2011/07/02

Lose Weight Gradually - Use a Plan for Fat Loss

Have you ever wanted to lose weight but feel disillusioned because none of the weight loss fads seem to be working? Maybe it is time for you to embark on a simple but effective plan for fat loss that involves a few simple changes in your exercise and diet.

Consider the following simple tips that will safely allow you to lose about two to three pounds within three weeks time.

1. Alternate your calories

Perhaps you already follow a carbohydrate-rich diet and sometimes alternate it with occasional days when you hardly eat carbohydrates at all. By enforcing this habit more stringently, you will lose those pounds. On the low-carb days, try to eat only protein foods and vegetables. Then on days the days when you exercise a lot, eat only high-carbs. This approach is also called calorie cycling and because of the zigzag approach to carbohydrate intake, your metabolism is put into high gear and you will lose fat.

2. Increase your protein intake

It is essential to know that the leaner you get, the less your total calorie intake, and the more protein you need. Proteins prevent loss of muscle mass and promote the recovery of your body. In addition, your body requires twice the amount of energy to digest protein than for the digestion of fats or carbohydrates.

3. Take a few days rest between extended exercise periods

When you become over-trained, your body tends to retain water, which is not a good thing. Try and stay way from the gym for one week, and also eat normally during that time. This will cause the water balance in your body to recover, and your metabolism will almost reboot itself.

4. Combine sprints with cardio

If you are you are only focusing on cardio work-outs at present, then you should consider an adjustment to this routine. As you go through your cardio workout, do five to eight sprints and then insert a rest interval of about 90 seconds. This whole routine could last about 30 minutes, but do finish with another 15 minutes of moderate cardio training. Following this routine for about a week or two, will result in fat loss because effective cardio workout requires of your body to use fat as fuel.

5. Gradually increase the intensity of your exercises

It is possible to reach the ceiling of your weight loss goals when you just simply do the same training, at the same pace each time. A very simple way to lose those more pounds is to increase the intensity of your workout. This will inevitably stimulate the building of muscle strength and shedding of unwanted pounds.

If you are overweight and want to return to normal, then you can easily make the above tips part of your plan for fat loss.

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2011/07/01

Do You Know About the Dangers of Weight Loss Pills?

In the fitness and health industry, there are always trends. There might be a new gimmick or a new supplement that is promised to help you lose x amount of pounds or help you to get the body you always dreamed about in x weeks. Unfortunately these products are often times just marketing scams that are no way near as strong as many people think or wish they are. One such product is the common weight loss pill. A factor of these pills that many don't seem to understand or care about is the complication associated with them or rather the dangers of weight loss pills. With this article we want to give you an idea about the dangers and educate you about better choices.

All weight loss pills work in the same way: They will increase your metabolism through some ingredient and try to suppress your appetite through another. The most common ingredients used in diet pills nowadays are caffeine liked substances that are promised to increase your metabolism and substances like guarana that will control your appetite. The problem with both of these substances or their variations is that they bear dangers that are unknown to many and if taken in combination, as usual with weight loss pills are even worse.

When you take weight loss pills you will sooner or later run into the following side effects: High blood pressure, anxiety, depression, heart attacks or even seizures. It doesn't matter how old you are, as there have been reports of very young users experiencing these side effects.

Another factor that is very important to show that weight loss pills are often not a very fruitful endeavor is that many pills do not work or just work by reducing weight via water loss which is not permanent and will therefore be just a few hours of success for you. You should not let these products fool you as they will often times not help you at all and only hurt you with a variety of side effects.

Weight loss pills should never be taken without supervision and prescription from a qualified physician, as they are very dangerous if taken without proper guidance. Many doctors do not recommend them until you are considered extremely obese. The average person would do better just following a well planned diet and exercise regimen than hopping onto the bandwagon and starting to swallow diet pills. But, as mentioned above, there are exceptions to the rule: If you are extremely obese or have absolutely tried everything else and have therefore exhausted your options, you might be someone who can try using these pills. But as already mentioned consult your physician beforehand and make sure that the endeavor will not backfire on you.

Hopefully you now understand the fallacies of these pills and how they will often times only hurt and not help the person using them. If you still want to try them, it is highly advised to consult with a doctor and go from there. These pills will never replace a proper diet and exercise program and therefore the danger of weight loss spills should not be underestimated.

Learn the best methods and techniques for Losing Weight today and how you can follow them in order to reduce your weight and become slim. There is no reason to remain fat today with all those programs and diets out there ready to help you lose weight when you start implementing them properly. Learn about the Dangers of Weight Loss Pills and why you should never use them unless it is absolutely necessary and recommended by a doctor.


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How to Get Slim: Top 10 Fat Loss and Muscle Building Jargons You Must Know

Every hobby, sport, industry and even profession has their own jargons. The fat loss and muscle-building realm is certainly no exception. Just because you are not a seasoned professional or personal trainer doesn't mean you don't have to know the lingo. In fact, if you are just starting a fat loss or muscle-building program all the more you need to get acquainted with these jargons because these are often mentioned in many fat loss tips, exercise description and nutritional articles. Understanding some key jargons will help you to get a better grasp of your fat loss program and not to mention being able impress your less knowledgeable colleagues during water cooler chats.

So I have handpicked the top 10 essential fat loss and muscle-building jargons here that you need to know:

1. Repetitions:

Sometimes referred to as "reps" for short, this refers to the number of times you perform an exercise movement. Using squats as an example, one repetition when you drive your hips back, lower your body and return to starting position.

2. Sets:

Similar to tennis, these refer to the cycles of repetitions for each exercise movement. For example, you performed 15 repetition of squats. That's one set. Then you take a 30 second rest and you repeat another set of 15 repetition of squats.

3. Anabolic window:

The period after your workout when your body is most primed for muscle growth. This is usually within an hour after your training. During this time, you should consume some high quality and fast absorbing protein to immediately start repairing and building muscles. Also take in some high glycemic carbohydrates such as orange juice to replenish lost glycogen stores.

4. Rest:

This refers to the recovery time in between your sets and exercises. For maximum fat burning and cardiovascular effect, stick to 30 - 60 seconds rest.

5. Intensity:

Specifically exercise intensity, this refers to the amount of work done by your body during exercise and is measured by maximum heart rate (MHR). Exercise activity that's 80% MHR or less is considered low intensity exercise. Between 80 - 85% MHR is medium intensity and 85-90% MHR is high intensity exercise. High intensity exercises such as HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) or heavy weight lifting has shown to be most effective at fat loss and calorie burning.

6. Glycemic Index:

Glycemic index is the measure of how carbohydrates affect blood sugar levels. This has a direct impact on how we get fat. Carbohydrates that get broken down by the body easily such as bananas, white potatoes and sodas, release a sudden burst of glucose to the blood stream. These are high glycemic index carbohydrates or simple carbohydrates.

Complex carbohydrates such as broccoli, quinoa, apples and oatmeal take a long time to be broken down by the body and hence glucose is released more gradually. These are low glycemic carbohydrates. If you want to know how to get slim, you should aim to consume mostly complex carbohydrates in your diet and only consume simple carbohydrates after your workouts.

7. Compound exercises:

These are exercises that involve multiple joints and muscle groups such as squats, deadlifts, rowing, bench press, push ups, chin ups, lunges and shoulder presses. If you are looking for the quickest way to lose weight, compound exercises are excellent time savers and are most effective burning the most amount of calories for optimum fat burning.

8. Isometric exercises:

These exercises focus on the static contraction of a working muscle group for a set period of time. Examples of this include planks or the static holding of any exercise in the mid position.

9. Concentric movement:

The lifting movement of an exercise. For squats and push ups, the concentric movement is when your body is at the bottom and you are pushing yourself back up to starting position. For pull ups, the concentric movement is when you are hanging at the bottom and pulling yourself up.

10. Eccentric movement:

Sometimes called the "negatives", this is the lowering movement of the exercise. For pull ups, this is when you have pulled yourself up and your chin is above the bar and you are descending back to starting position where your arms are hanging straight.

Want to know how to get slim quicker? Slowing down the eccentric movement of an exercise has been shown to increase your metabolic rate and also cause greater micro tears in your muscle fibers. This inevitably results in more calories burnt and your muscles coming back even stronger than before.

So there you have it, the top 10 essential fat loss and muscle-building jargons you should know. Now you will no longer need to seek Merriam Webster's the next time you are reading a fat loss article - or any of my other fantastic fat loss articles for that matter.

These jargons are also a good gauge to see how good your fat loss program is. If your current fat loss program or even your personal trainer does not mention or even remotely describes any of the above, it's time for a change.

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Coupled with P90X type exercise videos that you can do at the comfort of your own home, it's little wonder why people who have followed this exact program started seeing results in the first week just by spending 10 minutes a day!

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Alcachofa (Artichoke), African Mango, or Bitter Orange: Which Is the Best for Weight Loss?

There's been an increasing demand for natural products. Not only do people want their foods to be made with all-natural ingredients, they also want natural ingredients in their skin care and dietary supplements. There have been many weight loss supplements that are based on natural ingredients, but there are quite a few out there so naturally, questions arise. Do they really work? And which one works best? Here we will dive into the science behind three of these natural ingredients to find out the difference between them: Alcachofa (Artichoke), African Mango, and Bitter Orange.

When people think about losing weight, they think of a few things: 1) eating less, 2) eating healthy, and 3) exercising. It seems that intuitively, they understand that how much you eat, what you eat, and how active you are all go into achieving your desired weight goal. The basic premise here concerns calories in that losing weight is a game of trying to eat less calories than your body burns. This premise is true, but did you know that water also plays its part in our weight and size? For various reasons, our bodies will retain excess water, which can cause bloating and thus increase our size. On top of that, water is heavy and so it makes us weight more as well. So losing weight not only concerns eating less calories than you burn, but it also includes removing the excess water from your body.

Alcachofa (Artichoke) is one of the world's natural diuretics. As a diuretic, it helps the body flush out the extra water that is retained in the body that increases our size and weight. By removing the excess water from our bodies, the result is that we see more instant results in weight loss in both pounds and inches. Using Alcachofa in supplements by itself is a method one can use in order to lose inches fast. The downside of use Alcachofa supplements by itself is that once the excess water is completely flushed out, it won't help you lose anymore weight because since your extra water has already been removed, you now have to lose fat. Alcachofa supplements don't help you lose fat. So if you are looking for a way to lose inches fast, Alcachofa supplements are right for you, but once you've lost all the excess water, you'll have to find another way to lose even more weight.

African Mango supplements contain extract from the bark of the African Mango tree. This ingredient doesn't affect your body's water retention, but it does help you lose weight in the "eat less calories, burn more calories" department, on both ends! Firstly, African Mango supplements help reduce your appetite, so you feel less hungry and you will eat less throughout the day. Eat less calories? Check! And on the other end of the equation, African Mango supplements causes your body to burn more calories throughout the day too. Burn more calories? Check! Since it both helps you eat less and helps your body burn more calories, African Mango supplements are an all-around effective way of losing fat. In fact, it has been used for a long time in the bodybuilding community.

Bitter Orange supplements also don't affect water retention, but similar to African Mango supplements, they do help you suppress your appetite, so you eat less calories than you would normally and thus making dieting easier to withstand. Bitter Orange supplements, however, don't help you body burn more calories...but they do directly burn fat! So rather than helping your body burn more calories like African Mango supplements, they specifically target body fat and helps your body burn it off. It's debatable whether burning more calories or burning fat is more effective at weight loss, but burning fat is definitely not a bad thing!

With so many ways to lose weight, no wonder there are so many different plant extracts that can help in achieving weight goals! To choose the best one for you, it's good to know how they work. Alcachofa (Artichoke) is great for losing water weight fast, but not for fat loss. African Mango and Bitter Orange don't work in the water weight department, but are great for fat loss. African Mango helps you burn more calories, and Bitter Orange helps burn fat, while both help reduce appetite. And if you want to target weight loss in as many ways as possible in both the short term and the long term, all you need to do is take all three and you will lose the water weight quickly while eating less, burning more calories, and burning fat.

Alcachofa is a dietary supplement, as with any dietary supplement, consult your health care provider before use. Dietary supplements should not be used by pregnant or breastfeeding women. Alcachofa is the same family as sunflower seeds and chrysanthemum, so if you are allergic to any of these you should not take this supplement.


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How To Lose 10 Pounds In 10 Days By Calorie-Shifting

There are a lot techniques and methods out there for losing weight, but most of these require people to eat less or to stay away from foods they love. Though a successful diet works that way, it is quite unbearable for those who undergo it to be deprived of the foods they love to eat. However, most people do not know that there is an existing effective weight loss technique that isn't as strict with regards to an individual's diet; and usually, those who know how to lose 10 pounds in 10 days are the ones who are familiar with it.

The technique we are talking about is calorie shifting. This method has been around for a long time already; but surprisingly, few people are familiar with it. Athletes, specifically bodybuilders, are familiar with this method because they are usually the ones who need a lot of nutrition and a fit body at the same time. If you are thinking that this method must be so hard since athletes apply this to stay fit, you are very wrong. On the contrary, this diet is very easy to do. It is basically consisted of full meals and water which makes it easier for regular people to dismiss it as a fraud program, but over and over, this misperception had been proven wrong.

In doing calorie-shifting, it is very important for an individual to eat at least 4 full meals each day. This means that there should be no in-between-meals snacking. Each meal should have different calorie values as this plays a very important role in the technique. The menu for each day should also differ from one another. The meals should consist of healthy portions or ingredients. It is also important to avoid processed or fast foods. It is safer to mix together ingredients from the different food groups for balance.

Throughout the method, it is also necessary for the person to drink at least 10 glasses of water throughout the day. The water also helps in increasing the body's metabolism rate and in the actual digestion. It will also flush out the toxins or the body's retained waste which may be expelled through the course of weight loss.

Calorie-shifting is very effective because it enables the body to speed up metabolism. This occurs because as the body consumes an irregular calorie level, it doesn't get used to it and it makes up by keeping the metabolism high. The body naturally reacts to calorie levels it intake and addresses it by metabolizing. With regular eating, the body tends to produce a regular metabolism rate which automatically increases or decreases. However, by shifting calories, the body gets confused and keeps the metabolism rate at constant level.

By having a regulated metabolism rate throughout the day, your body will burn up more fats which is why in as short as one day, you can manage to burn up to a pound of your body mass. Now that you know how to lose 10 pounds in 10 days by calorie-shifting, you can soon show off your new and improved figure.

Losing weight is no easy task. To have a better understanding of how to lose 10 pounds in 10 days, get your FREE "How To Lose Fat Fast" Report today!


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Smoothie Recipe For Fast Fat Loss

If you asked me what would be one simple effective strategy to fast fat loss I would tell you to start implementing smoothies. Mainly healthy smoothies and to be even more exact green smoothies. Many times people get confused when it comes to what recipes to use for healthy fat loss. If you are looking for a smoothie recipe I will include one for you below. First we are going to talk about some of the benefits of smoothies.

First, healthy smoothies are VERY simple and easy to make. From the time it takes you to run to the gas station to get a snack you could have made a green smoothie! You don't have to have the nicest blender in the world to make a smoothie or consume more than a couple minutes of your day creating one from the delicious smoothie recipe I am going to give you. What I usually do is take 10 minutes at the end of my day, make a couple for the following day, store them in the fridge in mason jars so I am good to go for the following day!

Second, a good smoothies recipe will supply you with some very nutrient dense food sources. You can turn it into a meal replacement (since it has such high nutritional value) have one as a snack or even pre or post workout. When you supply your body with a nutrient dense smoothie it allows your body to remain fueled for extend hours. The recipe I am going to share with you below will keep you satisfied for hours on end. This will help you eliminate relying on stimulants to get through your day. A nice slow digesting smoothie with avocado in it will allow your body to burn fat for hours by increasing your metabolism as well. It's like getting paid and not having to go to work!

Third, smoothies are not expensive to make. Yes, if you go to a smoothie shop and order an all fruit smoothies with ice cream, heavy creamer or milk it's going to get expensive and don't forget bad for you! I am going to give you a smoothie recipe that will cost you right around if not LESS than morning coffee or energy drink. How would you like to save money and do you body good all at once? Instead of wasting your money on something that's not going to benefit you now you will have the know how to put more nutrients in your body allowing you to get to your fast fat loss goals more rapidly!

Here is my FAVORITE green smoothie recipe! Green smoothies pack a potent punch of essential vitamins and minerals and much more healthy than a high sugar fruit smoothie with cream!

1 Avocado halved and pitted
Handful of spinach
Handful of blueberries
1 Tbsp raw agave nectar
8-12oz unsweetened almond milk

Blend and enjoy!

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Weight Loss Without Diet Soda: How to Let It Go and Lose Weight for Good

Diet Dr. Pepper, oh how I loved thee!

I used to suck you through a straw! Of course, I tried giving up this deliciousness in the past but like a lover who was so bad yet so good I would always find my way back to your artificial sweetened grasp!

On September 25, 2009 I sipped my last diet soda. I divorced myself, lived through the pains of withdrawals and came through stronger, wiser, lighter and clearer.

Diet soda became popular when we learned that regular soda was full of sugar and calories. These beverages provided the best of both worlds. We no longer had to worry about calories but what we didn't realize was that the chemicals were making us sick and fat.

Below are four reasons why diet soda wreaks havoc on your health, your body and your life:

1. Studies show that the artificial sweeteners within these drinks increase our appetites and as a result we gain weight.

2. These drinks are extremely acidic which is the breeding ground for 98% of diseases.

3. Our bodies cannot metabolize these foreign substances and as a result they hang around causing all kinds of trouble!

4. It is dehydrating and addicting. The more we have the thirstier we become and the more soda we want.

As you can see, kicking this habit can restore your health and transform your body, yet you need a strategy.

Follow these steps to let go of soda for good:

AWARENESS: Take note of how many sodas you drink on a daily basis.

DETERMINE: How will you replace your soda consumption? Of course H20 does a body good but would you be willing to try some green tea? If you don't like the taste of plain water, what about sweetening with some lemon or flavored liquid stevia?

LET IT GO...SLOWLY: To decrease withdrawals, be sure to slowly decrease your consumption. For example, if you drink 3 sodas each day, try drinking only 2 for 3 days then 1 for 3 more days. While you are letting go be sure to have your alternative drinks handy and increase consumption of water.

BE ARMED AND READY: Always have water by your side so that you won't need to visit the vending machine. I know water also lives in that machine, but why tempt yourself?

EAT: Healthy and Wholesome foods consumed on a daily basis will also help you feel satisfied lighter and brighter.

The key to kicking your diet soda habit is support and accountability. You will need support in managing your goodbye party and accountability to follow through.

Transforming your lifestyle from harmful to healthful requires, support, accountability and a system. Go to http://www.myknockoutbody.com/ and download your action guide the 3 Step Fit System to unlocking your knock out body in 7 days. Maureen Wielansky works with busy women executives in their 40s and beyond. Through her 9 Step FIT System she shows her clients how to build their bodies so they have the energy to build their businesses. You can reach Maureen at maureen@makingitallfit.com


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