fatlossandmusclebuilding Blog

Hey Guys,

I wanted to talk to you today about a touchy subject in the bodybuilding/sporting world… Steroids.

Steroids are well known for their miracle affects on muscle growth. They have unfortunately become a widely used easy answer to building pounds of muscle. With all the seen to be positive affects of this ILLEGAL drug, people often ignore the negative affects that steroids can have. I am proud to say I have personally never used steroids and I never ever would!

I firmly believe that they answer to building the body that you dream of is to work hard work in the gym, and eat well. For those of you who have ever been, or still are tempted to use steroids, I just wanted to point you in the direction of this article on steroids. Here you can clearly see the dangers of using this drug. It lists the many possible side affects that can occur if you use this drug.

Train naturally to achieve muscle growth, although it may be tough at times, when you do achieve your goals (and you will if you put your mind to it) you can be proud to know that you have done it through hard work, not cheating using illegal drugs. Trust me you will feel a far greater sense of achievement!

I’m sure they I will have upset many drug enhanced bodybuilders with my comments, oh well sure they’ll get over it! You stay natural it is the best and safest way! Is getting big muscles really worth risking your health over?…

Today we’re talking about negative calorie foods…

So what actually is a negative calorie food? The statement negative calorie food isn’t entirely correct, it is actually impossible for a food to have a negative amount of calories.

A calorie is a unit of energy, all food contains a certain amount of energy. When we talk about negative calorie foods, we don’t actually mean that they have a negative amount of calories. What we mean is that the food has that low of amount of calories, that your body uses up more energy digesting it than the food has in the first place. For example if a piece of celery has 15 calories, and the body uses up 25 calories to digest it. That creates a deficit of 10 calories, therefore that is a negative calorie food. Apples, brocolli, carrots, cucumber, tomatoes and onions are also examples of negative calorie foods.  

Negative calorie foods are not miracle makers when it comes to weight loss, but they can help you out along the way. Filling up your plate with these negative calorie foods is a great way of keeping the amount of calories in your meal down, but still leaving the dinner table feeling satisfied. For example you could have a piece of chicken breast, a small amount of sweet potato, then fill up the rest of your plate with brocolli or a similar negative calorie food.

I found a very interesting article about beating stubborn fat today, definately worth you having a look. It is on Christian Finn’s blog site, who is a well respected trainer. Click on the link to see what he has to say about stubborn fat…

He makes a very good point in his article, which I totally agree with. Basically stubborn fat doesn’t really exist, the reason that people struggle to get rid of that last bit of fat or fat in a certain area on the body, is that they need to tighten up on their diet and exercise. Not that that particular area of fat is ’stubborn fat’. At the end of the day fat is fat when it comes to the body, each person may have a certain area on their body which will be the last place that fat will dissapear from when your losing weight, on women it tends to be around the hips and men round the waist. When you reach the point that you only really have excess fat in those areas, and you are not losing it, that is when you need to tighten up your diet and exercise program.

Hope you find the article on stubborn fat interesting…

Quick post just before I pack up and go to sleep…

Getting enough sleep can really help improve your results with both fat loss and muscle building. Sleeping is when your body repairs and recovers from what ever you may have put it through during the day.

If you are trying to build muscle, when you are sleeping is when the majority of the repair and growth of your muscles will occur. Not getting enough sleep can affect your results. If you are notgiving your body enough of this ‘rest time’, it can even lead to over training, which can have negative affects on your body.

Also lack of sleep can seriously affect your energy levels, making a huge difference to your training, and even your motivation to train.

You should be aiming to get at least 8 hours sleep each night, this is what the body needs to fully recover from the previous days activities. 

Well that’s me done for the night, i’m off to get my full 8 hours! Night everyone!

Who should train with weights…? In my opinion everyone should!

Weight training used to be shyed away from by everyone except bodybuilders and strongmen. It was thought that anyone else should keep away from lifting around heavy weights, as people associated weight lift with becoming muscle bound. Even professional trainers would keep their athletes clear of weight lifting in there training routines.

As advances in training techniques and more importantly research into weight training was made, the true benefits of training with weights was realised. It was discovered that training your muscles with weights can improve muscle tone, increase muscle size, increase strength, increase body weight and improve endurance. With these benefits being discovered, weight training soon became massively popular outside of  the bodybuilding world and into the main stream, from pro athletes and even the public. 

Now days almost every single athlete in any physical sport will have some sort weight training in their training schedules, in fact it is vital for them to complete at their highest possible levels.

The advanges of weight training should not only be used by athletes/sportsman. As mentioned the advantages of weight training include improved muscle tone, increase in muscle size, increase in strength, increase in body weight and improvement in endurance. If you are trying to improve your body, whether that is by building muscle or losing fat, weight training is essential. When trying to lose weight, or fat to be more specific, weight training will help prevent muscle loss that often occurs when people diet. The advantages of keeping muscle when you are losing weight are numerous. Maintaining and toning muscle whilst you are losing weight will prevent you from getting that scrawny, tired, unhealthy look to you. You often see people who have lost weight fast and look like a bag of bones! Also muscle actually burns calories! Even when you are resting your muscles burn calories, this will help in your fat loss.

Even if you are happy with the way you look and are not interested in altering the look of your body, weight training can still be an important part of your bodies well being. Having a strong musclular system can help reduce the likeliness of problems when you are older, including back problems. Through weight training you can build a strong core, which includes your lower back and abdominal muscles, which supports your whole upper body. This can reduce the chance of injury in every tasks, including mowing the lawn and even getting out of bed, you’d be suprised how many people injure themselves doing simple tasks.

So i’ll ask you again… ”who should train with weights?”…that’s right EVERYONE! Everyone can benefit from weight training, whether you are a professional athlete, a recreational athlete or even a none sporting person who wants to just stay healthy.  

Hi Everyone!

Well I’ve returned from my two week caravan holiday in the South of France, had a lovely time could have stayed a lot longer! The only things i missed was the comfort of my own bed and my gym!

Having a week off the training and dieting doesn’t hurt every now and again, but any longer may start to eat away at your hard earned results. As I had a two week holiday this year I decided that I was going to still try to eat fairly well and get as much exercise as I could fit in without cutting into my relaxing holiday too much.

I decided to put together a whole body resistance routine which I could complete first thing in the morning without cutting into the days activities, and also without the use of gym equipment. My routine was as follows:-

Bodyweight Full Squat (performed very slowly and controlled) - 3 sets 12-20 reps
Calve Raises (performed on the caravan step!) - 3 sets 12-20 reps
Press ups - 3 sets of 12-20 reps
Pull ups (performed hanging from a branch by our caravan!) - 3 sets 12-20 reps
Tricep dips (performed on the side of my bed!) - 3 sets 0f 12-20 reps
Shoulder side raises (performed with 2 shopping bags) - 3 sets of 12-20 reps
Ab crunches - 3 sets of 12-20 reps

I performed this routine 3 mornings a week. It was designed to keep my muscles active and to prevent muscle loss, not to build any new muscle.

Along with this resistance routine I tried to keep myself as active as possible. I decided to give myself a rest from my usual cardio which involves mainly running, and include alot of swimming, walking, tennis and a few other holiday activaties that me and the family could enjoy together.

I have to say that doing this allowed me to enjoy my holiday to it’s maximum, and I am very pleased to say after taking some measurements now i’m back to normality, that I have had no muscle loss or fat gain during my holiday!

If you are coming up to your holidays, and you want to keep in shape while you are away, I would highly recommend that you throw in as many fun exercise activities that you enjoy as possible. Also why not try my holiday routine above, it will prevent muscle loss on long holidays and only takes 30 mins to complete.

If you are having a short break, a week or less, then having a rest from weight training especially will do you no harm at all. In fact it will give your body chance to recover from your training.

If you are off on your hols, have fun! I’ve got no more planned for a while so the posts will be coming thick and fast again!

Hi guys just to let you know things are going to be quiet on the blog for a couple of weeks, due to me slacking off and going off on my holiday!

There won’t be any new posts till the 1st of August, so in the mean time why not have a look through the old posts and see if there are any tips you may have missed.

I’ll speak to you in a couple of weeks, keep up the training!

Top Fat Loss Tip of the Day…Eat Naturally!

If you are trying to lose weight, one of the first things that you should always look at is your diet. It is important to your success that you start to cut out some of the masty things you you may put into your body. A good way to start yourself off is to make an effort to start eating naturally produced foods.

By naturally produced foods I mean foods that have been processed as little as possible by man. Foods such as ready meals, white bread, cakes, etc should be on your list of foods to avoid. They are high in refined sugars and hydrogenated fats, which your body can’t digest efficiently and will pile on the body fat very easily.

You should aiming to eat lean meats and poultry, vegetables (especially the green ones!),and fruit (even though fruit contains natural sugars). With bread, pasta and rice, you should be eating the wholegrain or brown versions rather than the white more processed options.

If you make an effort to eat more natural unprocessed foods, you will notice the difference even before you start to reduce you calories. You weight will start to drop, and your overall health will improve.

Start eating natural today and reap the benefits!

If you have been following a fat loss diet and seem to have hit a plateau, carbohydrates could be your problem. Some people are more sensitve to carbohydrates than others, this may depend on your body type and the way you react to carbs. 

If you are following for example a 50-30-20 ratio diet, (That being 50% of your total daily calories from carbs, 30% protein, 20% fat), and your fat loss has slowed or even stopped it is worth trying to reduce your carbs. Try changing to a 40-40-20 ratio diet, 40% of your calories from carbs, 40% from protein and 20% from fat. This reduction in carbohydrates may be what you need to get your fat loss back on track.

The theory behind this is that your body will be slightly short on the amount of carbohydrates that it can use for energy, and hopefully your body will start to burn up your body fat instead. You do need to monitor your results closely, as if you drop you carb intake too low there is also a possibility that your body may turn to your muscles as an energy source, and you don’t want this too happen. If you are starting to lose muscle then just up your carbohydrate intake slightly.

This technique of reducing your carbohydrate intake can be a powerful tool when it comes to fat loss. If you are struggling to get results, or have hit a plateau, it is definately worth a try!

Top Fat Loss Tip of the Day….Control your Meal Portions

If you are trying to burn fat food plays an important role. A key point to dieting is controlling your meal sizes. A good and simple way of doing this is to never eat until you are full. Stop eating when you are just satisfied, not until you are stuffed!Also make sure you eat slowly, if you eat too fast you don’t give yourself enough time to start to digest your food and you give yourself a false feeling of not being full up (until your body catches up and then the fullness really hits you!). If you eat slowly and give your body enough time, you will have a geniune idea of how full you are and can avoid over eating.

Stay tuned for more fat loss tips!