Trying to drop lbs without a clear plan is almost impossible. If you’ve ever done the yo-yo diet and exercise thing, you already know this to be true.

And, the fact is it gets harder and harder to drop those pounds quickly as the years go by. Once you hit 25, you start to notice that it takes a little more discipline in your diet and at the gym to stay trim.

After 30, you start noticing what you could drop in a week or two now comes off in a month or two. And, after 40 you realize if you put it on, chances are good it’s staying there.

But, it doesn’t have to… After 15+ years in the fitness and weight loss industry, here are the most helpful tips and tricks I’ve learned to help you lose inches on your waist.

Know Thy Body to Lose Weight

Losing those last stubborn lbs is a challenge for most people. Lets face it – as we get older, it gets harder and harder to lose weight. Not only that, but typically the first place you put on weight is the last place it comes off. That’s why you need to understand how the body works to lose weight permanently.

Why Your Body Wants to Keep That Tummy Fat

The body is an amazingly complex and adaptable creation, and it will adjust exactly to the demands placed on it. That means that, if you starve yourself, your body will adapt in order to survive. This is simply genetics; it’s an ages-old way of the body to protect itself during times when food might be scarce.

What NOT to Do to Lose Tummy Fat

Which brings us to the first tip for losing belly fat – starvation diets DO NOT work! That’s right, they will not help you lose belly fat. The reason is that, when you starve your body of calories, your metabolism will slow down accordingly. This causes your body to do two things in turn:

1. Any spare calories are IMMEDIATELY stored as fat…

2. As soon as you start eating a regular diet again, your body puts on EVEN MORE fat, just in case it gets starved again.

Bummer! And, that’s why you may have experienced the “yo-yo” effect after crash-dieting to lose weight.

How to Avoid the Yo-Yo Effect

So, what can you do to lose weight… all while avoiding the “yo-yo effect”?

Simple – eat healthy (complex carbs, lean proteins, and a little healthy fat at each meal, and drink plenty of water), eat often (5-6 small meals a day), and exercise AT LEAST four times a week for 30 minutes.

Why at least four times a week? Studies have shown that, for effective weight loss and losing tummy fat, people who exercise a minimum of four times a week have much better results.

Where to Go for More Help and Guidance

Now, you probably need more guidance than I can provide in this article to achieve quick and long-term success, so I’m recommending two programs to help you out – one specifically for men, and one for women.

For women: Just click this link to find out more about the program. It’s very good, well thought out, and was specifically written to show you how to get off the dieting and weight loss roller coaster and onto a permanent path to sexy abs.

http://www.losetummyfatnow.info/

For men: This is one of my favorite programs to help guys get ripped. It’s fast, it’s effective, you can do it anywhere… and it works. Click here the link below for more on this program:

http://www.howtogetrippednow.info/

Recommended:

First Principle of Health and Fitness: Attitude and Mindset

Having a positive attitude is an essential component of a healthy lifestyle. You have to believe that you can achieve the results you desire; otherwise, you’ll soon get discouraged and quit eating right and training.

So how can you stay positive? There are many simple ways to keep a healthy attitude… here are a few that I commonly share with my clients:

• Positive self-talk – The words you speak have a considerable effect on your beliefs. If you put yourself down, use self-deprecating humor, or constantly talk about your faults, you are sabotaging your own progress. Start reprogramming your brain by stating out loud several times a day such phrases as “I like myself” “I am able to reach my goals” “I can do it” and “I love working out and eating right.”
• Control negative thoughts – Choosing to dwell on negative thoughts and images can be very detrimental to our mental health. Whenever you find yourself thinking negative thoughts, acknowledge them and immediately stop dwelling on them.
• Be thankful – Motivational expert, author, and lecturer Brian Tracy
  says that this is one of the most important things a person can do to maintain a positive outlook. Every day, think of five things that you are thankful for, and write them down. Do this for 21 days and I guarantee you will notice a positive change in your outlook.
• Give yourself permission to fail – We all tend to fail now and again; it’s an unavoidable part of the life process. Yet, when we fail to reach our goals we are in turn blessed with new knowledge and insights that we previously would not have had. So, every failure brings us one step closer to reaching our goals. Embrace this and you’ll experience a power you never knew you possessed.

Once you have learned to develop and maintain a positive attitude, the other (physical) components of a fitness lifestyle are a piece of cake.

Proper Exercise is The Second Principle of Health and Fitness

This means having a safe and balanced exercise regimen that includes the following:

1. Cardiorespiratory training (for the heart and lungs; also known as aerobic exercise) – This can include jogging, swimming, biking, etc.
2. Strength training (to build lean muscle tissue, which will make you stronger and increase your metabolism) – Weight training, kettlebells, or bodyweight exercises all fit the bill.
3. And Mobility training (which will keep you more relaxed, supple, and hopefully, injury free) – Yoga, Pilates, certain forms of dance, and martial arts all are great for this, and are also good core strength builders as well.

Proper Nutrition – The One Everyone Loves to Hate

Clients always want simple diet guidelines for a healthy lifestyle that don’t require a lot of thought. I don’t wish to go into too much detail, because there really isn’t the space for it here, there are a few simple things you can do to improve your health by eating right.

For starters, you should be eating a diet free from:

• Excessive amounts of fried food,
• Saturated fats,
• Dairy products (organic low-fat products are okay – just don’t overdo it),
• Refined sugar and flour,
• Alcoholic beverages,
• And fatty red meat

I say “excessive amounts” because I don’t believe in being a complete fanatic about eating healthy; you should allow yourself one day per week to eat moderate amounts of foods that are not in your regular fitness nutrition plan.

So, what should you be eating then? A balanced diet for the athlete consists of the following:

1. Approximately equal amounts of protein and carbohydrates.

• Proteins: lean red meat, one or two whole organic eggs every other day is acceptable, poultry, fish, beans, raw nuts;
• Carbohydrates: fresh fruits and vegetables, whole wheat breads and pasta, and whole grains);

2. A moderate amount of unsaturated fats derived from fish, raw nuts, and the like.

3. And at least eight 8 ounce glasses of water (preferably filtered) per day.

Avoid fad diets and any dietary regimen that will put you into more than a 500 calorie/day deficit (your body needs a certain amount of calories to function; what you don’t take in that your body requires, it will get by breaking down fat, which is desirable, or scavenging muscle tissue, which is undesirable).

Proper Rest, an Essential Principle of Health and Fitness

I can’t stress this enough. Your body grows and repairs itself when you are at rest, specifically, when you are asleep. For some people, 6 hours of sleep is enough, while others can’t seem to get by without 8 hours a night.

Figure out what is best for you, and allow extra rest (maybe a mid-afternoon nap) during periods of hard training or stress (finals week, for instance). In short, get your rest!.

Recommended:

By Jason Ferruggia

Here are 5 random muscle building tips that may make a big difference in your training.

Muscle Building Tip #1 – Don’t exceed 5-6 reps on most of your warm up sets. Your first set could consist of a very light weight for 10-20 reps just to get loosened up and get the blood flowing but beyond that you want to keep the reps low. The reason for this is that you don’t want to build up too much lactic acid or accumulate too much fatigue with your warm ups.

Muscle Building Tip #2 – Don’t stretch before your workout in the hopes of preventing injury. This doesn’t work. The only benefit of stretching before a workout is to help you get into positions you might not be able to reach (such as a full squat) because you are tight in specific areas (such as the hamstrings and hip flexors). But stretching for the sake of injury prevention is an outdated idea and doesn’t really work.

Muscle Building Tip #3 – Don’t over-analyze and over-think everything you do in the gym. This never gets you anywhere. Don’t worry if the incline of the bench is supposed to be 50 degrees or 55 degrees.

Don’t worry that if you don’t supinate at exactly the right time that you won’t activate your biceps optimally. Don’t stress out about the exact grip width on the bar.

If someone tells you that a 16 inch grip on the bench press hits your triceps better than anything else, but because of an injury or anatomical difference you can only comfortably use an 18 inch grip, don’t sweat it.

People over-think themselves to death and they never get anywhere because of it. Go to the gym, get stronger, go home, eat, sleep and repeat. Don’t turn it into advanced calculus. That is one of the best muscle building tips I can give you.

Muscle Building Tip #4 – Always train both sides of the joint with equal volume. Therefore if you do six sets per week of pressing exercises you need to do six sets per week of pulling exercises. If you do two sets of curls you should do two sets of triceps work. And so on and so on…

Muscle Building Tip #5 – If you can’t get your forearms to grow, try hitting them with more frequency than other muscle groups. They can easily be trained three times per week and recover without any problem.

Also, try to hold the bottom stretched position of wrist curls for 3-5 seconds per rep. When you finish training the forearms, hit them with a deep stretch for both the extensors and flexors for 30-60 seconds. These muscle building tips should get the forearms to grow.

For more incredible muscle building tips please visit the muscle secrets website.

—

Jason Ferruggia is a world famous fitness expert who is renowned for his ability to help people build muscle as fast as humanly possible. He is the head training adviser for Men’s Fitness Magazine where he also has his own monthly column dedicated to muscle building. For more How to Build Muscle Fast tips, check out his site

Recommended:

The answer to the age-old question of “What is the best ab workout for losing stomach fat?” is…

None! Ab workouts alone don’t create enough of a metabolic response in your body to create fat loss.

As a trainer, nutrition specialist, and fitness professional, I often get asked what the best types of exercises and workouts are for losing stubborn stomach fat in order to bring out visible six pack abs. The problem is that most people with excess stomach fat looking to try to uncover their abs are searching for some “miracle abdominal workout” that is going to slash the fat off their abs in no time.

The thing is… they are going about the problem entirely the wrong way! The truth is that you don’t lose stomach fat by doing ab workouts.

The problem is that focusing most of your time and effort on abdominal exercises and abs workouts to try to flatten your stomach and bring out 6-pack abs is simply wasting your time from doing the correct workout programs that will acutally reduce your body fat for good.

If I were to choose an answer as to what the best exercises are for losing belly fat, my answer would include full body exercises such as the following:

various forms of squats, lunges, deadlifts, clean & presses, snatches, swings, presses and pulls, mountain climbers, sprinting, etc.

These types of full body exercises would encompass a much higher percentage of the workouts I would design instead of abs exercises directly targeting the midsection. The way you combine those full body exercises into a strategic workout that maximizes your metabolism is also very important.

Don’t get me wrong… I do recommend a certain amount of exercises that directly target the abs and core, but these are only a small fraction of the programs I design for my clients as your time is better spent focusing on the full body exercises that stimulate the greatest hormonal and metabolic changes within the body. In addition, a side-effect of working out using mostly full body multi-joint combo exercises are that you indirectly work your entire midsection even though you are not specifically targeting the abs.

Keep in mind that the most important factor for losing belly fat to see your abs is actually in the nutrition arena. No matter how hard you workout, if your diet is full of junk, then your abdominals will be covered with ugly fat. Nutrition is without a doubt the “king of getting a six pack”.

So let’s clear this up for good…

Stop wasting so much of your time focusing on situps, crunches, leg raises, and all those silly worthless “ab contraptions” in your efforts to try to develop 6-pack abs. Instead focus on high intensity full body lifts using combination multi-joint exercises all strategically combined into highly effective fat loss workouts. Couple that with a healthy diet full of natural unprocessed whole foods as close to their natural state as possible, and those elusive six-pack abdominals will yours in no time!

Check out below for more of my key strategies for getting flat sexy 6-pack abs for life.

Learn more about my secret strategies for losing stubborn stomach fat at the internet’s authority for Getting Flat Six Pack Abs

—

About the author: Michael Geary is a nationally Certified Personal Trainer, Certified Nutrition Specialist, and author of the internationally-popular “The Truth about Six Pack Abs” ©2004-2007. In addition, Michael publishes a fitness newsletter, Lean-Body Fitness Secrets e-Zine, that is enjoyed by 10′s of thousands of subscribers in over 100 countries around the world.

Recommended:

As a fitness professional, I’m always amazed (and puzzled) with the conflict people seem to have with losing weight, yet they refuse to stop eating junk food. An interesting thing I have noticed over my many years helping people to lose weight is that almost every single person that has told me that they are “attempting” to lose weight, almost always has their house filled with all sorts of junk food instead of whole unprocessed natural food.

It is not uncommon for people to tell me that they are trying really hard to lose weight, but I will still notice boxes of apple jacks and fruity pebbles on their counters, cakes, candies, and chips in their cupboard, and sodas or syrupy juices in their refrigerator.

So the question that always stumps me is that if all of these people honestly wanted to lose weight so bad, why in the world do most people still have their houses filled with junk foods instead of healthy food?

Interestingly, the answer usually is that they do not want to give up their favorite foods because they think that eating this junk food allows them to “live a little”… if you ask me, it sounds more like dying a little with each bite!

My take on it is that eating junk foods has nothing at all to do with enjoying your life… In reality, when you give up junk foods you actually enjoy life more because you feel better and are more energetic every day. In addition, getting into better shape by not eating junk food can obviously help improve the way your body looks (and therefore increases your confidence), thereby making you enjoy life even more.

One thing that many people fail to realize is that eating healthy does not have to mean eating bland and boring food. Instead, when you learn to enjoy natural unprocessed food and start exploring all of the varieties of natural food that this planet has to offer us, you learn that you can enjoy the natural flavors of real foods more than overly processed aggressive tastes that are so common with excessively sweet and salty junk food.

An example of this is that the other day I wanted an unsweetened iced tea while out on the road, but all that the store had available was these bottles of heavily sweetened iced tea. Well, I have not bought a fully sweetened iced tea in probably at least a few years now… I have actually gotten used to drinking unsweetened iced tea and have learned to appreciate the natural taste of tea without needing sugar or other sweeteners.

Whe I drank this bottled sweet tea, I almost gagged because it was so syrupy sweet, it was absolutely nasty.

A similar example… I used to need a lot of sugar in coffee, but after a slowly reducing the amount of sugar I would use in coffe, I can now actually drink black coffee and enjoy the natural flavor of it without needing sweeteners (although I rarely drink coffee).

These are just a couple examples of how once you start appreciating the natural flavors of real food, you find that you no longer need the super-aggressive salty, sugary, or artificial flavors that have been ingrained in us by the food companies and all of the junk food they push on us.

My belief is that everyone should actually enjoy what they eat, and can do it without eating overly processed junk food… Actually, people are often surprised to hear that a lot of the foods that they think are junk food, I have healthy alternatives that they never thought of.

A few examples:

Junk food: a chocolate candy bar, a chocolate donut, or a piece of chocolate cake

Healthier alternative: a couple pieces of extra-dark chocolate (greater than 70-75% cocoa content only)… this is higher in fiber and much less sugar than milk chocolate or even dark chocolates that are less than 70% cocoa content

Junk food: Deep fried and breaded chicken fingers and fries on the side (loads of nasty trans fats)

Healthier alternative: grilled chicken breast strips with peanut dipping sauce and vegetables on the side

Junk food: a cheap fast-food burger on a processed refined white bun

Healthier alternative: A grass-fed burger (higher in CLA and omega-3 fats) with raw grass-fed cheese on a sprouted grain roll

How about that for eating healthier yet still very tasty foods!

I hope that what you get out of this article is that there is more to life than eating junk food, and eating junk does not necessarily mean that you’re “living a little” as so many people say. Instead, I feel the opposite is true.

Eat healthier and discover the natural flavors of real foods (not processed) and you’ll soon discover that you no longer need junk food. Enjoy!

Recommended:

Cardio exercise is such a strange thing. In theory, it should work so perfectly well for all men and women, but as anyone who has tried it knows, the practicality of it just doesn’t add up.

After all, some men and women do cardio 6 hours, 9 hours, or more per week, and still have belly fat to burn. On the other hand, it works just fine for others.

British researchers wanted to get more insight into this paradox, and studied 35 overweight men and women, who weren’t previously exercising.

(Reference: International Journal of Obesity 32: 177-184, 2008).

Subjects exercised 5 times per week for 12 weeks. That’s a lot of exercise, but it helped the subjects lose an average of 8.2 pounds, which is great – I was positively surprised by the results.

So cardio will work for some people, however, in my experience, it works best in young men, who need the help the least!

Back to the study, the variance in fat loss between individuals was huge. Check this out…

The best subject lost a staggering 32.3 pounds in 12 weeks, while the worst subject actually GAINED 3.74 pounds.

The scientists think they know where things went sour. They classified the subjects into 2 groups, called the “Compensators” and the “Non-compensators”.

The Compensators were hungrier, and as a result consumed an extra 268 calories per day, all but wiping out their cardio efforts.

Therefore, the Compensators lost the least amount of weight, and scientists believe that was due to the huge “compensatory” increase in appetite experienced by this group.

Does your appetite increase when you do slow cardio? If it does, research shows it will ruin your cardio efforts.

So if your cardio program is not working for you, check your appetite and calorie intake to see if you are “compensating” for your efforts. If you are, you might be better off using a program of high-intensity resistance and interval training (i.e. Turbulence Training) for your weight loss efforts.

As Australian Professor Steve Boucher has shown in research, interval training increases hormones called catecholamines. And increased catecholamines can reduce appetite, among other fat-burning benefits.

In the real world, few people lose 33 pounds after 12 weeks of cardio. Heck, few even achieve an average weight loss of 8 pounds with aerobic exercise.

So again, check your appetite, and consider giving high-intensity exercise a go for your next workout program.

Beat the curse of cardio with high-intensity Turbulence Training.

Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
Author, Turbulence Training
About the Author

Learn about the “Dark Side of Cardio” in the free report from Craig Ballantyne at www.TurbulenceTraining.com. Craig is a Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist and writes for Men’s Health, Men’s Fitness, Maximum Fitness, Muscle and Fitness Hers, and Oxygen magazines. His trademarked Turbulence Training fat loss workouts have helped thousands of men and women around the world lose fat, gain muscle, and get lean in less than 45 minutes three times per week. For more information on the Turbulence Training workouts that will help you burn fat without long, slow cardio sessions or fancy equipment, visit www.TurbulenceTraining.com

Recommended:

Let’s examine each and consider their function in your overall fitness plan:

Component 1: Strength Training
Strength training plays a crucial role in any comprehensive physical fitness program. Studies show that strength training build lean muscle mass, which in turn increases your metabolism and helps you burn more calories. In short, strength training can turn your body into a calorie-burning machine. When choosing a fitness program, avoid it at your peril.

Component 2: Weight Management
Weight management involves determining your best healthy target weight, and using a combination of nutrition, strength training, and cardiovascular exercise to achieve and maintain that weight. For many of us, weight management is something we struggle with throughout our lives. However, a good fitness program will address the issue of weight management in a way that is both practical and simple to follow.

If you find this component to be intimidating, just remember that in many ways this component is a natural result of implementing the other components of physical fitness. Once you implement the others, weight management has a tendency to work itself out on its own.

Component 3: Cardiovascular Exercise
Cardiovascular exercise has long been focused on as the answer to all fitness challenges. However, it should be mentioned that cardiovascular exercise alone will not result in an overall body transformation. As I stated before, all five components of physical fitness must be integrated into your fitness program for it to be truly effective.

Component 4: Nutrition
Nutrition is a curcial element of an overall fitness program, and one that both troubles and confuses many people as they start their fitness program. Low-carb and high-fat or high-carb and low-fat? What about protein? How many calories should I be eating a day? And so on.

Many people simply follow whatever they have heard “works best” from their friends and family, without really stopping to research the science behind some of these plans. Be advised that a good nutrition program is designed for a specific purpose, be it weight loss, gaining muscle, preparing for a sports competition, or simply feeling better. Therefore, form should follow function in your nutrition plan – one size does not fit all.

Component 5: Flexibility Training
Often ignored and relegated to “step-child” status in the fitness world, flexibility training is ultimately an equally important component of an overall fitness plan. As we age, our bodies tend to lose flexibility and we lost range of motion in our joints. This often results in problems with posture, chronic back pain, and can possibly even lead to injuries during exrcise and physical activity.

Optimally, you should engage in an activity such as yoga, martial arts, or pilates a few times each week as a compliment to your regular workouts. But at the very least, your fitness program should include flexibility training after each workout (the best time to stretch is after your workout, so remember to include 5-10 minutes of stretching after each workout session).

—

About the author: Mike Massie, BAAS, NESTA CPT, is a certified personal trainer and boot camp instructor from Austin, Texas.

(Note: This article and all content on this site is copyrighted and may not be reproduced or distributed without the express written consent of the author. Thank you for respecting our content.)

Recommended: