Tuesday, February 28, 2012

The Best Exercise To Lose Chest Fat


The Best Exercise To Lose Chest Fat

Believe it or not the best exercise to lose chest fat is not about working out the muscles in your chest (bench presses, push-ups, dumbell flys etcetera). This is a huge misconception and also happens to be the main reason why people have such a hard time losing chest fat. Exercising the muscles beneath your chest fat does NOT help to burn fat in that area!
Allow me to explain myself before I tell you about the kind of exercise that WILL finally eliminate that excess chest fat and give you a flat chest. If you were to adopt a good diet today and start doing lots of aerobic exercise (i.e. swimming, running, cycling etc), then you'll no doubt start to lose some body fat.
Which part of your body will you lose body fat from first?
Well to an extent that's determined by your genes and unfortunately there's nothing you can do about that.
If you're like most others who are having a hard time losing chest fat, then your genes are likely programmed to remove fat from your chest AFTER you've lost fat everywhere else on your body. Not only that, but if you were to start gaining weight again, it would happen in the same order – so your chest would get fat LAST.
Think about it for a second...
If you're obsessed about losing only chest fat, you could be exercising for weeks and see NO change whatsoever! Whereas in actual fact you're losing LOTS of fat from your bum, thighs, arms, face, belly and back – you just don't notice it because you're so focussed on your chest!
Also, when you're skinny and you start gaining weight, you'll first gain weight on your bum, thighs, arms, back etc. But because you're only worried about your chest and belly fat, you wont even notice that you're getting fat! Then when your chest and belly blow up, you start exercising and you can't get rid of them – because you have to lose that arse fat first!
“So Why Don't Push-Ups/Bench Presses Work?”
These exercises don't do a good job in getting rid of chest fat because they only work one muscle group – your pectorals. If you really give it your all and build up those chest muscles, you'll only be burning a few calories and only be losing a few pounds of fat at best – from your bum, thighs or where your genes are programmed to lose fat from first.
So the best exercise to lose chest fat is one that burns as many calories as possible to burn as many pounds of general body fat as possible. It involves an exercise that gets your body working in overdrive by using almost all of the muscle groups in your body.
This exercise will follow your genetically predetermined sequence of weight-loss, and burn fat in all those other areas before resorting to getting rid of that chest fat. Hence it's crucial that you don't gauge your success by looking at your chest. The size of your chest will remain unchanged for some time, while you lose heaps of body fat all over the rest of your body.
And when finally your body decides to get rid of that chest fat, it'll disappear so quickly you wont even know it was there!
The best exercise to lose chest fat involves aerobic workouts such as cycling, swimming and running, which include all of your muscle groups and involve your heart and lungs.

Thursday, February 16, 2012

Reduce Waist Size – Reduce Your Waist Size in 2 Steps!


Lose Belly Fat Tips

Certain foods are especially likely to cause you to put on unhealthy pounds. Trans fats are among the worst culprits. These are found in many junk foods, such as deep-fried foods and snacks that have hydrogenated oils. There is some debate about saturated fats, which are found in animal products. It is best to limit your intake of saturated fats and try to get them from high quality sources. If you do consume animal products, look for natural or preferably organic varieties.
The healthiest fats are monounsaturated. These can be found in foods such as coconut and olive oils, avocados and almonds and other nuts. These are all excellent sources of healthy fats. So, in summary, when it comes to fats, look for monounsaturated, eat quality saturated fats in limited quantities and stay away from trans fats completely.

Stress and Losing Belly Fat

In addition to the more obvious issues of diet and exercise, there have also been some interesting links found between overweight people, stress and sleep deprivation. It seems that people who are sleep deprived, and/or suffer from high stress levels, are more likely to be carrying around excess pounds. So if you want to lose fat, one thing you should do is learn to relax. One thing you can do that can help you to relax and will also mean taking in fewer unhealthy calories is to cut back on sugar and high caffeine drinks. If you need a boost, consider a healthier alternative, such as green tea. Both of these, incidentally, may be beneficial for weight loss in addition to containing less caffeine than coffee or energy drinks.
If you want to lose belly fat, you also have to increase the amount of physical activity you get. If you don’t exercise regularly, you should seriously consider starting a program, whether that means joining a gym or even taking a walk every day. You can also make the effort to move around more in your everyday life. Eat a lighter lunch and go for a walk during your lunch hour; take stairs instead of elevators; walk to the store instead of driving.
There are no magical solutions to losing belly fat. It probably took you many years to put on the excess pounds. It doesn’t have to take that long to shed them, but you will have to make some real changes in your life and stick with them. If you do this, you will see results, maybe not overnight, but within a few weeks you should start lose belly fat.

Saturday, February 4, 2012

How to Lose 20 lbs. of Fat in 30 Days… Without Doing Any Exercise


It is possible to lose 20 lbs. of bodyfat in 30 days by optimizing any of three factors: exercise, diet, or drug/supplement regimen. I’ve seen the elite implementation of all three in working with professional athletes. In this post, we’ll explore what I refer to as the “slow-carb diet”.
In the last six weeks, I have cut from about 180 lbs. to 165 lbs., while adding about 10 lbs. of muscle, which means I’ve lost about 25 lbs. of fat. This is the only diet besides the rather extreme Cyclical Ketogenic Diet (CKD) that has produced veins across my abdomen, which is the last place I lose fat (damn you, Scandinavian genetics). Here are the four simple rules I followed…
Rule #1: Avoid “white” carbohydrates
Avoid any carbohydrate that is — or can be — white. The following foods are thus prohibited, except for within 1.5 hours of finishing a resistance-training workout of at least 20 minutes in length: bread, rice, cereal, potatoes, pasta, and fried food with breading. If you avoid eating anything white, you’ll be safe.
Rule #2: Eat the same few meals over and over again
The most successful dieters, regardless of whether their goal is muscle gain or fat loss, eat the same few meals over and over again. Mix and match, constructing each meal with one from each of the three following groups:
Proteins:
Egg whites with one whole egg for flavor
Chicken breast or thigh
Grass-fed organic beef
Pork
Legumes:
Lentils
Black beans
Pinto beans
Vegetables:
Spinach
Asparagus
Peas
Mixed vegetables
Eat as much as you like of the above food items. Just remember: keep it simple. Pick three or four meals and repeat them. Almost all restaurants can give you a salad or vegetables in place of french fries or potatoes. Surprisingly, I have found Mexican food, swapping out rice for vegetables, to be one of the cuisines most conducive to the “slow carb” diet.
Most people who go on “low” carbohydrate diets complain of low energy and quit, not because such diets can’t work, but because they consume insufficient calories. A 1/2 cup of rice is 300 calories, whereas a 1/2 cup of spinach is 15 calories! Vegetables are not calorically dense, so it is critical that you add legumes for caloric load.
Some athletes eat 6-8x per day to break up caloric load and avoid fat gain. I think this is ridiculously inconvenient. I eat 4x per day:
10am – breakfast
1pm – lunch
5pm – smaller second lunch
7:30-9pm – sports training
10pm – dinner
12am – glass of wine and Discovery Channel before bed
Here are some of my meals that recur again and again:
breakfast-wince.jpg
Scrambled Eggology pourable egg whites with one whole egg, black beans, and microwaved mixed vegetables
lunch-wince.jpg
Grass-fed organic beef, pinto beans, mixed vegetables, and extra guacamole (Mexican restaurant)
dinner-wince.jpg
Grass-fed organic beef (from Trader Joe’s), lentils, and mixed vegetables
pizza-wince.jpg
Post-workout pizza with extra chicken, cilantro, pineapple, garlic, sundried tomotoes, bell peppers, and red onions
Rule #3: Don’t drink calories
Drink massive quantities of water and as much unsweetened iced tea, tea, diet sodas, coffee (without white cream), or other no-calorie/low-calorie beverages as you like. Do not drink milk, normal soft drinks, or fruit juice. I’m a wine fanatic and have at least one glass of wine each evening, which I believe actually aids sports recovery and fat-loss. Recent research into resveratrol supports this.
Rule #4: Take one day off per week
I recommend Saturdays as your “Dieters Gone Wild” day. I am allowed to eat whatever I want on Saturdays, and I go out of my way to eat ice cream, Snickers, Take 5, and all of my other vices in excess. I make myself a little sick and don’t want to look at any of it for the rest of the week. Paradoxically, dramatically spiking caloric intake in this way once per week increases fat loss by ensuring that your metabolic rate (thyroid function, etc.) doesn’t downregulate from extended caloric restriction. That’s right: eating pure crap can help you lose fat. Welcome to Utopia.


How to lose weight

Weight loss, in the most basic sense, comes down to simple arithmetic.  You must eat less calories than you burn.  Period.  And the best way to go about creating this caloric deficit is a combination of diet and exercise.  But you already knew that.  Let’s get to the meal plan. . .
I can sum the meal plan up in six simple words: Eat small well balanced frequent meals.  But you want more specifics than that right?  Ok, here we go.
Eat 3 meals and 2 snacks each day.  And if you must, you can add a third snack.  Space each meal or snack about 3 hours from the previous meal or snack.

Weight loss meal plan

Eat and drink the following with reckless abandon:
  • Spinach
  • Broccoli
  • Green, Red, or Yellow Pepper
  • Cucumber
  • Apples
  • Asparagus
  • Cauliflower
  • Green Beans
  • Kale
  • Celery
  • Pretty much any green leafy vegetable with the exception of iceberg lettuce
  • Water
Eat 2 – 4 servings of the following throughout the day:
  • Carrots
  • Bananas
  • Berries
  • Peaches
  • Plums
  • Oranges
  • Pretty much any fresh fruit you like

Eat one 4 – 6 ounce lean serving of the following with each meal.  Preparation should be grilled, steamed, baked, or stir fried – no breaded and fried foods!:
  • Turkey breast
  • Chicken breast
  • Steak
  • Pork
  • Fish
  • Also consider eggs (2 or 3)
Eat one serving of the following with each snack.  Truth be told, I recommend you avoid dairy during your weight loss quest, but if you feel you need it, eat it with you snacks:
  • Almonds
  • Walnuts
  • Cashews
  • Natural peanut butter (no sugar, no salt added)
  • Yogurt
  • Low-fat cottage cheese
  • Low-fat milk
Eat these only with your meal that follows your fitness training and only in limited portion:
  • Oatmeal
  • Brown rice
  • Legumes
  • Potatoes
  • Whole wheat bread
  • Whole wheat pasta
  • Other whole grain food items
Use the following in extremely limited portions or not at all:
  • Salad dressing
  • Butter
  • Cheese
  • Other condiments

Foods and Drinks you MUST stay away from to lose weight

  • Soda (tons of sugar and lots of empty calories)
  • Alcohol (empty calories and usually leads to bad food choices when drinking)
  • Sugar
  • Fast Food
  • Creamy salad dressings (Ranch, 1000 Island, etc.)


Example of weight loss meals

Ok, so what does a day’s worth of meals and snacks look like?  Check out the sample below:
6:00am  Fitness Training
7:30am  2 eggs scrambled in non-stick pan with chopped green pepper and onion, 1 piece of wheat toast dry, small fruit cup of berries, melon, and pineapple, 1 cup of coffee black.
10:30am  10 almonds, 1 apple.
1:00pm  Large spinach salad with cucumber, celery, grilled chicken breast, and 1/2 table spoon of Italian dressing.
4:00pm  Handful of walnuts, 1 orange.
6:30pm  Grilled flank steak, large portion of steamed asparagus, small side salad with Romaine lettuce, tomato, and small amount of vinegrette dressing.
9:00pm  4 celery sticks with small amount of natural peanut butter.
Some other final tips:
  • Drink a large glass of water with each meal and snack.
  • Pre-cook and prepackage your meals and snacks on one day for the rest of the week.  I usually do this on Sunday.  This is MUCH easier if you eat the same meals each day.
  • Keep a food journal and track your weight loss progress.  You should be losing about 2 pounds per week.  If you’re losing less than that, you probably need to tighten it up.  If you’re losing more than that, it might be time to add that third snack.
  • If it comes in a wrapper or other packaging, don’t eat it

Friday, February 3, 2012

weight loss


Even though you may have already read heaps of articles about weight loss, the information presented below is sure to add to your current knowledge-base of weight loss. This is because the information presented below is both good quality and enlightening. If you take the time to follow through with the information presented in this article, then I am sure that you will derive some value from it.
If you want to increase your chances of losing weight, reduce your stress level and get adequate sleep. A new Kaiser Permanente study found that people trying to lose at least 10 pounds were more likely to reach that goal if they had lower stress levels and slept more than six hours but not more than eight hours a night.
The paper, published today in the International Journal of Obesity, was the result of a study funded by the National Institutes of Healths National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.
Nearly 500 participants from Kaiser Permanente in Oregon and Washington took part in the study, which measured whether sleep, stress, depression, television viewing, and computer screen time were correlated with weight loss. Several previous studies have found an association between these factors and obesity, but few have looked at whether these factors predict weight loss.
This study suggests that when people are trying to lose weight, they should try to get the right amount of sleep and reduce their stress, said lead author Charles Elder, MD, MPH, an investigator with the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research in Portland, Ore., who also leads Integrative Medicine at Kaiser Permanente Northwest. Some people may just need to cut back on their schedules and get to bed earlier. Others may find that exercise can reduce stress and help them sleep. For some people, mind/body techniques such as meditation also might be helpful.
The study involved two phases: during the first phase, participants were asked to lose at least 10 pounds over six months. If they succeeded, they moved to the second year-long phase of the study, which tested a complementary acupressure technique against more traditional weight-maintenance strategies. Findings from phase two are not yet available.
During the studys first phase, all participants attended weekly meetings at which they were weighed and advised to reduce calorie intake by 500 calories per day, adopt a low-fat, low-sugar diet with lots of fruits and vegetables, increase physical activity to 180 minutes a week, and keep daily food records. People who kept more food records and attended more meetings were more likely to lose weight during this phase of the trial.
Participants also were asked to report levels of insomnia, stress and depression, and to record how much time they slept and spent watching television or using a computer. The research team found that sleep and stress levels were good predictors of weight loss, but depression and screen time were not.
People with the lowest stress levels who also got more than six hours, but not more than eight hours, of sleep were most likely to lose at least 10 pounds. In fact, nearly three-quarters of this group moved on to the second phase of the trial, and were twice as likely to be successful as those who reported the highest stress levels and got six or fewer hours of sleep per night.
Participants who qualified for the second phase were divided into two groups: one received monthly guided instruction in the Tapas Acupressure Technique, which involves lightly touching specific pressure points on the face and back of the head while focusing on a problem (i.e., maintaining weight loss). The other group also met monthly with a trained interventionist and a support group, but used more traditional nutrition and exercise techniques to keep weight off. Both groups met for six months and then were followed for another six months to see which group kept more weight off. Results of that phase of the trial should be available in late 2011 or early 2012.
The study authors caution that their findings may not apply to all groups trying to lose weight. The authors also noted that the participants were highly motivated, and that 90 percent had attended at least some college.
These studies are part of ongoing research at Kaiser Permanente to better understand weight loss and the key factors to maintaining optimum weight. Another Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research study last year found that the more people logged on to an interactive weight management website, the more weight they kept off. Researchers at the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research also found that keeping a food diary can double a persons weight loss and that both personal contact and web-based support can help with long-term weight management.

The Key To A Flat Stomach


The Key To A Flat Stomach

Can you obtain a rock hard stomach from a plastic pillow? What about a wheelbarrow? It would be nice if you could, which is why SO MANY people bought those frightening abdominal "rockers" and "wheels". On one box, I saw something like "Over 250,000 sold", which means that over 250,000 individuals wasted their time and money on an overblown bird feeder. First off, FAT IS THE ONLY REASON WHY THE ABS (STOMACH MUSCLES) ARE INVISIBLE. Case closed! Even if you perform thousands of crunches each day, OR EVEN ALL DAY, you will NEVER HAVE A FIRM MID-SECTION WHEN FAT HIDES THE UNDERLYING MUSCLE! The key to losing this stored fat is PROPER DIET -- you can even neglect exercise completely, and if you follow an effective diet routine, you will burn body fat (exercise simply enhances the rate of fat loss WHEN YOU FOLLOW A PROPER DIET)!
The makers of these machines are well aware of this fact, which is why they include a diet program with each of these contraptions. They hope the user follows the diet plan, and attributes any improvement in their appearance to the dummy machine.Wow! It's nice to see ethical behavior has taken the world by storm! But let's now examine WHY the machine doesn't work. Each of these contraptions, by nature, are designed to make a stomach crunch EASIER, which does NOTHING to increase firmness and improve tone in your mid-section! In fact, to make crunches effective, you need to increase, not decrease, resistance, which is the EXACT OPPOSITE of what these gadgets offer. Unfortunately, there is NO machine in existence today that can offer you such stimulation, so stop searching. Remember, you NEED TO LOSE FAT FROM THE MID-SECTION TO DISPLAY A FIRM, ATHLETIC STOMACH, and toy store items like these abdominal chairs and wheels will only eat up your hard earned money. LOSE THE FAT through proper diet (WHICH IS THE PRIMARY FACTOR), and CORRECTLY perform crunches (that require NO SPECIAL EQUIPMENT), to tone your abs. But remember -- YOU CAN'T DEFINE YOUR MID-SECTION WITHOUT LOSING FAT, THUS CRUNCHES WITHOUT PROPER DIET ARE WORTHLESS! Many perform crunches while following an ineffective diet routine, and achieve NOTHING, so never forget that proper diet is CRUCIAL! No special machines -- no awkward, uncomfortable exercises -- it's not as difficult as people think!