Posts Tagged ‘lose belly fat’

Seated oblique twists with medicine ball, sometimes called a Russian Twist, is a very effective exercise for strengthening the abdominal muscles, particularly the rectus abdominis, the external obliques and internal obliques.

How to do it right:

* Sit on the floor with your knees bent and feet flat on the floor.
* Contract your abs and sit at about a 45 degrees angle.
* Hold a medicine with both hands directly in front of you
* Contracting your abs, twist slowly from your torso to your right and touch the medicine ball to the floor beside you.
* Quickly, but smoothly, contract your abs and twist your torso and touch the medicine ball to the other side.
* Repeat for the desired number of reps.

Thanks to Elizabeth Quinn, About.com Guide and sportsmedicine.about.com

It may seem like the reverse crunch is for the lower abs but, remember, the rectus abdominis is one long muscle, so you can’t separate upper from lower. To do this move right:

1. Lie on the floor and place hands on the floor or behind the head.
2. Bring the knees in towards the chest until they’re bent to 90 degrees, with feet together or crossed.
3. Contract the abs to curl the hips off the floor, reaching the legs up towards the ceiling.
4. Lower and repeat for 12-16 reps.
5. It’s a very small movement, so try to use your abs to lift your hips rather than swinging your legs and creating momentum.

Thanks to Paige Waehner and exercise.about.com

Life is all about balance. At least I think so. So does hormone expert Dr. Holly Lucille.

Holly’s idea of balance goes beyond day-planners and schedules. She talks about “internal” balance: Balance between your  natural hormones to help create energy,  lower body fat, and increasing  your sex.drive.

When you read her, everything makes perfect sense and you wonder why you didn’t put it together before now.

It’s really a good read…

I wanted to give you this today. It’s an  excerpt from Dr. Lucille’s fantastic book,  “Creating and Maintaing Balance.”

Pick it up here free:

http://www.naturapause.com/go/privacy1/free-sample <— 26 pages of Holly’s book

Enjoy!

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If you’ve been looking to gain muscle while you’re burning body fat take a look at this…quite interesting and extremely useful when you’re trying to do both at once.

I just received this article from Jon Benson and HAD to share it with you. It really opened my eyes to what is possible. Let me know what you think, okay?

How To Gain Muscle And Burn Bodyfat At The Same Time

What is your “big dream?”

I have two:

– To make an impact on the lives of over 10M people before I die;

– To have a family that’s mobile so I can live in many places.

Not bad, right?

Want to know a “third” dream of mine?  One that I saw become a reality a few years ago?

To gain muscle AND burn bodyfat all at the same time.

It’s like a pipe-dream that somehow worked its way through the pipes and into my gym.

It is not easy, granted, but you can do it.

Almost anyone can do it.

You just have to train and eat in a very specific way.

Listen:  You do NOT want to just “burn bodyfat” or god-forbid “lose-weight”… that will not give you the body you want.

You absolutely MUST shape your muscles, tighten and tone, and burn bodyfat.

And you can do it at the same time.

Most pros disagree with me. They think it is metabolically impossible to gain muscle while in a state of low-calorie dieting.

They are wrong.

Here’s an article I wrote on this topic. I hope you enjoy it.

To save you time, I put a link to the online complete version of the article below…

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I remember a friendly argument with my co-author of Fit Over 40 Tom Venuto. It all started when I told Tom how I was eating and training for my last peak. A peak is where you lower your bodyfat and try to maintain as much muscle mass as possible.

“There’s just no way I could ever get in shape eating and training like that,” says Tom. “Sure you could man…what are you, a mutant?” Tom fires back, then me, then Tom….and so it goes. (I really didn’t call Tom a mutant. That was creative liberty.)

So why are so many fitness pros like Tom freaked out about my training and nutrition plan? Simple: I claim it burns fat while building muscle at the same time. Every time I read an article by some doctor or expert claiming it’s “biologically impossible” to gain lean muscle mass on a hypocaloric diet (a diet low in calories) I just laugh.

I do more than make claims–I have proved this to be true many times. I’ve had my bodyfat hydrostatically measured during several peaks. In all but one I showed an increase of muscle mass and a decrease of bodyfat during a 12-16 week period. The one time I didn’t show an increase in muscle mass when was I was training the most in the gym. That may not make sense right now, but it will in a moment.

Article Continued Here –
http://www.7minutemuscle.com/go/privacy1/gain-muscle-burn-fat < — click.

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The Best Way To Fire Up Your Metabolism, Burn Fat Fast & Developing Lasting Health

By Rob Poulos, Fat Loss & Fitness Expert & Creator of ‘Fat Burning Furnace‘

Ask ten people what type of exercise they should be doing to burn fat and fire up their metabolism and they’ll all probably tell you the same thing.  They’ll tell you that you need to do 30-40 minutes of moderately-paced aerobic exercise on a treadmill, elliptical machine, stair climber, etc. for 3-5 times per week.

They’ll probably also tell you that more is better…4 times per week would be better than 3, and 5 times per week would be even better.

People will tell you this because that’s been and continues to be the mainstream recommendation for fat burning by many fitness professionals.  Get in a certain target heart rate and stay at that heart rate for 30 minutes or so, several times per week.  I am here to tell you there is a better way.

Sure, you’ll burn some calories while you’re running to nowhere on a treadmill, but you won’t make a complete physique transformation with this type of exercise alone.

In fact, this type of exercise can actually be counterproductive to burning fat.  Here are just a couple of reasons:

Long duration, lower intensity aerobics calls upon your stored body fat for energy during the sessions.  While this may sound good, this can actually cause your body to create more body fat in reserve after the workout is over to have ready for your next workout.  Yikes!

What’s worse, this type of exercise when done frequently as typically suggested, trains your cardiovascular system to be efficient.  Again, while this sounds good, your heart and lungs can actually reduce their capacity for work as they are getting more efficient at doing easy work (your long duration, low intensity aerobic workouts), which reduces their ability to handle stress.

This can lead to a host of other problems including higher change of heart attack.  You are only working within your current aerobic capacity because you’re never challenging it to go beyond what it’s capable of.   And anything that is easy will not yield results even close to what’s challenging for the body to accomplish.

Instead, you should be challenging the body to increase its capacity, so that it is stronger and able to deal with stress more easily.  How is this done?

The fastest and most efficient way to rev up your metabolism, burn fat faster, and develop lifelong health and fitness is to add lean muscle to your body through resistance training – period. You want life changing results in the quickest possible time? Get stronger and build some muscle. When you add lean muscle to your body you’ll be literally turning your body into a fat burning machine!

Let’s say that you were eating the amount of calories that allow you to maintain your current bodyweight, but began to add lean muscle to your body through proper resistance training…you’ll need to use some of those calories you’re eating to feed the new muscle, creating a calorie deficit in your body.

In addition, when you stimulate your body with proper resistance training like I teach my students, the repair and growth process will call upon your stored body fat for energy.  This calorie deficit combined with the repair and growth process will allow you to burn fat all day long, every day.  You’ll even get these fat burning effects when you’re sitting around doing nothing at all.

Also, properly conducted resistance training actually increases your heart and lung’s capacity for work.  By placing intense demands on your body, it is forced into being ready for anything you throw at it.  This makes you more resistant to cardiovascular health problems that plague most people…even those that exercise with aerobics frequently.

And the beauty is I’ve discovered that you don’t have to spend much time working out to get the fat loss effects, and strength and muscle gains that will create this environment…you can actually get it done with 2 or 3 weekly workouts that last between 20 and 30 minutes, and even less time at an advanced level.

And it’s easy to make this type of exercise part of your life because of its efficiency…and it will help keep you lean and healthy for the rest of it…muscle is the stuff that fat burning furnaces are made of!  That I can promise you.

Claim your free copy of Rob Poulos’s “7 Secrets Of Permanent Fat Loss & Fitness” at his website: http://www.fatburningfurnace.com

Rob Poulos is a celebrated fitness author, fat loss expert, and the founder and CEO of Zero to Hero Fitness. Rob created the world’s most efficient method for fast and permanent fat loss with his “Fat Burning Furnace” system to help those looking to put an end to restrictive fad diets, long boring cardio workouts, and the need for super-human willpower for good.

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People are confused more than ever about how to burn fat. They are confused about the best way to go about achieving the body they want. They are confused about what works and what doesn’t, and the reasons why. There are countless individuals slaving away in gyms and fitness centers around the country right now.

They are working tirelessly, almost every day, on the treadmill, stair-climber, elliptical, etc. to burn those calories and fat. They also might be lifting weights several times a week for hours at a time to build some strength and muscle. They might even join a few aerobics or spinning classes too.

They are probably also trying one of the latest diet strategies that promises miracle fat burning and weight loss. They could also be spending a lot of money on the latest and greatest dietary supplements that could be that miracle pill that will aid in weight loss. They are also carefully watching the scale as their main judge of fat loss progress.

If it goes up a pound or two, they may behave rashly and maybe even change up their entire workout or diet program! And of course there are others are doing variations on that same theme.

After all, this is the kind of stuff that many of the popular fitness and diet gurus typically recommend to burn fat. But with so many different strategies and plans being pushed as the be all and end all, what happens is we tend to overboard.

And when that happens, we lose sight of what really matters in achieving lifelong fat burning, fitness and health…the principles that many people don’t know about, most people have forgotten, and only a select few put to use to achieve lifelong health and fitness. These are the same principles I used to drop over 40 pounds of unwanted body fat, keep it off, and revitalize my life!

With any exercise or nutrition program, you’ll probably lose some fat initially, but far too often the progress doesn’t continue or doesn’t come as fast as the person would like because they’re using a temporary mindset. They’re only focused on the short term and one specific goal. So they end up switching to something else, and the cycle continues until they’ve become consumed by this cycle of confusion.

I believe that this is one of the biggest, if not the #1 reason for the lack of fat loss and fitness progress that is being experienced by the masses of exercisers and dieters in the world. They are jumping from one fad diet or exercise routine to another, while losing sight of what’s really important, and what really works.

Simply put, they are exercising far too much, not nearly intensely enough, and trying to adhere to unrealistic diet recommendations.

If instead they focused on a long term plan, a lifestyle as it’s often called, and didn’t worry about “losing 10 pounds by summer”, they would find it far easier to do the right things most of the time.

And those right things include brief, progressive, and intense resistance training, eating a diet full of nutrient rich foods, drinking tons of water, and getting plenty of quality sleep and rest. The students of my Fat Burning Furnace method understand this and are reaping the life long health and fitness rewards because of it. Are you?

Claim your free copy of Rob Poulos’s “7 Secrets Of Permanent Fat Loss & Fitness” at his website: http://www.fatburningfurnace.com

Rob Poulos is a celebrated fitness author, fat loss expert, and the founder and CEO of Zero to Hero Fitness. Rob created the world’s most efficient method for fast and permanent fat loss with his “Fat Burning Furnace” system to help those looking to put an end to restrictive fad diets, long boring cardio workouts, and the need for super-human willpower for good.

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