Archive for November, 2009
How To Burn More Belly Fat During Exercise
Written by success on Monday, November 16, 2009 | No Comments
Categories: Uncategorized Tags: Body Fat, Exercise Equipment, Fat Cells, High Intensity, jumping rope
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!
Grocery Store Health Deception – Understanding the Truth about Food Labels
Written by success on Saturday, November 14, 2009 | No Comments
Categories: nutrition Tags: Excess Weight, getting in shape, losing weight, nutrition specialist, slim body
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!
Do You Really Need “Cardio” Workouts?
Written by success on Friday, November 13, 2009 | No Comments
Categories: Aerobics, Fitness, Weight Loss Tags: Cardio Exercise, Cardio Workouts, cardiovascular system, elliptical machine, treadmill
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.