You must think positive. If the only thoughts that go through your mind are about being fat or having to lose weight, your thoughts will transform into reality. You also have to set specific goals. You must write them down and review them everyday. You should envision yourself when you reach this goal living in the body of your dreams. The power of the mind is amazing. Use it to your advantage.
Each night, write down what actions you did over the course of the day that led you closer to your goal. Also, write down what actions you will do the next day that will help take you one step closer. Make sure you do this every night and review it again in the morning. After a few weeks you will have a complete lifestyle map that will let you know how you complied with your program and how it has helped you.
Essential Key Two: You must have a network of support
If you are to truly change your body, you will have to have people you love help you. It is very hard to accomplish your fat loss goals if the ones around you are pulling you in the wrong direction. Let everyone you currently spend large amounts of time with know that you have set a goal and you intend to reach it. When you are struggling, they will help.
If there are certain people in your life now that are not supportive, cut them loose. If you have expressed to them how important it is to reach your goal and they are still sabotaging your efforts, then they are not truly your friends.
Find some people close to you that have similar goals and interests. If you have questions, it is very important to have someone to turn to that has been in your situation. It is also very empowering to be able to help someone out when they are struggling and in need of help.
Essential Key Three: You must change your nutrition habits.
There are three things you will need to change in order to efficiently lose fat. If you change these things, you will melt fat like never before. You have to eat breakfast. I know this has been repeated over and over but it cannot be overstated. The first meal of the day replenishes nutrients used during your sleep as well as crank up your fat burning ?furnace? for the rest of the day.
You will also need to eat more frequently throughout the day. The ?3 squares a day? mantra is one of the worst things you can do to your body while trying to lose fat. Your energy levels will be very erratic and it will cause you to binge eat, thus ruining most of your hard fought efforts through 95% of the rest of your program.
You must balance fat, protein, starchy carbs and fibrous carbs. Your plate should be very colorful ensuring you are getting enough vitamins, minerals and fiber as well as protein and essential fats.
Essential Key Four: You must train with resistance
In order to efficiently burn fat you will need to increase or stabilize muscle mass. Muscle mass is what revs up your metabolism allowing you to burn calories while you are not in the gym. This can be achieved through resistance training. Your training will have to be intense and heavy. Stick with the basics: Squats, Pull-ups, Pushups and Hip extension movements. It does no good to lift lighter weights for more reps when you are trying to burn fat.
You should always train using circuits. Don't do isolated body part training; it is a thing of the past. It is time consuming and frankly, circuit training is far superior. After you perform one exercise for a certain movement, you will do another exercise for a different movement. Both exercises should include movements which are opposite in function. You will find that you are working much harder yet spending much less time working out.
Resistance train every other day. If you are training correctly with circuits, you can elevate your metabolism for approximately 38 hours after training. Your day off will allow you to recover from your previous workout and you will train again before your metabolism drops to normal levels. This will ensure maximum fat loss.
Essential Key Five: You must do cardiovascular training
Cut down on the slow cardio sessions. Replace them with high intensity interval training. You can pick from cardio machines, running fast paced sprints, or multiple complex movements. Perform 15 to 60 seconds of very hard work followed by 45 to 90 seconds of rest. Repeat these intervals for 15 -25 minutes. 25 minutes is the absolute longest time for cardio training using intervals. If you can do longer periods than that, you are not working hard enough. Again, you will spend less time working and burn more calories as a result.
For more accelerated fat loss, you may supplement longer, slow paced cardio session a few times per week. Note that I said supplement. By no means should this be the staple of your fat loss program. It is meant only to burn a few extra calories on days you are resting.
The big picture becomes trying to burn more calories when you are not in the gym. If you are focusing all of your efforts on burning a large number of calories while you are working out in the gym, you might as well start paying rent. That is where you will need to live.
Essential Key Six: You must make the following keys a way of life
It is very hard to maintain a lean sculpted body once you achieve it. In order to ensure that your efforts are not wasted, you will need to make each of these keys a way of life. It is said to take 21 days to form a habit. The first three weeks are critical to your success.
To make these keys habits, you will have to do a lot of planning. You should always know what you are eating for the next day. Have your meals planned and prepared before it is time to eat. Also, for the first 3 weeks, schedule appointments for your workouts and always follow through with them. They will need to be the priority.
Don't skip a meal; don't skip a workout. Always take it one day at a time. Focus all of your efforts on your next meal and your next workout. String good days together, they become a week. String good weeks together, they become a month. Months become years and you are finally living the life of your dreams.
While these keys will ensure that your fat loss goals are met, they all have very specific requirements, which I will reveal deeper in later articles.
I recently gave a presentation to about 70 females on the subject of fat loss and the common methods we use to attempt to rid ourselves of excess body fat. During my research for the talk, I unearthed a large amount of material that supports my belief that most of the world's population are being misled in their quest for a slim, but healthy body, that so many of us crave!
Does it feel like the whole idea of fat loss is only possible for the genetically gifted...
Are you searching for the quick fix that will trim away body fat overnight?
Or are you still waiting for our "trusted" pharmaceutical companies to produce the ultimate weight loss pill that will solve worldwide obesity problems...
Sharing some of the following facts and myths with you is not going to be easy for you to stomach, I suspect that you'll be shocked, dismayed or maybe you'll feel that none of what I tell you is true.
In fact I am fairly sure you'll dispute much of what I report, so I ask you to check my sources, read for yourself the studies that I cite. You'll be as shocked as my audience when you really do discover the truth about fat loss!
Myth 1 - Skipping meals and snacks is OK if I want to lose fat! Do you skip breakfast, the odd lunch, or maybe you don't eat at all for a whole day, because you "don't feel hungry"?
PLEASE DON'T!!
There is nothing worse for your metabolism than irregular feedings.
Eating 6 meals a day compared to just 2 meals a day of the SAME caloric value total for the day, will result in more fat loss!
Check out study no.1 to discover why eating every few hours is ESSENTIAL for fat loss!
Myth 2 - A calorie is a calorie
Unfortunately NOT.
Eating a diet of refined carbs and low fat will actually make you fatter, than a diet of low carb, high fat of the same caloric value!
If you think about it we have been told by the FDA in the US to reduce the amount of Fat in our diet and replace it with carbs like bread and pasta. The food pyramid clearly showed this!
Sadly it is all those refined carbs that have been adding to our waist line and not the fats.
Study no.2, proves that a diet high in fat actually resulted in MORE fat loss!
Myth 3 - You must only train in the "fat burning zone" to lose fat!
Probably the biggest myth in the world of health and fitness today, and one that drew the most gasps and head shaking in my audience!
The fat burning zone DOES exist BUT, it is NOT an effective workout strategy for overall fat loss.
How can that be?
To be honest you don't need to read the studies to prove this, you can see for yourself in the gym. How many people do you see going to the gym week after week for months on end, doing their fat-burning zone workouts, BUT never actually changing shape?
The nail in the coffin of your fat burning zone workouts is crystal clear study no.3 comparing a 'diet only' group to a 'diet and exercise' group. The exercise consisting of a 45 minute "fat burning zone" routine, 5 days a week for 12 weeks.
The abstract from this study states: Results indicate that moderate aerobic exercise training during a 12-week period has no discernible effects on body composition.
i.e. fat burning zone workouts do nothing for losing body fat!!
WOW!
Myth 4 - Calorie counters on machines are useful for fat loss...
We've all done it, waiting for the calorie counter on the treadmill or cross trainer to tick by 400 or 500 calories burnt during your workout. We can then feel all virtuous as we tuck into our post workout coffee and chocolate muffin, safe in the knowledge we have "earned" it.
Unfortunately, calories burned during your workouts are not significant when you want to lose fat!
Study no.4 compared endurance style workouts to higher intensity interval training where the number of total calories burned during the workout, was over twice as much for the endurance group than the intervals group.
You would think that the endurance group would logically lose more fat given that they have burned more calories in total? However the intervals group lost NINE times more fat than the endurance group!
Those calorie counters on your exercise bike are really worthless, my advice, cover them up!
Myth 5 - Crunches will get rid of your belly fat!
How many crunches do you do each day? 10, 20... maybe 50, 100... or maybe more?
Any self respecting fitness professional will tell you that "spot reduction" doesn't work! If it did, all the people doing 100 crunches a day would be walking around with a perfect SIX PACK, but flabby butt and thighs! It just doesn't work like that!
So quit wasting your time and effort on this ineffective exercise and have a go at doing some of the more effective methods instead...
THREE truly effective ways of getting rid of body fat
1. Drop the refined carbs from your diet. Eat more high quality proteins and unrefined carbs in the form of fresh fruit and vegetables. 2. Do some short, sharp and very effective interval workouts. 3. Get your trainer to show you some intensive ALL BODY resistance workouts, utilising large muscle groups as much as possible!
Each of these methods will achieve the necessary result of boosting your "basal metabolic rate", this is your 24/7 fat burning system in your body.
Utilise all 3 methods and fat will literally melt away!
12 weeks is a relatively short time period in your lifetime, and this is all it took for Claire to drop over 5% in body fat, and drop 2 dress sizes utilising the same three methods of fat loss. With renewed confidence in her body and her structural health too, she is now embarking on a new sporting passion of rock climbing....
So what would you do with your new body?
Whilst you may not want to believe that these 5 myths really ARE myths, I urge you to follow up on the studies I cite and see for yourself!
Better still, would be to get down to your gym, adjust your nutritional habits, and try out the EFFECTIVE methods for yourself.
Tim
Study 1. Iwao, S., Mori, K., Sato, Y. Effects of meal frequency on body composition during weight control in boxers. Scan J Med Sci Sports 6:265-272, 1996 Study 2. Effects of a low-fat versus a low-carbohydrate diet on adipocytokines in obese adults. de Luis DA, Aller R, Izaola O, Gonzalez Sagrado M, Bellioo D, Conde R. Study 3. Influence of diet and/or exercise on body composition and cardiorespiratory fitness in obese women. Utter AC, Nieman DC, Shannonhouse EM, Butterworth DE, Nieman CN. Study 4. Impact of exercise intensity on body fatness and skeletal muscle metabolism. Tremblay A, Simoneau JA, Bouchard C.
Both Trey Eckerman & Tim Goodwin are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Trey Eckerman has sinced written about articles on various topics from Fat Loss. Trey Eckerman is a renown fitness coach specializing in accelerated fat loss programs. He has written and supervised fat loss programs for numerous individuals ranging from former highly competitive athletes to previously sedentary beginners. He is the ow. Trey Eckerman's top article generates over 1000 views. to your Favourites.
Tim Goodwin has sinced written about articles on various topics from Supplements, Health and Fat Loss. Tim Goodwin is a fitness professional specializing in help the busiest people achieve more with their amateur sporting interests, and at the same time ridding them of excess body fat. Visit. Tim Goodwin's top article generates over 4400 views. to your Favourites.