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!
Top fat loss tip of the day… Learn to Enjoy Exercise!
Exercise is the key to permanent fat loss, incorporate exercise into your life by choosing a hobby that you genuinely enjoy. Try and find a hobby that you really enjoy, and can see yourself sticking to long term, for example join the local tennis club. Although a game of tennis is not as efficient at fat burning as other means, such as jogging for set periods, it does help you along the way.
If you have this hobby that is a pleasure to do, rather than a chore like a treadmill can often turn into, you are more like to stick at it. Something like tennis, cycling or even rock climbing for the more adventurous, has the potential to become a permanent part of your life, especially if it is done in a social setting where you can build a group of like minded friends to enjoy it with.
Give it a try, go out and find yourself an life long exercise hobby and reap the benefits for years to come!
Burn the Fat Feed the Muscle is a fat loss ebook written by fitness author Tom Venuto, has been around on the internet for several years now. It has been a best seller and used by thousands of people around the world. The question is, is it actually any good or just another well marketed ebook?
The author of Burn the Fat Feed the Muscle (BFFM) is Tom Venuto, a life long natural bodybuilder, personal trainer, success coach, nutrition consultant, health club manager and freelance writer. In BFFM Tom explains the science and theory of burning away body fat, this comes from a bodybuilder but applies to any normal person at all. Tom takes this book beyond being just a simple fat lose program, which are available in there thousands, and actually takes you into such detail that you will understand how fat loss actually occurs. There are detailed scientific explainations to every aspect of fat burning, including highly detail sections on nutrition, diet and even mind training.
The diet sections explains how many calories you need for fat loss, how to workout your nutrition ratios (i.e. how much protein, carb’s and fat you should eat). It also tell’s you what to avoid and more importantly why.
The training section focuses and cardio and weight training. Weight training being just as important as the cardio for fat loss, detailed explanations as to why included. He also gives you a number of workout plans, which are two, three four and five days a week depending on your experience and level, and it also gives you the flexibility to make your own.
The fact that this book has been written by a bodybuilder shouldn’t put you off, the information in this book is for everyone and anyone. Some of the advice and techniques revealed in the book, that are used by bodybuilders to achieve extremely low body fat levels, are priceless and rarely seen outside of the bodybuilding world.
Burn the Fat Feed the Muscle is one of the few ebooks available on the internet that I would highly recommend if you are looking to lose fat. It retails at $39.95 and is definately a worthy addition to your library.
I’m always going on about how your abs need to be revealed by removing all the fat that covers them, and how everyone has a six pack under there belly fat somewhere! That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t train your abdominal muscles to get them even more toned and looking great.
You should ignore all the myths of having to train your abs everyday for thousands of reps, treat you abs like you would any other muscle. I generally train my abs twice a week, having two different workouts planned. Everyone has their own preferences when it comes to working their abs, I have shown a typical workout that I would use below to give you an idea…
Workout 1:
Exercise 1- Ball curl – 3 sets of 8-20 reps
Exercise 2- Reverse Ball Curl – 3 sets of 8-20 reps
Workout 2:
Exercise 1- Weighted incline crunch – 3 sets of 8-20 reps
Exercise 2 – Side Bridge – 3 sets of 8-20 reps
Every six weeks to eight weeks I tend to change round my workouts and the exercises I perform. Other abs exercise favourites that I have include cable chops, standard crunches and weighted crunches.
So many people try and fail to build muscle, the most common reason why is so simple to correct. More often than not if someone isn’t putting any muscle, or in fact any weight of any kind, it is simply because they aren’t eating enough.
If you are not consuming enough calories (or energy to put it another way), you will not build any new muscle. You need to be in a state of overfeeding for your body to produce new muscle growth. The amount you need to overfeed by varies from person to person, and can vary anywhere from just over your maintenance level (this is the amount of calories you consume to stay at the same weight) to over 500 calories. It really is something that you need to experiment with to find out where you threshold lies.
If you are failing to gain muscle, this is the first thing you need to look at, are you eating enough calories?! No?! then eat more!After that if you are still struggling, then you should start to look at your nutrition, workout and if you are giving you muscles enough rest (this is when they grow, not in the gym!).
The most important thing that you can ever learn to achieve successful fat loss is no matter what you MUST have a calorie deficit.
Having a calorie deficit basically means that you are using up more calories than you are taking in, without this you will not be effectively burning away your body fat. The amount of calories (energy) that you body is taking in and using up will decide how much fat your body will need. If you are eating too many or you aren’t burning enough calories you will not lose fat efficiently.
To create a calorie deficit you need to combine a calorie controlled diet, with a solid cardio and weight training program. This combination of diet and exercise is important for permanent results, and also to prevent muscle loss during the fat loss stage.
All I want you to take away with you today is this CALORIES DO MATTER when it comes to fat loss! Any diet that claims you do not need to worry about calories is wrong, it is the calorie deficit which will begin your fat burning process.
Unfortunately when you are training with weights there is always that risk of causing yourself injury. This is almost always caused by bad habits or technique.
I have personally suffered from back pain in my early years, when I was lacking experience and a bit of proper direction with my weight training. Through bad technique I over developed my upper back, and left my lower back weak and vulnerable to injury. That vunerability was hit when I deadlifted with poor technique, leaving me with a painful back injury.
Eventually through treatment, and developing the strength in my lower back to restore the balance, I made a full recovery. It was a long process though, and since then I have always kept my technique in check when lifting.
For anyone who is suffering from back injury or pain, I have found a great article for you to read. Click here to take a look.
P.S. Don’t forget If you have any questions you want answered don’t forget about my Fat loss and muscle building Q & A follow the link for details.
