brown rice with seasoned venison strips dish I was planning to make, when an interesting thing happened.

I had gone straight to the grocery store after training a couple clients at the gym. Well, as I was grabbing some frozen veggies, a friendly lady (who must have seen that I was a fitness coach from my shirt), asked me my advice on a couple frozen prepared box meals she was picking out which had “healthy” claims on the labels (by the way, those prepared frozen meals are usually highly processed crap loaded with sodium and other chemicals).

Now I will say that this woman was VERY overweight, and she mentioned that she has “tried everything” to lose the excess weight and has always failed.

Keep in mind I hear about 50 people a day tell me they’ve “tried everything” to lose weight and get in shape. The problem that they don’t realize is that they’re trying all of the wrong things… they’re trying all of the gimmicks and fat loss fads that are out there instead of just adopting a TRUE healthy active lifestyle that will make them lean and healthy for life.
Back to the woman in the store…

So we started chatting about her struggles with losing weight and getting in shape, and I began scanning her grocery cart. If I can remember, these were some of the contents she thought were healthy:

• Slim fast shakes (far from healthy…they’re actually loaded with high fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oils, and a bunch of other chemicals)

• Fat Free Rice Cakes (ok…despite so many people believing these pieces of crap are healthy…they really are nothing but pure refined starch with zero fiber, which basically breaks down immediately into sugar in your body, spiking insulin and promoting fat storage…doesn’t sound so good anymore, huh)

• Protein bars “Scientifically Slim Body Engineered” or some BS statement like that (I took a gander at the ingredient list of these so called “healthy” protein bars and sure enough… hydrogenated oils, high fructose corn syrup, and enough sugar alcohols to give you diarrhea for a week!)

• Canned fruit in syrup (I guess she could do worse here…but still, why not just eat fresh whole fruit which still contains the skins, fiber, active enzymes, etc, instead of resorting to processed, canned fruit that’s been cooked and loaded with syrup)

• Reduced Sugar Dessert Cakes (ok, so these are loaded with nasty artificial sweeteners, sugar alcohols, preservatives, and a chemical ingredient list about 15 lines long)

Do you see what’s going on here? This is the same scenario that I see all the time.
Most people are fooled by what the FRONT OF THE BOX says, leading them to believe what they are buying is healthy. On all of these items, the FRONT of the packages had all kinds of great sounding things like “fat free”, “reduced sugar”, “high protein”, “low cholesterol”, “low carb”, etc.

However, the TRUTH is on the BACK OF THE BOX! Ah yes, the ingredient list and nutrition info is where the real truth is. However, I’ve realized that most of the general public doesn’t know how to fully understand the ingredient list and nutrition info, so they rely on the advertising claims on the front of the package to guide them.

BIG MISTAKE!

If you notice, this woman thought she was doing great with her grocery shopping and buying all kinds of healthy stuff for her and her family.

In reality, EVERYTHING she was buying was highly processed and full of chemicals and industrially refined ingredients. No wonder “nothing has worked” for her to get in shape and lose the excess body fat… she actually hasn’t been doing anything right. She’s been mislead by all of the confusing marketing and labeling and conflicting nutrition info in the mass media.

If you want to discover the TRUTH about what it really takes to eat a truly healthy diet that maximizes your metabolism, brings your hormonal balance back to normal, reduces cravings, and strips off body fat faster than you’d believe is possible… it’s all found in my Truth about Six Pack Abs program.

Have fun and choose wisely on your next grocery store trip!

Are cardio workouts or weight training more effective for losing fat…
by Mike Geary, Certified Nutrition Specialist, Certified Personal Trainer

In this article, I have an intriguing discussion about cardio workouts, which will hopefully get you thinking differently, and trying new things.

You may know I’ve been called the anti-cardio guy before, but this week I’m back posing the question to you… Do you really need cardio training to get lean and in great shape? By the way, you’ll see in a minute that I’m not really “anti-cardio”, just “anti traditional cardio”.

Most fitness buffs, weekend warriors, or anyone trying to get in shape or lose body fat, consider it a fact that they need “cardio” exercise to accomplish these goals. They would never even question it.

However, I’m not only questioning it, I’m going to refute it! In fact, you may be surprised to know that some of the leanest and meanest people I know (men and women), NEVER do any type of normal or traditional cardio. And I’ve spent over 15 years working out in various gyms, and hanging out with athletes of all sorts, so I’ve seen it all.

I will say that there can be a place for low-moderate level cardio for really overweight or deconditioned people, but even in those cases, there can be more effective methods.

But what exactly is “cardio”?

Most people would consider cardio to be pumping away mindlessly on a treadmill, riding a stationary bike, or coasting on an elliptical machine, while watching the TV screen at their state of the art gym. This is what I call “traditional cardio”. Hmmm, no wonder the majority of people get bored with their workouts and give up after a couple months without seeing results.

But if you look closer, “cardio” exercise can be considered any type of exercise or activity that strengthens the cardiovascular system. I’m not going to get into anything technical like increasing your VO2 max or anything like that. To keep it simple, if it gets your heart pumpin, and gets you huffin and puffin, it’s cardio. I don’t care if you’re holding dumbbells or a barbell and everyone calls it a weight training exercise…it’s still conditioning your heart.

Let’s take a look at a couple examples. Take a barbell (or dumbbell, or kettlebell) clean & press for example, which involves lifting a barbell from the floor up to shoulders, then push pressing overhead. And listen up ladies, because even though this is usually seen as a manly exercise, it doesn’t matter if you’re not lifting 250 lbs; if 45 lbs is challenging to you, then you will still benefit just as much.

At first glance, most people think of the barbell C&P only as a weight training exercise or strength exercise. However, I challenge you to do a hard set of around 10-15 reps on the C&P. If you used a challenging enough weight, what you’ll find is that your heart rate is probably up to about 80-90% of your recommended max, and you are huffing and puffing like you just ran a 100-meter sprint (which by the way, sprinting kicks the crap out of jogging any day if you want the easiest way to lose the flab).
Try the same thing for a set of 20 reps of one-arm snatches or swings with each arm with a kettlebell or dumbbell, and tell me your legs aren’t burning, heart racing, and you’re gasping for breath. How about trying 5 minutes straight of bodyweight squats, lunges, and pushups with very little rest. Again, notice your heart pounding, sweat pouring off of you, and chest heaving for breaths!

Try and tell me you’re not conditioning your heart with this style of training! Conventional thinking says that these are weight training or strength training exercises. However, they are fullfilling your cardio workout needs as well (saving you time!).
Not only do you save time, but you strengthen and condition almost every muscle in your entire body with these full body exercises if you do them with enough intensity…something that can’t be said for that boring stationary bike ride or treadmill jaunt while reading or watching TV.

Reading or watching TV while you workout is a joke!

Seriously, if you can read or watch TV while doing any exercise, you’re not concentrating enough on what you’re doing, plus you’re probably not working out hard enough to see any real results.

I challenge you to give the “traditional cardio” a rest for a month or two, and start training the way I explain in my internationally-selling Truth about Six pack Abs Program, and see how you start getting leaner, more defined, and your six pack starting to show through what used to be stubborn stomach fat deposits.

Losing weight can be fun (and easy) with these workout tips to burn fat faster from Craig Ballantyne, Men’s Health Fitness Advisor, Personal Trainer – Beyond Cardio Workouts

Forget about cardio, machines, and aerobics classes. Weight loss workouts have come a long way in the last 10 years to help men and women burn fat faster than ever. We’ve gone from boring, ineffective, long cardio workouts to finally using interval training to lose fat and slash your workout time in half.

I’ve also discovered the fat burning secrets of resistance training and bodyweight exercises to help you lose fat at home without expensive or fancy machines. Heck, you don’t even need a gym membership any more to burn fat effectively.
But there are even more and better ways of burning fat that you might not know about. So here’s Part 1 of the top 7 hottest trends to burn fat this year.

1) Competition & Challenge-Type Workouts Will Be Found in More Fat Loss Programs

The popular 300 challenge workout revolutionized fat burning programs because it introduced a new method internal motivation. By adding some form a challenge workout to your program – such as a workout you try to complete faster and faster each week – you’ll have a better chance of sticking to your program.

In addition to the 300 workout, you could also try one of my Bodyweight 500 workouts, or create your own challenge workout. You could even just try to run a greater distance in 20 minutes each week. Just make sure to switch up your challenge workout every 4 weeks. Challenge yourself and you’ll find this to be a powerful motivational tool to keep your fat loss progress going.

2) We’ll Return to Working Out with a Partner or in a Group for Social Support

In the past few years, many folks started exercising at home by themselves, but there is actually a good reason to invite a friend over for a workout or to exercise in groups.

Research shows that if you workout with a partner who is losing weight, you have a better chance of losing weight yourself. If you are working out by yourself right now and not getting the results you want, then recruit a partner to exercise with you (but make sure you know they will stick with the program and succeed). This could mean that you try to workout regularly with a friend, family member, or spouse.

Bootcamp workouts are also going to be hot, hot, hot as time goes on, as more and more people prefer this motivating, economical way to work out with a trainer while getting social support from a dozen or so other men and women with the same goals. This will also expose you to more success stories and people who can give you tips and support to burn fat.

Plus, bootcamp workouts don’t use machines or long cardio exercise, so they must rely on bodyweight exercises and interval training, which you discovered in recent years to work really fast for fat loss. The combination of intervals, bodyweight exercises, and social support are going to help a lot of folks burn fat successfully this year.

3) More and More People Will Start Training Like an Athlete to Burn Fat

Bootcamp training leads perfectly into our next hot tip. This year, you’ll see more and more trainers and fitness magazines showing people how to exercise like a power athlete to burn fat. However, there is a right way and a wrong way to do this.
Just like any fat loss program, the “train like an athlete to burn fat” workouts must be intelligent and professionally designed. After all, it’s sad to see folks doing jumps on concrete, or doing athletic exercises in the wrong order that could lead to injury. That’s not smart athletic training.

When doing a “Fat Burning Athlete Workout”, your program must follow a specific order. You’ll start with a total body warm-up with bodyweight exercises, such as prisoner squats, lunges, pushups, spiderman climbs, planks, and even exercises like hurdle walks, high knees, skipping, inchworms, and walking hamstring stretches.

The correct time to do power exercises, such as jumping or agility drills, is right after your thorough warm-up because you are fresh, not fatigued. This will help you perform jumps and short sprints (or exercises like cleans, kettlebell snatches or medicine ball throws) with maximum effort and proper form. Power exercises should not be done after interval training or any other type of exhaustive exercise.

Following power exercises, an athletic fat burning workout would spent a short amount of time on essential strength exercises, such as squats, upper body exercises (pushing and pulling), and single-leg exercises. This could be followed by strength-endurance exercises if needed, such as high-repetition bodyweight exercises.

Finally, the athletic fat burning program would end with interval training for conditioning and fat loss. This will exhaust your energy stores and you’ll finish with static stretching. These workouts are fun, fast, and effective, and also more applicable to daily living than spending an hour on a cardio machine.

Working out like an athlete will give you the best looking, and best performing body that you’ve ever had!

In Part 2 of the 7 hottest trends for fat loss (article coming soon), you’ll learn about training for personal bests, alternative interval training workouts, the secret to success of the new generation of transformation contests, and the truth about shorter, no-cardio workouts.

Click here to check out Craig’s HOT new fat burning Turbulence Training workouts