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What is on your wish list this year for Santa?
Are you asking him to get rid of your fat belly or fat thighs?
Listen to my podcast to think twice what you ask Santa for Christmas this year.
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The Truth About Abs, By Mike Geary is a great E-book packed with the best ab exercises and it's not crunches either.
Mike shows you how to put together the best leg, thigh, and fat burning workouts, whether you want to lose stubborn belly fat or gain muscle he explains it very easily.
There are so many fad diets out there and this is not one of them, it simply teaches you exactly what you need to know for both men and women.
Click here to check out The Truth About Abs
Yes it does. Food has what we call a thermic affect, meaning the rate in which food is metabolized in the body.
For example, if you were to take 500 calories of greasy fast food vs. 500 calories of chicken and rice the fast food will most likely store as fat and it takes fat longer to metabolize in your body than it does fat burning foods like a piece of grilled chicken.
If you have been complaining about not having the body you want, especially the abdominal fat that some women refer to as belly fat, then you need to look at your nutrition. If you are constantly eating fast foods which are very unhealthy you will not see the results you are looking for.
Even women that are skinny, or what are called skinny fat, which is a high body fat percentage but a low weight are mostly likely eating foods that are not fat burning foods, and not to mention exercising the right way.
That is why you might find yourself stuck and unable to lose the extra belly fat that just seems to stay there because the majority of your foods that you are eating are not fat burning.
In my 6 Week Fat Burning System , I give you the entire list of fat burning foods, along with sample meal plans to make it easier and ways where you can still incorporate your favorite foods.
How to lose belly fat is the most frequently asked question by women, and of course they want the fastest and quickest way to lose it. There are many articles and diets out there that claim they can help you lose unwanted belly fat but it can be very overwhelming.
I have been in the fitness industry for 10 years and have worked with real women that have struggled with these issues. Let me say it can get a bit complicated then just going on a diet. Women do struggle more than men to lose this.
You must be patient in the process as it is not a linear process.
Here are the 7 best tips to beat belly fat:
1. Preparation is key. First off, I do not like the word "diet" it sounds very negative, and is short-lived. Most women that go on fad diets gain the weight back and then some, which contributes more to losing belly fat. What you first must understand is that if you want to really lose the belly fat you must adapt a healthy life-style.
You also must mentally prepare yourself for this and feel you are ready to change. It is a decision to be committed rather than just interested. Committed means you do what it takes, and interested is that you will only do just a little and end up frustrated because you didn't get the results you wanted.
2. Look at your nutrition. The main thing to be concerned about is calories. Too little calories and the belly fat will not come off and the same thing for too many. You need to be in the right calorie deficit to lose belly fat.
You might be thinking of what type of plan you should be on, but the real secret is how many calories you are taking in for the day, but also make sure that protein is set up to your daily requirement. This can vary anywhere from 1-1.5 grams per body weight or some like to go by their lean muscle mass.
3. Fish oils (6 grams daily) this will help you lose fat. You actually need the right amount and types of fat to lose the belly fat.
Most programs can show you how to take weight off, but if your serious about losing the belly fat you need to focus on fat loss not weight loss for permanent results. As you progress your body will plateau and you actually have to keep adjusting your metabolism. This is done mainly through nutrition.
4. Eat to lose belly fat. Believe it or not sometimes you have to go up in calories in order to lose more belly fat. I know this may sound counterintuitive but it's true. Do this very carefully, otherwise you can end up worse off than before.
I recommend hiring a highly skilled fitness professional that knows how to do this. They must understand nutrition beyond the scope of what most people think.
5. Have the right training program. This will consist of both weight training and cardio. I find many women doing cardio the wrong way.
Forget about long sessions on steady state cardio, these can actually produce too much cortisol, which leads to belly fat. Many women are exercising this way to lose belly fat, when in fact they are being counterproductive in their exercise.
The right way to do cardio to lose belly fat is interval and HIIT (high intensity interval training). These are short bursts that can be done outside or on a cardio machine. For example of HIIT would be 20 seconds of a workload followed by 30 seconds recovery then repeat the cycle for 8-12 times then perform a moderate cool down.
Intervals will be longer in both work and rest segments. When it comes to losing belly fat, weight training is very important and you want to keep a variety of reps schemes.
Doing heavy sets one week (6-8 reps), and the following higher rep sets (10-15) is a good way to mix things up. There are many ways you could put together a weight training program, but I want to stress that you need to have variety and don't think doing light weight and lots of reps is going to get rid of the belly fat either.
Just to keep things simple, know that you need to vary your program. Another key to getting rid of belly fat is intensity, if you are working out and you are not sweating an breathing hard then you need to push yourself harder.
Do not waste time when you are working out, rather keep your sessions intense and keep rest brief in between sets (45 seconds- 2 minute rest). This will vary depending on your program.
6. Track your progress. Take your body fat every 2 weeks, along with measurements, pictures, and try on a pair of pants that are too small. Things can fluctuate so you might have the measurements read the same but your pants feel looser.
I find that by doing all of these things gives you a more accurate picture.
Even the mirror can be deceiving as you look at yourself everyday, water weight can give you the wrong impression of progression. If you are not changing after every 3 weeks, you need to change your program. Women tend to stay on the same program for a long time and wonder why things aren't working. Like I said in the beginning, losing belly fat is not a linear process.
You're body will plateau, so you need to take the necessary steps in tweaking your program if you want to lose that belly fat.
7. Lastly, but most importantly is conditioning your mind to stay motivated. For some reason this doesn't get addressed the way it should.
Everything you do is a mental process and that goes with losing the unwanted belly fat too.
If you want to learn how to finally achieve the body of your dreams and blast away your belly fat go to http://www.mybodyisfitnow.com
The holidays are right around the corner and you may find yourself gaining anywhere between 5-15 pounds from Thanksgiving to the New Year.
If you want to avoid the holiday weight gain you want to make sure that you have a plan, just like you normally would.
This consists of:
Well-Being
Exercise
Nutrition
Many women will allow themselves to get stressed during the holiday season with family, feeling rushed, and so much more.
It is important to realize that you are the one that decides how to feel. You can choose to feel stressed during the busy holiday season or you can let go and tell yourself that it you will have a great holiday season.
Exercise is so important to include because it releases endorphins which are the feel good chemicals, allowing your body and mind to connect to the flow of feeling calm and relaxed as well as burning off the holiday turkey and trimmings.
Staying on top of your nutrition is really easy if you plan ahead. Allowing yourself to indulge a little is fine and telling yourself it is ok, makes is much more enjoyable.
Designate one day a week during the holidays to give yourself permission to have what you want in moderation.
Here is to a healthy, happy Thanksgiving.!
One of the most asked questions from women are what are the best butt exercises to firm my butt? This area seems to be a problem area for most women, and if you do the right exercises, you can see some great results.
Here are the 3 top exercises that every woman needs to know if they want a slim and sexy butt:
1. Squats- This exercise not only targets the glutes and depending what position you are in they can activate your upper thighs.
To perform a squat you would pretend as if you are going to sit down on a chair, with feet shoulder width apart, knees bent, and hold weights at your side. It’s important to keep your head up and back straight and keep your feet pointed straight ahead. If your feet are pointed outward it may cause your hips to be tight.
The deeper you go, the more you feel your glutes activated. Do anywhere from 8-15 repetitions.
Another version of the squat is called a pop squat. This is similar to a squat, using no weight. Simply stay in a squat position with knees bent and jump up and pull your feet together and jump out with feet apart and repeat this movement.
Perform 15-30 repetitions.
To make this more challenging swing your arms all the way up when you jump up and try jumping up as high as you can off the ground. A few sets of these and you will be seeing your butt looking slim and sexy in no time.
2. Single Leg Deadlift- This exercise requires balance. Start out with a lighter weight until you get the hang of it. Stand on one leg, with a slightly bent knee and the other leg off the ground and straight back.
Bend at your waist and hold a weight on the same side that you are going down on. As you bend at your waist, make sure the weight is in front of your leg.
The idea is to touch the weight to the ground or as close as possible, then come back up and repeat. Perform 8-15 repetitions and switch legs. Since you are doing this exercise on one leg at a time you are actually doing twice the work, which means twice the burn towards a slim and sexy butt.
3. Lunges-These are great for shaping the whole leg all the way up to your butt. You can perform what is called a walking lunge with weights or without. If you are doing this with weights, you would hold the weights by your side and walk. Make sure as you walk you are bending your knee and lunging forward. Keep you head up and back straight. Also, make sure that your knee doesn’t go over your toe.
Count on each leg moving forward about 16-20 steps and back, this is equal to 1 set. There are other ways you can perform a lunge. Another way is to do them in place and alternate between each leg.
Doing these top 3 exercises are the most effective for a slim and sexy butt, and also burn a lot of calories. Forget about doing leg lifts, these just don’t produce the results to a firm butt, since they do not activate the glute muscles as they should. If you stick with these simple exercises you will get results.
When it comes to achieving fat loss, whether it be losing the belly fat or getting healthy it is important that before you decide something does not work that you ask yourself these questions:
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The use of affirmations as positive brainwashing
Brainwashing is a term perceived in a negative way by most people. But you know what; I think our brains could actually do with a bit of a wash sometimes!
You see, everyone comes into this world with a clear mind, and a belief that everything is possible. All is positive and well. Remember as a child, you could do and become everything, without any boundaries!
As we grow up however, we pick up beliefs, fears and limitations from our surroundings and peers that gradually form the person we are today.
A lot of these beliefs unfortunately are negative and as we build our lives they limit us in our actions and being. Very often they therefore contribute to unhappiness or feeling unfulfilled in our lives and business.
It can be the smallest, seemingly harmless, remark from a mother like just let me handle that, you are no good at that, that can convince you that you are not good at a certain task.
A teacher who calls a pupil,the clumsy one can do more harm with this remark than he realizes when repeated often enough.
With every remark the belief is harnessed further in the child that it indeed is clumsy. Even though a remark is said with a smile or with the intent to be funny, it still leaves a legacy in the belief system.
This programming of course does not stop at adulthood; it keeps influencing people in all stages of life. We are being influenced by our parents, kids, partner, friends, colleagues, television, newspapers, and magazines and so on. Sometimes in a positive, but very often in a negative way. No wonder we limit ourselves in so many ways!
Belief is the key to your success. If you belief you can do something, you can. If you belief you can’t do something, you will be right too.
The good news is: we can reprogram our mind and replace our negative, limiting beliefs for positive contributing ones. Positive brainwashing is what I like to call it!
This can be done by the use of so called “affirmations”. An affirmation is a positive self talk statement, stated in the present tense that covers a goal you want to achieve and that overrules
negative beliefs towards that goal.
An example is I easily wear a size 8 Or
Working out and eating healthy are easy
By stating this affirmation regularly during your day, you will achieve the goal you have set for yourself easier. This positive self talk helps your mind to overcome beliefs that you have about yourself, that limit your success and actions. Compare our mind with a computer: when you change the input, the output will change accordingly.
So if you have the limiting belief that you can not lose weight (probably because of negative experiences in the past) you can actually reprogram your mind by stating the following affirmation:
I easily lose weight and I have I fast metabolism .
I love to my life and feel good where ever I go.
By affirming this belief over and over, you actually start to believe it and your mind will find a way to make this statement a reality.
Somehow, these affirmations help you to reach the
goal you have set for yourself and open doors for you that would otherwise have been kept closed. And this works for virtually everything. Belief and it will happen.
Imagine standing for a big river, with a heavy stream. You have to cross it, but you don’t think you can actually do it. Your belief is keeping you from crossing, although you physically should be able to do it easily. It just looks too hard! Then someone else comes up from behind you, and without thinking starts crossing the river and gets to the other side. Her belief was positive, and she knew he could do it.
The interesting thing is that this will probably influence your belief:
If she can do it, I can do it too
and you will then cross the river without any problem at all. Similar things happen when a group of people is introduced to the phenomenon of fire walking. At first a big group of people will say that there is no way they will walk on fire. Until…other people with higher beliefs go first, then all of a sudden everyone else rushes over to do it as well.
So think about YOUR beliefs, and try to discover which belief are actually holding you back from reaching your full potential in your life. Then, one by one, start eliminating these beliefs from your system. Formulate an affirmation that counters your negative belief, and re affirm it daily.
Write them in your diary, on your bathroom mirror, next to your computer; anywhere you see it often and say the affirmation out loud as often as possible. You will be happily surprised by the results!
Another powerful way to manifest your ideal body is by visualizing them. By looking at a picture of the body you desire or dream daily with a strong desire, you will start attracting them in your life. A brilliant visualization tool that can help you to create and maintain your affirmations and visualizations in a very powerful way is a software program called Vision Board.
Use this fantastic tool to create a Vision Board with self chosen pictures and your personally formulated affirmations, which will help you to achieve the goals you have set in your business.
Click here now for more information!
If you are looking to get leaner and thinner thighs, there are a few exercises that are a must for women to shape up whether they want to fit into your skinny jeans or a bikini.
There are also exercises that many women seem to do, but are not effective in achieving their results. Such as the following:
Abductor and Aductor -these machines are the ones that you "squeeze in with your inner thighs" and then push away. You may feel the burn, but essentially it doesn’t do anything to shape and tone your thighs. A better exercise would be squats, these target the thighs and glutes.
To perform these there are several different ways. Simply stand with your feet shoulder width apart with dumbbells and go down as if you are sitting on a chair. Now it’s important that your feet are pointed forward and not out, as it can cause your hips to be tight.
Go down as far as you feel comfortable with good form and your head is up and body upright. When you come back up, squeeze your thighs and glutes.
This exercise also burn a lot more calories then the abductor and aductor machines because of the way your body is positioned. Keeping in mind as well, if you want thinner thighs you must burn more calories.
If you stick with the best thigh exercises, not only will you get results but you will save time from doing exercises that just don’t work.
Additionally, another great slimming thigh exercise is an elevated one legged squat. To perform this you would simply get up on a bench and put in close to wall. You can hold a weight in the arm that is furthest away from the wall and place your other hand on the wall for support.
While standing on the bench with one leg, the other leg will be off to the side and then the opposite hand is holding the weight as you bend at the knee and touch your foot to the ground.
This is the same motion you are doing when performing a squat. You can also do this exercise without any weight. Do anywhere from 8-15 repetitions on each leg.
Leg lifts- This is a very old school approach that was presented in the days when aerobics were popular. You lie on your side, and raise your leg up and lower down and squeeze your thighs and glutes. Again, you may feel it working but it doesn’t do anything to get the results you want.
You may have perceived that to be true, because the women that were doing them in the classes were already in shape to begin with, thus giving you the illusion that it works to create slimmer, thinner thighs.
Again, if you are looking for only the best exercises to firm your thighs. Side to side lunges are the ones to do.
For this exercise you need a set of dumbbells. Use weight that is challenging. Stand with your feet together, holding the dumbbells to your sides.
Then take a step out to the side and as you do that move the dumbbells so that one is to the inside of your inner thigh, and the other is to the outside of your thigh.
As you step to the side, you also bend down, much like you would as a squat. Then step back to the middle. Perform each side at a time, then move to the next.
Stick to doing what works, and you will see your thighs getting slimmer and sexier in just a few short weeks.
With beauty counters stack full with so many different beauty options, how is a girl to figure out what she needs to buy without an encyclopedia?
The idea it to keep your beauty regime super-simple so that you commit to it all year round. If you are not ready or interested in more intensive cosmetic rejuvenation solutions, having a basic skincare regime is the key to beautiful and healthy skin as you age.
Recently I interviewed Krizia, CEO of www.mybeautymatch.com
If you are a busy woman on the go, you will want to listen to this segment.
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Krizia, CEO of Beauty Match Network, will reveal how maintaining beautiful skin and protecting our skin against premature aging doesn’t need to be complicated.
For more information on Beauty Match Network, please visit www.mybeautymatch.com
This past week I was watching "The Biggest Loser" and in the show they gave what they called fitness tips. I couldn't believe that they actually said doing crunches is good for weight loss.
I was rather shocked that they would say that. We all know that crunches and sit-ups do not make us lose weight or belly fat. If you are looking to lose belly fat and weight, it is a result of having a low body fat. Just because you feel the burn in your stomach while doing it, doesn't mean you are burning fat. This is a huge misconception, that still seems to linger around.
It does make me wonder why top trainers so to speak would be promoting this. So for those of you who are still trying to figure the weight loss equation out, I would steer clear of The Biggest Loser, and merely watch it to get you motivated and for fun.
If you want to be The Biggest Winner in losing belly fat and inches sign up for your free fat burning tips, that gives you the right information here:
http://www.mybodyisfitnow.com