Need to lose weight?

Find out the best ways to lose weight in a healthy way, including how to set realistic goals you can stick to.

Monday, 30 July 2012

How to Get a Flat Tummy After a Baby

Tips to Get a Flat Tummy After Pregnancy


Congratulations! The stork just brought you your bundle of joy. It also brought you a bulging belly, but that is no reason to spoil this special time in your life with your little one. All you need to know is how to get a flat tummy after giving birth.

The weight that you gain during pregnancy is with a specific function. It is to ensure energy reserves in the body for the baby while it is in the gestation period, as well as after delivery, when the baby needs breast milk. So the best way to get a flat tummy after pregnancy, is to breast feed your infant.

To get a flat tummy after pregnancy, regulate your diet, incorporating foods that are high in fiber, minerals and vitamins. This will ensure that your baby receives nutrition, and also that your fat will burn, since your body will use the reserves. Caring for your baby will take up most of your time so even if you cannot set time separately for exercise, opt for 30- 40 minute walks with you baby in a stroller or sling. Around 30 to 40 days after you give birth you can begin to do light aerobic exercises or yoga, to tone up your body.

Losing weight after pregnancy can be a daunting task. So take expert advice on the dietary regulation, and also before you plan an exercise regime. You have to care for your baby as well as for yourself, so it would be best to do this with the supervision of a medical practitioner.

Most of the fat that you have gained will also gradually come off, in the months subsequent to giving birth. This is a natural process and you need not be disheartened if you do not see results by the first six months. You can surely get back into shape if you follow the correct tips to get a flat tummy after giving birth.







References

Darlene Mendez

Friday, 20 July 2012

Lose Weight Naturally And Fast: Bad Cholesterol Foods Are Your Enemy


Lose Weight Naturally And Fast: Bad Cholesterol Foods Are Your Enemy



Is it possible to lose weight naturally and fast? People who go on low-fat diets compared to high fat diets ultimately don't lose any more weight according to studies.

Dr. William Sheldon categorized people into 3 different body types back in the 1940's as being:

  • Endomorphs
  • Mesomorphs
  • Ectomorphs.

Endomorphs typically have the most body fat, Mesomorphs are blessed with little fat and Ectomorphs usually have a hard time gaining weight.

This goes to show people are not "one size fits all". These 3 body types have different food needs based on their basic genetic makeup.

You will read a lot on contradictory information about whether you should count calories or focus on the foods you eat. Regardless of who you believe, calories are important.

Is a calorie a calorie or is it something else that matters? Yes, junk food (bad cholesterol foods) are poor quality calories and fruits and vegetables good cholesterol foods) are good quality calories.

Are there any "REAL" differences between the types of fat you can eat? Unsaturated fats are the healthiest types of fats that include plant oils and fish oils:

  • Olive oil
  • Canola oil
  • Nut oils (almonds, walnuts, and pistachios)
  • Avocado Oil
  • Salmon

Eating unsaturated fat is one of the best ways to lose weight naturally and fast. Healthy fats can provide you with the quickest way to lose belly fat.

Unsaturated fat called omega-3 fats are your best choice (good cholesterol foods) for a healthy diet. The most common foods for Omega-3 fats are:

  • Fish
  • Walnuts
  • Flax seeds
  • Canola oil

Omega-3 fats are quality fats that come from marine sources such as fish and shellfish and provide health benefits more than omega-3 fats from plant sources, like walnuts and flax seeds. If you aren't a fish-eater, the omega-3 fats from plant sources are still a great choice.

It's hard to pin the blame on the food companies. They are providing us with what we want. And so what if they can sprinkle in a few profits for themselves, right?

It doesn't matter if you are eating baked chips (better junk food) or regular chips (bad junk food), it does not help you lose weight! The question is are you making any progress in moving away from empty calories (bad cholesterol foods) and focusing in on good fats (good cholesterol foods)?

Bad cholesterol foods are adding to the symptoms of obesity because we "believe" we're eating better. If you had to choose the best foods to lose weight naturally and fast, do it by eating good cholesterol foods and not bad cholesterol foods.





References:

Ray Riechert

Wednesday, 18 July 2012

Great Diets Foods


Great Diets Foods

The Mediterranean diet
The remarkable health of the people from the Mediterranean region has always been a wonder to researchers. The people in the Mediterranean region are known to have a very active life style. Of course physical activities is essential for good health, but good health is based on food habits as well. In other words, the Mediterranean diet is a healthy diet rich in plant food; especially grains, cereals, vegetables, fruit, nuts, legumes and olives. All ensure good health with less chance to develop heart disease.
The Mediterranean diet includes all kinds of foods that are recommended on a normal, low to moderate basis. This method is explained on the traditional Mediterranean diet pyramid. The pyramid has classified various foods depending on their nutritional and lists whether a food is to be eaten daily, a few days a week or a few times a month.
The food consumed on a day-to-day basis contains cereals, vegetables, bread, beans, potatoes, leafy vegetables and other plant products. Interestingly, nuts rich in essential fatty acids, vitamins and minerals are also included in the daily diet. The diet does not encourage too much processing of food, as it can deprive the nutritious value of the food. For instance, over cooked vegetables are only good as roughage(it contains fibers), as it loses essential vitamins in the cooking process. The food is cooked, garnished or dressed in olive oil, a rich source of low saturated fat. It is consumed moderately and is known to play a vital role in preventing heart diseases.
Milk and milk products such as cheese and yogurt are consumed daily on a low to moderate amount. But butter, high in saturated fat is a total no-no in the Mediterranean diet's recommended food list. Wine is allowed daily on a moderate basis.
Food from animals especially chicken, eggs, and seafood are allowed weekly on the Mediterranean diet. For instance, eggs are consumed four days a week. But red meat, high in saturated fat, is a part of the diet only few times a month. The diet recommends veal and lamb to beef because the fat content is comparatively lower than in beef. The meat is cleaned of visible fat and is often roasted or grilled. Sweets and desserts are also a part of the weekly diet. The most preferred dessert is fruit.
In summary, food in the Mediterranean diet provides fibers(from mainly vegetables and fruit), good fat(olive oil), nutrition, vitamins, minerals, proteins, and essential acids, necessary for a human body to stay fit evading heart diseases and cancers.



The Low carb food diet
Low carb foods are foods with fairly minimal sugar content. The low carb diet solution is probably the most typical diet solution and is essentially being considered in several parts of the world. Restaurant and food stores all over the world provide particular low carb foods and this is favourable to those who are health conscious as they have many choices as they go through a low carb diet.
The body weight of a person can be managed through the quantity of calories taken. It is more likely for you to shed pounds if you take fewer calories. The calories that are taken in will be lowered if a person substantially controls the amount of carbohydrates he or she takes. Actually, the low carb diet plan is similar to a calorie diet plan and the main difference can be seen only in the decrease in carbohydrates. This truth tends to make some ponder why these diet programs are becoming quite popular. Why must one restrict the quantity of carbs if a more healthy choice consists of the combined decrease in fat, carbs and protein? This would not restrict someone to eating the foods that have less carbohydrate. The amount of taken calories will be reduced by the overall reduction in the intake of each of the food types instead of carbohydrates, as with regards to diet solutions in line with the low carb consumption. This is basically just an alternate viewpoint.
Logically, the concept behind the reduced carbohydrate diet is to primarily eat foods which contain low volume of carbs. The foods recognized to have less carbs are usually foods that have high amounts of protein and fat. Examples of this kind of foods are chicken, meat, fish, turkey, eggs, cheese and many others. Additionally, there are foods, abundant in carbohydrates, but prepared in a way to fit a low carbohydrate diet. Typical examples of this include spaghetti, candy bars, cereals, breakfast bars, peanut butter cups and pasta.
Isolating the good from the bad carbohydrates is the next essential phase which individuals must learn throughout a low carbohydrate diet solution. Complex carb is the other term that's used for the good carbohydrates, while simple carbohydrates refer to the bad carbohydrates. High glycaemic carbohydrates are bad while low glycaemic carbohydrates are good. "Glycaemic" is a word used for the rate at which the food manages to increase the levels of insulin and the blood sugar, resulting in fat gains.
White bread, pasta and rice exemplify foods which are high on sugars and categorized as bad carbs. Oatmeal, whole wheat bread and brown rice however, are samples of foods categorized as complex or good carbs. People are really losing weight while on a minimal carb diet plan. It really is effective. Significant part of the weight loss in the beginning of the diet is actually a pure water loss. Glycogen is utilized because the low carbohydrate foods have less energy. So the water weight declines.
Energy imbalances result in the increase of overweight people and obesity. In contrast to the consumption of any nutrient, the reduction in energy expenditure and/or increase in energy consumption result in poor energy balance. People needs to be concerned about some diets which take out or limit the everyday routine for the consumption of any single nutrient particularly those that have no metabolic guidelines and offer no psychosocial support.

Tuesday, 10 July 2012

How To Lose Belly Fat: Can you lose 10 lbs a week

How To Lose Belly Fat: Can you lose 10 lbs a week?

If you want to lose 10 lbs a week, it will take more than finding the right diet plan. That's the mistake many dieters make. They change their eating habits and seem to be doing everything right, but they don't lose weight.

If they do manage to lose weight, it comes back soon afterwards. Yes, more belly fat! Whether you want to lose belly fat or 10 lbs once or until you reach a certain weight, a proper weight loss plan must include eating the right foods and getting sufficient exercise and sleep. Sleep is one aspect of losing weight that isn't often talked about, but it is as important as exercise.

Researchers have discovered that two hormones that trigger appetite come into play if we don't get enough sleep. This causes us to overeat and gain weight because our desire for high carbohydrates and rich foods increases. Next time you crave these foods, see whether you've been getting enough sleep.

Another key on how to lose belly fat or lose 10 lbs a week is to eliminate sugar and starch from your diet. They are the first and easy sources of energy that your body uses, which leaves the other food you eat to turn to belly fat. Any sugar that isn't used turns to fat. Believe it or not, deep breathing exercises can also help you to lose weight.

Deep breathing 15 minutes a day will boost the oxygen flow into your body and promote weight loss. To lose 10 lbs in a week, you'll want to incorporate all the natural weight loss methods available to you. You might find pills or fad diets that can get you there, but in most cases, it's not a permanent weight loss.

The pounds will come back and your efforts will have been pointless. Stay away from junk food, high carbohydrates and sugar. With a good diet plan, you will see results quickly. The most obvious way to lose 10 lbs in a week is to get rid of the excess water in your system and eat healthful, fat-free foods. Its the same with water the more you drink the more your body releases excess water.  By not drinking plenty of fluids your body thinks there's a water shortage and stores and holds onto water.  To release excess water you need to drink.  If you wait until you feel you want a drink your body is already dehydrated.

The first to go is the water that your body has retained. This quick weight loss can be encouraging, but it is not fat loss. That comes next. Incorporate sufficient exercise into your weight loss plan. Simply eating right won't cause you to lose 10 lbs in a week. It takes a combination of exercise, deep breathing exercises, good nutrition, and restful sleep.

Take each of these and apply whatever measures are necessary to get them into balance. If sleep is a problem, try to eliminate stress from your life. One way to do this is with exercise, which will also help you to meet your 10 lbs loss. With a good plan, you can lose weight through water loss and energy consumption.

Expect to lose little in the first few days, but an average of about 1-2 pounds per day thereafter. If you've struggled to get to your desired weight, know that with the right plan applied consistently, you can lose belly fat and 10 lbs in a week.



Belly fat, lots of people mistakenly believe, that you need to work your belly (abs) to lose the fat. Not true. What you need to do is to lose weight overall. Belly fat is stubborn, but if you burn the calories you take in, it will disappear. You can then work out your belly if you want a nicely cut six pack.

The Simple Science of Metabolism

If you want to lose that belly fat, you need to understand a little bit about metabolism. Don't worry, there'll be no hardcore science or upper math. There's just one super-simple equation: The calories you eat - the calories you burn = the fat on your body That's all there is to it. Every day you take in a certain number of calories. When you move, work, walk, think or basically do anything, those calories are burned off. Without any calories, you'd be a blob that doesn't have the strength to crawl out of bed. Too many calories and you feel like a blob because those unused calories turn into fat! And a fair portion of that fat goes straight to the belly.

Busting Your Belly Fat

Sure, you get belly fat as you get older. This is especially true for women, and even truer for mothers. But it's not inevitable. If you're serious about losing it, you can do it no matter what your genetics or hormones say about it.

It takes a three-pronged attack:

1)   Exercise a little every day

2) Watch your calories

3) Eat healthy portion sizes



Notice that I didn't say anything about passing on sugary or fatty foods. The reason is that if you watch calories and portion sizes, you'll be able to make health choices about which foods you eat and how much.

The Best Exercise for Losing Belly Fat

The best exercise for losing belly fat is a cardio workout. Cardio burns what you've got there and keeps more from accumulating around your abdomen. The reason why it works is that it gets your body moving so it can burn the calories. A good cardio workout is anything that gets your heart beating, blood pumping and sweat glands sweating. The list includes:

  • Running or jogging
  • Bicycling
  • Swimming
  • Dancing
  • Cross-country skiing
  • Jumping on a trampoline
  • Step aerobics
  • Machine workouts
  • Martial arts

In fact, a really easy and effective cardio workout is brisk walking. This is a great place to start if you're not used to exercising. It's best to start easy so that you don't burn out or hurt yourself. What exactly does 'brisk' mean? It means walking fast and pushing it a little bit. Make sure you're standing straight and walk quickly with short steps. Swing your arms back and forth to get some natural motion going. Keep it up for 30 to 60 minutes and hit some hills if you can. Sounds amazing that something so simple could work, doesn't it? Well, brisk walking is just what doctors recommend. It's a great way to lose calories especially if you don't like 'exercise.'

That's it for today and I hope it was helpful!

Sunday, 8 July 2012

HIIT Training Secrets To Get Lean Fast


HIIT Training Secrets To Get Lean Fast



Summer is a fun time as far as I’m concerned and I don’t want you to be the guy who makes excuses to miss out on pool and beach parties and I also don’t want you to be the girl who complains about hating her clothes.

We should all be getting outdoors in these special few months when the weather is beautiful and I’m going to encourage you to train outdoors instead of a stuffy gym.

You deserve to have a confident summer body that is lean and healthy so you can have fun doing anything you want to do

Difference Between HIIT Training & Marathon Training

Fortunately it’s not too late for you as now is the second perfect time (the best was yesterday) to get started and I’m going to give you the most powerful strategies to help get you there.

First off you should make sure your diet is clean if you want to get lean. This means eating plenty of green veggies, lean grass fed meats, lots of water and some healthy fats like coconut oil.

In addition to the HIIT training programs we’ll get to in a little bit you should be avoiding the unhealthy foods that are going to make you fat. These foods include anything that will spike your blood sugar such as bread, sugar, pasta, cereal, etc. as well as avoiding processed foods. Instead focus on consuming REAL foods that are organic and haven’t been boiled, “chemicalized” or canned.

After you have your nutrition going strong you should look towards your workouts to enhance fat loss and to help tone and strengthen your body. And the best training method you can use to lose fat rapidly is…

High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT)

This is simply the fastest way to lose fat and in these summer months I always do some form of it in all of my workouts. To me it’s a lot more fun than jogging for 40 minutes and you’ll get much better results towards a summer lean body.

A quick example of HIIT is to “sprint” for 30 seconds and then walk for another 30 seconds before sprinting again. And when I say “sprint” it doesn’t mean you have to run fast (although that’s what I prefer) you can also swim, jump rope, do burpees or use kettlebells.

Most people still don’t perform HIIT the right way because they’re going way too easy on themselves when they should be pushing it to about a 8/10 of the difficulty scale. I usually like to wear a heart rate monitor and try to get my heart rate up to at least 80% of my maximum when I’m sprinting and if I know it’s time to sprint again when it gets down to about 65%.

There is no better training method as far as I’m concerned that will help you lose fat faster than a HIIT training program because they’ll help to accelerate your fat loss for up to 38 hours after you finish your workout. Of course this will come with a trade-off as you’re going to have to put in the extra hard work but trust me when I say it’ll be well worth it.

Nowadays when I do anything other than HIIT workouts I feel like I’m wasting my time in a never ending boredom. There is also more and more research coming out that sprinting also better improves your cardiovascular endurance better than typical marathon training. Most people think that by jogging for miles on end they’re properly training for a marathon but you’ll get much better results with HIIT and you’ll be less likely to end up injured.

Mixing HIIT Training with Weightlifting

Even though I may be working out with weights in my Metabolic Resistance Training workouts I still incorporate HIIT into it to maximize my fat burning engines. If you’re training with weights then I would definitely recommend throwing in an additional 5-10 minutes of HIIT training exercises to further enhance your fat loss. I also would try to do some kind of HIIT on your off days from weightlifting as well to turn your body into a fat burning machine.

Always remember the wise saying, “you can’t out train a bad diet” as it’ll make up at least 75% of your results. Eat clean and train dirty is what I like to say.

Even though training for a marathon can be exciting it will not be the most effective method for fat loss. If you’re main goal is to lose fat then the best strategy is to implement some HIIT training into your workouts and in combination with a clean nutrition program you can watch the fat melt off your body like butter.

References:



Josh Schlottman

Tuesday, 3 July 2012

How Much Cardio Should You Do To Lose Weight?





In this article we'll talk about how much cardio to lose weight and how this affects your diet and other workouts. Losing weight can be surprisingly simple. When it comes down to it it's all about the amount of calories in vs. the amount of calories out. Whenever trying to lose weight, much of your focus should be on your diet. Assuming you are eating few enough calories, the next step is to focus on your cardio training.

Cardio is probably the most effective type of exercise to do when your main goal is weight loss. And of course, Visual Impact Cardio is the most effective cardio you can do. The reason that cardio is so effective for weight loss is because you can perform these types of workouts for quite a long time and by doing so you will burn quite a few calories. What not all realize though, is that the answer to how much cardio you do depends also upon the type of cardio you do.

We are going to look at two different types of cardio that can be used to lose weight.

When done correctly, you can use a combination of these two to burn an ideal amount of fat and calories. Here is a 1/2 - 1 hour cardio workout that will not only burn calories, but they will mostly be from fat.

5 - 10 minutes warm up

10 - 20 minutes of HIIT

20 - 30 minutes traditional cardio



Why This Cardio Workout For Weight Loss?

So, why should you do this workout instead of a full hour of traditional cardio? By doing cardio with this structure you will end up burning much for fat. How so? It all starts with the HIIT portion.

By starting your cardio workout with some form of high intensity interval training you force your body to release fatty acids into the blood stream. HIIT is what releases the free fatty acids from your bloodstream by creating a higher level of HGH (Human Growth Hormone). So why not do only HIIT and burn more fat?

Here is an illustration of the effects from doing HIIT cardio: HIIT Cardio

Effects of Doing HIIT Cardio

Looks good, right? The problem with this is that HIIT is not ideal for using those fatty acids after they get released. After your cardio workout is done many of the released fatty acids will return back into your blood stream.

This is where the traditional cardio comes into play. Here is an illustration of the effects from doing steady state cardio after your HIIT cardio:

By strategically doing traditional cardio directly after your HIIT workout you burn all (maybe not all, but a lot) of the released fatty acids. This is how you can limit how much cardio to lose weight.

How Often Should You Do This Cardio?

The truth is that you may need to work out somewhat frequently. Even though you can cut the time of your cardio sessions down by doing HIIT along with a traditional style of cardio, you still need to do these often.

Depending upon how much weight you need to lose, you should do a cardio session like this anywhere from 3-5 times every week for maximum weight loss.



Reference:



Kevin McMillian