Keeping Fit is A Daily Battle

This may sound contrary to many but achieving weight loss is really not an end by itself.

If you lose enough weight to achieve your ideal body weight, that’s great! Now, you want to maintain it, don’t you?

On the other hand, if you’re on a weight loss program, after losing several pounds, it is a good idea to maintain your weight for certain period to allow your body to adjust to that of your new base weight.

In fact, I know someone who achieved his ideal body weight and then gain back every pound of it and worst of all, he became obese in a few short years.

This person completed his first marathon which helped him to shed around 10 pounds to achieve the ideal body he wanted. And then in a matter of months, he was celebrating, enjoying, traveling, eating and drinking without caring about his body!

All his efforts for the intense nine months training for his first marathon went down the drain in a few months! He stopped running altogether, and eating like there’s no tomorrow.

Here’s five steps you can take to maintain your body weight:

STEP 1 – Set your goal and write it down

Many self development gurus advocate that to achieve something, you must first set your goals and to write it down.

You must be thinking what goal is there to set since you merely want to maintain your weight. But the truth is that even maintaining your body weight itself is a goal. Because your weight can actually swing the other way and you start gaining pounds!

STEP 2 – Find out how many calories your body need

As you probably know, how many calories your body need depends on many factors like your basal metabolism rate, age, sex, job, activity level. In fact, it is almost impossible to be precise due to these variables.

However, there is a rule of thumb based on your level of exercise:

- Light Exercise: Multiply your weight in pounds by 14

- Moderate Exercise: Multiply your weight in pounds by 16

- Heavy Exercise: Multiply your weight in pounds by 18

For example, Kelly weighs 140 pounds. She is moderately active. Her calorie needs are 140 x 16 = 2240 calories/day

Again, remember that this is just an approximate guideline.

STEP 3 – Record your food intake

Now, it is essential to record your food intake for at least three days.

Next, you need to check out from some reliable sources the calories for the amount and type of food you consume.

The idea is to take a sample of the foods you consume for three days so that you would know your typical calorie intake. If you need 2240 calories per day to maintain your body weight as in the above example and you find yourself consuming 2600 calories, at least you know where lies the problem and begin to take the necessary action.

STEP 4 – Focus on aerobics rather than fat burning

To lose weight, we focus on the fat burning zone of 55 to 70% of our target heart rate (which is equal to 220 less our age in years).

However, since your objective is to maintain weight, focus on the higher range of 70 to 80% of target heart rate when you exercise. This is the aerobic zone where you build up your aerobic fitness rather than burn fats.

CAUTION: Please consult with your doctor/physician before embarking on any form of exercise.

STEP 5 – Check your weight regularly

Now it’s time to make friends with the scale. Form a habit to check and record your weight at around the same time everyday such as in the morning.

STEP 6 – Adjust your eating and exercise level

Note that your weight will most likely vary from day to day. So, what you’re checking is a trend, not the minor fluctuations of half a pound either way.

For instance, if your weight goes up for 3 to 5 consecutive days, you would know that you have to eat less and exercise more.

Now that you know how to maintain your body weight, it’s time to take action to make it happen so that you can enjoy a healthy life.

Great reminder to once again go back to basic.

6 great tips on losing weight fast

1. Eat lots of green carbohydrates, like green beans, broccoli and lettuce because they are great for you and include fiber.

2. Increase your fiber intake, but make sure you do this slowly. Eat apple and bread to get fiber. Fiber makes you feel full and this decrease the want to eat.

3. Eat in smaller portion six times a day. This is a very important tip on losing weight fast. You need to keep your metabolism burning. People that eat 3 times a day are obese and sluggish. Keeping the metabolism burning helps burn fat and increase energy level.

4. Start an exercise program that includes lifting weights and a cardiovascular workout. You need to gain lean muscle mass in order to remove excess fat. I recommend walking each day for 1 hour to achieve this.

5. Drink plenty of water. Your body needs water to remove toxin and keep your feeling good and full all day. Water is one of the most important things you can consume to lose weight and feel great.

6. Get plenty of Protein. Protein helps build lean muscle mass and is an essential part of any tip on losing weight. Eat plenty of foods that contain protein, like chicken and grass fed cow meat.

Those 6 tips above mixed with the diet I’ am about to tell you about will cause you to lose weight rapidly in your diet plan.

The diet I am referring to follows a calorie shifting routine. This means eating different foods everyday so that you trick your body’s metabolism. The most common reason most people can’t lose weight on a diet is because they have a strict diet in which they eat the same foods each day.

This tells your body that it only consumes a certain number of calories a day, so your metabolism will adapt to it and will not burn off anything else.

With the calorie shifting routine, you trick your body everyday about what you will be consuming. Your body will turn into a burning machine because it doesn’t know what calorie will come next.

This is good because on the days we eat a lower amount, a lot of fat will be burned off. The best diet plan that follows this calorie shifting routine is called Fat loss 4 Idiots.

So you want to lose your belly fat quickly? Fed up of those love handles? Well the answer is to burn off a more calories than you take in. It really is as straightforward as that! One of the keys to burning fat is to speed up your metabolism. The 5 tips below are designed to ensure that your workouts maximise the calories you burn and get your metabolism going!

1. Use More Multi-Muscle Exercises

If you want to lose weight fast, forget about those isolation exercises that body builders use to define certain muscle groups. Choose exercises that allow the most load. Lifting heavier weights will build muscle quicker, and muscle burns fat! So choose a range of lifting exercises that cover your largest muscle sets and that allow you to lift the most weight. Lifts like the bench press for chest and arms, or squats for the legs are good examples. By performing all over body workouts you’ll hit all of your larger muscle groups to ensure maximum calorie burning, your larger muscle groups will burn more calories than the smaller muscles and increase your metabolism.

2. Rest For Less Than 60 Seconds Between Sets.

Keeping your rest periods under 60 seconds will keep your heart rate elevated, thus burning more calories. To help, alternate between leg exercises and upper body exercises, that way you keep your heart rate up but allow different muscle groups to rest to ensure you can keep lifting heavier weights. Only do 2 to 3 sets of around 8 repetitions.

3. Eat A Balanced Diet Of Natural Products

Don’t starve yourself to lose weight. Let exercise burn the body fat. Make sure though that you eat less calories than you plan to use up each day, and stick to natural products rather than processed foods and junk foods.

4. Allow 5 Days Rest Between Your Weights Workouts

When you’re trying to lift heavy weights, you need to allow your muscles time to recover and grow. The growth burns calories and will reduce your body fat ratio. You need to allow 5 days minimum for the muscles to recover and grow after a heavy workout. If you do, you’ll be able to lift more quicker as the muscle grow stronger. Over training will vastly reduce the benefits you see from your workouts.

5. Get On The Treadmill or Out On The Roads

Forget all the fancy machines in your gym! Running burns more calories per hour than any other exercise. So get on the treadmill (or get some fresh air) three to four times per week, and try and run for longer each week. The more minutes you run for, the more calories you’ll burn. Try to run for between 40 – 60 minutes each time and the weight will drop off quickly when coupled with the weight lifting. You should look to vary your runs. For example do some 60 minute runs at a steady speed, then do some 40 minute runs where you run in intervals, which means run fast, then run slow, then run fast again. Interval training will improve your stamina and burn a lot of calories. Lifting heavy weights will tone your body, you don’t need all the fancy machines that most modern gyms offer … run for lengthy periods and lift weights, that’s really all you need to do!

If you do your cardio training on an empty stomach in the morning, you’ll burn up your blood sugar reserves quickly, and then your body will have to turn to your stored body fat for fuel. So by doing your cardio exercises early in the morning before breakfast you’ll burn more body fat than if you exercise later in the day.

Follow these five tips and your stomach fat will disappear quickly to give you the flat, toned stomach you are looking for.

Do you want to lose 10 pounds in 2 weeks and lose fat from your hips, belly and thighs? Then the first thing you need to do is to stop making excuses and start making a difference.

Top 3 excuses for not losing weight:

* “I can’t lose weight because my metabolism slows down as I get older”- The truth: After the age of 30 the metabolism slows down only by 2-3% per decade!
* “I was born to be fat”- The truth: Although heredity is important, I have yet to see a starving person who is overweight! Our bodies do not create fat out of thin air. Genetics is only one of the many factors of obesity. The main cause is your behavior. And that’s entirely under your control!
* “I don’t have the time to go on a diet ” – The truth: Eating a healthy meal doesn’t take longer that eating junk food.

After you accept the fact that you are 100% responsible for your situation, then you need to follow the right diet plan.

Lose 10 pounds in 2 weeks – 5 Quick Tips:

* Hide the temptation: clean out your refrigerator and pantry. Get rid of all fatty foods and sweets.
* Always eat breakfast: eating a good breakfast, makes you eat less throughout the day.
* Stop skipping meals: eating 5-6 smaller meals instead of 1-2 big ones can boost your metabolism.
* Get a good night’s sleep: according to medical research sleep deprivation can induce hunger.
* Start weight training: for every pound of muscle your body burns 50 extra calories a day. Training with weight a couple times a week for about 15 minutes, should be enough to build muscle.

Your metabolic rate determines how much calories your body can use up in a particular daily. A very metabolic rate amounts to high calories burnt or being used up. If you have a metabolic rate, then you won’t won’t be burning calories at a faster rate.

Any one who is trying to lose weight must maintain a fairly high metabolic rate but unfortunately, many people who want to lose weight have bad diet plan. Please hardly exercise, many still skip meals or at worst go about starving themselves all in the name of losing weight. For many, it takes a drastic change in their daily eating and exercise habits for them to finally lose weight. It might seem hard, but it can be done!

Though it usually seem hard to increase your metabolism but you can increase your metabolism by following the under listed tips.

1. First before the start – make sure you are ready for this

Ask yourself the following questions:

a)Do you really want to lose weight? b) Is dieting right for you? c) do you have enough motivation ? d) Are you able to devote 20-30% of your time to your body? e) Would you accept the things you can not change? f) would you be ready to have a change in your lifestyle? g) Do your family and friends support you?

If your can answer yes to all or majority of the above questions, then you are ready and on your weight to increase your metabolism and lose weight.

2. Workout smartly

You can increase your metabolism and lose weight by engaging in 3-to-4 short 10 minute work outs instead of the usually tedious 30-40 minute work out.

Medical researches at the University of Pittsburg shows that women who divide their 30 to 40 minute work outs into 4 10 minutes work out sessions lost 20 or more pounds while another group of women who did 1 big 40 minute work out only lost 14 pounds.

The reason for this is, when you engage in short 3-4 10 minutes work out sessions, you are not giving your metabolism any time to rest or slow down.

3. Eat little and often – There is no point in over eating and eating less or starving yourself is also dangerous to your weight loss progress – moderation is the name of the game. There’s evidence that eating small, regular meals throughout the day, instead of the normal one or two big meals or starving yourself, may help to keep your metabolism ticking over. You need to know that around 10 % of your daily calorie intake goes on digesting and absorbing food – this means the more times you eat, the more the effect on your metabolism.

4.Drink More Water

One of the best weight loss secrets is to ditch the sodas and stick to water! Experts say you should drink approximately eight glasses of water a day to stay hydrated and healthy. Instead of turning to calorie-laden or sugar-rich drinks, grab a refreshing glass of water. In addition to flushing toxins out of your system, drinking water encourages you to build muscle.

5. Work Out with Weights

One great way to maximize the amount of fat you are burning is to add a weight program to your work out routine. Weight training will not only tone your physique, but will strengthen your body and improve your general health. Lifting weights will also burn calories and fat more quickly than traditional exercising, and it will also boost your metabolism.

6. Aerobic/cardio Work out : Aerobic/cardio workout helps in the reduction of fat and an increase in metabolic rate. Ensure to do serious aerobic/cardio workout for at least 3-4 times per week. Doing this will not only help you lose weight but also help spike up your body metabolism. Many weight loss experts believe more calories are being burnt doing aerobic/cardio training but the truth is that you are not only burning calories during aerobic/cardio workouts but also preparing your body to burn more calories even after the workout sessions. Short cardio sessions ( 10 – 20 minutes ) for at least four times per week will help increase body metabolic rate so as to burn off more calories even when sleeping or resting.

7. Do not Skip Meals : Eat regular small meals instead of infrequent big ones -you won’t feel as hungry and your body will use more energy in digestion and also keeps your blood sugar level balanced. Instead of eating 3 big meals, try to eat 5 – 6 smaller meals throughout the day.

8. Passionately kiss your partner 10 times a day. According to a medical by kinsey Institute report on sex, passionately kiss your partner helps your burn as much as 6.4 calories per minute which Ten minutes a day of kissing equates to about 23,000 calories — or eight pounds — a year!

Let me go out on a short limb here and say: dieting works . . . at least in the near term. But you can increase the effectiveness of most diets and improve your long-term chance of success by mastering several simple diet changes.

Over the past years, I’ve compiled a long list of simple lifestyle changes that combine to build a practical, long-term approach to dieting. Add a few of these changes to your current routine individually until they become habit. In a short while, you’ll notice better, more lasting results if you are able to absorb these changes. Plus, they’ll help kick-start any fast weight lose diet.

Ice cold water: drink an ice-cold glass of water (16 ounces) when you first wake up and prior to every meal. Your body will be forced to raise the water to its temperature, burning a few extra calories in the process. Additionally, it will make you feel fuller when you eat and help keep you properly hydrated.

Add negative calorie foods: there are a handful of foods out there that consume more energy when burned than are contained within the foods themselves; i.e. they have a net negative caloric impact. Try adding asparagus, broccoli, blueberries, beets, radishes, cucumbers, strawberries, tomatoes, and similar foods.

Two-hour rule: don’t eat for at least two hours before bedtime, and ideally, in the final three hours that you are awake, consume only fresh vegetables or salad. This is actually easier than it sounds. If you eat dinner at 7:00 PM and go to bed at 11:00 PM, add a small garden salad as an evening snack around 9:00 PM. This will keep you from snacking late at night when the food will have little chance of being metabolized.

Switch to anaerobic exercise: exercise burns calories — you know this. But effective exercise can burn calories for up to 24 hours after it’s performed and spare your muscle mass at the same time. The secret is interval training. Drop your long cardio workouts in favor of short interval sessions.

Eat brown foods: try to stay away from processed foods or foods that increase your blood sugar. Whole wheat bread, sweet potatoes, brown rice are good substitutes for white bread, potatoes, and white rice.

3:1 deficit-to-normal ratio: after three days at a caloric deficit, add a normal day. If you’re dieting at a 30 percent deficit for 3 days (e.g. 2400 calorie diet dropping to 1650 calories), make the fourth day a 10 percent deficit. That is, in this example, give yourself an extra 510 calories on every fourth day. This will keep your body guessing.

Remember, for maximum effectiveness, add these habits into your current fast weight loss plan. When you stop dieting, retain these habits for the long-term to help you keep off the weight it took so long to lose. It’s always easier to maintain than to lose!

I find this article very interesting from Mike Geary.

Excess Abdominal Fat is Not Only Ugly, but Extremely Dangerous to Your Health – This is More Than a Vanity Issue!
by Mike Geary, Certified Nutrition Specialist, Certified Personal Trainer

Did you know that the vast majority of people in this day and age have excess abdominal fat? The first thing that most people think of is that their extra abdominal fat is simply ugly, is covering up their abs from being visible, and makes them self conscious about showing off their body.

However, what most people don’t realize is that excess abdominal fat in particular, is not only ugly, but is also a dangerous risk factor to your health. Scientific research has clearly determined that although it is unhealthy in general to have excess body fat throughout your body, it is also particularly dangerous to have excess abdominal fat.

There are two types of fat that you have in your abdominal area. The first type that covers up your abs from being visible is called subcutaneous fat and lies directly beneath the skin and on top of the abdominal muscles.

The second type of fat that you have in your abdominal area is called visceral fat, and that lies deeper in the abdomen beneath your muscle and surrounding your organs. Visceral fat also plays a role in giving certain men that “beer belly” appearance where their abdomen protrudes excessively but at the same time, also feels sort of hard if you push on it.

Both subcutaneous fat and visceral fat in the abdominal area are serious health risk factors, but science has shown that having excessive visceral fat is even more dangerous than subcutaneous fat. Both of them greatly increase the risk your risk of developing heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, stroke, sleep apnea, various forms of cancer, and other degenerative diseases.

Part of the reason visceral fat is particularly dangerous is that it apparently releases more inflammatory molecules into your system on a consistent basis.

If you care about the quality of your life and your loved ones, reducing your abdominal fat should be one of your TOP priorities! There’s just no way around it. Besides, a side effect of finally getting rid of all of that excessive ugly abdominal fat is that your stomach will flatten out, and if you lose enough stomach fat, you will be able to visibly see those sexy six pack abs that everyone wants.

So what gets rid of extra abdominal fat? Is there actually a REAL solution beyond all of the gimmicks and hype that you see in ads and on commercials for “miracle” fat loss products?

The first thing you must understand is that there is absolutely NO quick fix solution. There are no pills or supplements of any sort that will help you lose your abdominal fat faster. Also, none of the gimmicky ab rockers, rollers, or ab belts will help get rid of abdominal fat either. You can’t spot reduce your stomach fat by using any of these worthless contraptions. It simply doesn’t work that way.

The only solution to consistently lose your abdominal fat and keep it off for good is to combine a sound nutritious diet full of unprocessed natural foods with a properly designed strategic exercise program that stimulates the necessary hormonal and metabolic response within your body. Both your food intake as well as your training program are important if you are to get this right.

I’ve actually even seen a particular study that divided thousands of participants into a diet-only group and an exercise & diet combined group. While both groups in this study made good progress, the diet-only group lost significantly LESS abdominal fat than the diet & exercise combined group.

Now the important thing to realize is that just any old exercise program will not necessarily do the trick. The majority of people that attempt getting into a good exercise routine are NOT working out effectively enough to really stimulate the loss of stubborn abdominal fat. I see this everyday at the gym.

Most people will do your typical boring ineffective cardio routines, throw in a little outdated body-part style weight training, and pump away with some crunches and side bends, and think that they are doing something useful for reducing their abdominal fat. Then they become frustrated after weeks or months of no results and wonder where they went wrong.

Well, the good news is that I’ve spent over a decade researching this topic, analyzing the science, and applying it “in the trenches” with myself as well as thousands of my clients from all over the world to see what works to really stimulate abdominal fat loss.

The entire solution… all of the nutritional strategies, as well as training sequences, exercise combinations, and more have all been compiled in my Truth About Six Pack Abs Program.

Keep in mind that the point of this whole program is NOT abdominal exercises (that is only a very small portion of it). The main point of this program is showing you the absolute most effective strategies for losing your stubborn abdominal fat, so you can get rid of that dangerous health risk, as well as get a flatter more defined midsection.

If you follow the guidelines, you WILL lose your belly fat that has been plaguing you for years. This is not guesswork… it is a proven system that works time and time again for all of my clients on every corner of the globe that actually apply these strategies. If you apply it, the results will come. It’s really that simple.

The only reason most people fail in their fitness goals is that they have good intentions at first to adopt a new lifestyle, yet after a few weeks or months, they abandon their good intentions and slip right back into their old bad habits that gave them the excess body fat in the first place.

Don’t waste another day allowing that nasty abdominal fat to kill your confidence as well as contribute to your risk for MAJOR diseases.

Get the solution to rid yourself for life of this problem by reading more details about the program at the Losing Dangerous Abdominal Fat home page

Train hard, eat right, and enjoy life!