By Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, M.S.
www.turbulencetraining.com

Too many people are still doing crunches to try and get a flat stomach and six pack abs. The truth, however, is that those crunches will not get you the results you want.

There are many skeptics and die-hard crunch addicts out there, so below I’m going to give you 7 reasons why you never need to do crunches or sit-ups again.

1)  Crunches aren’t working for you now, and didn’t in the past, so why would they work in the future? It’s time to give them up for good.

You know the old saying about insanity? It’s doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Time to change it up!

2) Crunches are most dangerous when they are most effective.

When you are overweight, there can be a lot of resistance on the abs when you do crunches – and technically that is good…

HOWEVER, because your ab and low back muscles are weak, that’s when you use bad form and end up with a pain-in-the-neck or low back pain from crunches.

So even though crunches can work your abs as a beginner, they end up causing more harm than good.

3) On the other hand, crunches get LESS effective as you get leaner and fitter, because there is less resistance on the muscle and you’re now too strong to get anything out of crunches.

Here’s a dramatic demonstration of what I mean.

Take your left arm and extend it out to your side. Now clench your fist and do 20 biceps curls.
Now tell me, do you really think that will “work your biceps” and make them lean and sexy? Of course not!

So why would the same high-rep method of crunches work for your abs? It won’t, of course.

4) A couple of years ago, Men’s Health magazine made a big deal about a research study proving you would need to do 20,000 crunches to burn 1 pound of belly fat. Twenty thousand!

Even a “crunch fanatic” would need a few days to do 20,000 crunches. The bottom line is that ab crunches are a HUGE waste of time when you are trying to lose belly fat.

5) Even those lean, mixed martial artist guys don’t do crunches.

On the weekend, I was reading an interview with the trainer of world champion fighter, Georges St. Pierre, and the trainer explained how they don’t do crunches, but instead do anti-rotation and extension exercises for the abs.

6) Interval training works your abs harder than crunches.

Whether it’s sprints or kettlebell swings, your abs will shape up faster with interval training than they will with crunches. Guaranteed.

7) Crunches don’t make your abs “pop out”.

Unfortunately, even if you lose your belly fat, you still won’t get that “pop out” look in your abdominal area. Crunches will never do that, but fortunately, if you do use the correct exercises, your abs will be popping out rather easily.

So there are 7 reasons to stop wasting your time on ineffective and potentially injury-inducing crunches.

Craig Ballantyne is a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist and writes for Men’s Health and Oxygen magazines and will help you burn fat without long, slow cardio sessions or fancy equipment.

Discover the Turbulence Training abs workout that will help you burn fat, do more push-ups, and build ripped six pack abs in less workout time than ever before.

Get more FREE sample fat burning workouts at: www.turbulencetraining.com

Fat loss is easy once you realize how hard it actually is. Fortunately, there’s one way you can start losing fat fast, almost overnight. What’s even better is by making this one change to your current lifestyle, you will have so much more energy to fuel you through your workouts and your days, feel great about how you look, and just have a healthier bounce in your step.

So what is this seemingly magical fat loss fix?

The answer to this question lies in your nutrition. If you want a sexy, lean, and strong body, then following a healthy and sustainable nutrition program is the quickest way to lose fat. And to be honest, I couldn’t be any simpler with my nutrition recommendations – eat whole, natural foods. As straightforward as that advice appears to be, should you follow it, you will discover a lifestyle in which you have the most energy, the best body, and the highest fitness level possible. You must avoid processed foods, which is pretty much anything in a bag or a box. So cut out muffins, donuts, pre-packaged cereals, white bread, pasta, chips, crackers, cookies etc.

We need to return to a time of simpler eating, focusing on fruits, vegetables, nuts, lean proteins, and healthy fats. It will take some “bad habit breaking” to rid yourself of your addiction to processed foods, but in your journey you will learn to appreciate the taste of REAL food again. And despite the widely held belief that you need to eat meat to lose fat and build muscle (you don’t), it’s not unhealthy to eat beef, chicken, and fish.

In fact, fish contains essential fatty acids we can’t do without. You might have heard about the importance of healthy fats, which is a big turn-around from the low-fat mentality of the 80s and 90′s. We now know eating fish and nuts won’t make us fat, but will in fact make us healthy and help control our appetite. So again, if you just focus on foods that haven’t been processed, you’ll start to see changes in your body and energy levels in a matter of days.

Get rid of the processed foods and you won’t be tired anymore! I strongly believe nutrition is the MOST important factor in fat loss and in health. If you’re eating processed foods, trans-fats, and too many calories, you won’t get maximum benefits from your exercise program, no matter what you are doing. Nutrition can either heal you or kill you, so choose wisely. Fortunately, the right choices are the simple choices. So there you have the one most important step you can take to ensure you reach your fat loss goals.

By Tom Venuto
www.BurnTheFat.com

How they lost 100 lbs or more is a topic that always gets a lot of attention and is very popular in the media. Whenever someone loses a lot of weight, there is always buzz from those who were inspired by hearing about these huge body fat losses and before/after transformations. I was inspired, too. But sometimes I think we focus too much on the almighty scale and body fat percentage and forget about something even more important…

Your Health.

Health is what psychologist Abraham Maslow called a deficiency need, which means that when you’ve lost it, getting it back is the only thing in the world that matters.

Unfortunately, two corollaries to this theory of human motivation are:

1. Most people won’t lift a finger to improve their health until something bad happens (they have to hit “rock bottom” to change), and

2. When you’ve got your health, you tend to take it for granted.

That’s why we need constant reminders to keep our focus on health and keep health right on top of our list of life values.

As you remind yourself of the importance of your health every day, it also pays to consider how you define it.

Fitness and transformation icon Shawn Phillips, author of Strength for Life, says that if your definition of health is merely the absence of disease, then subconsciously, the mere absence of disease means you’ve achieved your “goal.”

Therefore, you feel no motivation and no need to move above and beyond that and strive towards…

“A life of ABUNDANT energy, vitality and strength.”

We NEED these reminders.

That’s why I get such a thrill when people send me success stories that are not just about the scale and body fat percentage, but ALSO about health and what that new-found health has done for a person’s life.

A Before and After Success Story You Don’t See Every Day (But Should)

For example, this success story comes from Burn The Fat reader Craig B:

“Tom, I visited my Dr. today and he was stunned at the change in my blood results. Check out this before and after:Cholesterol/Total
232 before
121 after

Triglycerides
185 before
87 after

HDL (good cholesterol)
32 before
41 after

VLDL (bad cholesterol)
40 before
17 after

Total cholesterol/HDL ratio
5.63 before
3.0 after
(I dropped from 2X average risk to less than HALF average risk!)

TSH
4.8 before
2.1 after

CRP
3.90 before
1.02 after
(I moved from High risk to Low risk.)

I have burned 34lbs of fat and put on 7lbs of lean muscle.

I have moved from 40% body fat to 32.9% (My scale may be off, but I am hoping to verify those body fat % measurements with a dunk test during my next visit to S.F. or Portland.)

The doctor, in short, was blown away with the results.

I have tried Atkins, Protein Power, Lindora (medical weight control), each of these over the years and probably too many others to mention. Never have I felt this empowered and well armed with information and insight.

When I was not getting the results the math would have me believe, I had the tools and community support to explain what Beta Blockers do to cardio and metabolism then took that insight to my doctor and he has reduced and changed those meds.

I am now off statins all together as of today!

I have a ways to go to reach my final goal of 10% body fat, but I have the tools and I can accomplish it. I am, as you suggested, putting the date when I achieve it in pencil, but the 10% BF is in ink. I will get there.

It is amazing how empowering feeling good and controlling your blood chemistry through nourishment (both physiological and physical) and being consistent with the hard work in the gym and changing to a new lifestyle.

Thanks Tom – you are helping a lot of people, clearly. I will be telling anyone about the book and the Burn The Fat website that has any questions or looking for answers.”

Gaining muscle and losing fat is nice, but what could be better than gaining muscle, losing fat AND feeling your health, energy and vitality skyrocket!

As Craig shows us, tracking your health improvements, not just what you weigh, gives you another source of tremendous motivation and a feeling of empowerment.

You realize that you are in control of your body. You are the maker and master.

One final thought: It’s a misconception that the “bodybuilding” lifestyle is in some way not healthy or doesn’t dramatically IMPROVE your health

Nothing could be further from the truth, as Craig’s results prove. Craig was not just doing aerobics – he was pumping iron and feeding the muscle, not starving himself.

If you do ANY kind of resistance training, you ARE a “body-builder” and a “health-builder.”

When you do NATURAL bodybuilding, it’s about looking great AND getting healthier. That’s how I do it – naturally – and that’s how I encourage others to do it in my Burn The Fat programs.

Train hard and expect success!

Tom Venuto, author of
Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle
www.BurnTheFat.com

Founder & CEO of
Burn The Fat Inner Circle
www.burnthefat.com/innercircle

About the Author:

By Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
Turbulence Training For Fat Loss

I recently stopped by the new house of an ol’ college buddy to meet his fiance and new baby boy. He’s getting married in 5 months time and we had to have a serious chat.

You see, he’s gained 25 pounds since birth of his son. He really fell off the wagon. But he’s taken the first and most important step by admitting things have to change and so we sat around for over 2 hours in his backyard on a beautiful day and hammered out this plan.

I could have wrote a 5-month plan, but I wanted to fast-track his results – and YOUR results – because research shows people who start losing fat quickly get better long-term fat loss results as well.

So here’s your complete 14-day FAST-TRACK guide to fat loss (if you like it, please forward it to a friend or print them off a copy too):

Day 1 – Stop Everything to Plan, Shop, and Prepare This Meal Plan

I hope you’re reading this on Sunday, because I want you to plan, shop, and prepare today. If it’s Monday, skip your workout and do this instead – its THAT important.

And I don’t just mean planning what you are going to eat for dinner. I mean planning what you are going to eat for every meal for the next 2 weeks.

Don’t tell me that’s too hard. After all, most people with lean physiques stick to a relatively similar diet for 90% of their meals and then enjoy a random cheat/reward meal 10% of the time.

So your schedule might go like this:

Breakfast – 2 eggs, 1 slice rye toast, 1 apple, Green Tea, fish oil

Snack – 1oz raw almonds, 1 pear, Green Tea

Lunch – Grilled chicken/salmon or black bean salad with spinach, onion, peppers, mushrooms, etc., 1 banana or bowl of cherries, 2 cups unsweetened iced tea with lime or lemon

Snack – Unlimited raw vegetables and hummus

Dinner – Protein and vegetables and fruit…so this could be a small piece of steak, chicken, or fish, along with your favorite vegetables, and a bowl of your favorite fruit.

Or it could be the veggie dinner I had last Monday of quinoa with red pepper-cashew sauce and avocado wrapped in kale leaves.

Or it could be wild rice with beans and avocado and salsa.

That schedule won’t change much, with the exception of a slight variation in your main course at dinner, right? And then once per week schedule a meal of your favorite food.

Everyone can stick to this plan for 14 days, and this tip alone will help you lose 5-12 pounds of fat in just 2 weeks. And this is also how you’ll need to eat for the rest of your life. It’s not hard, it just requires a little practice. Keep at it and never, EVER give up.

Alright, so to review, here’s your 3-step guide to Day 1.

1. Plan your meals.
2. Shop for the food.
3. Prepare the food (cut everything up, put in the proper trays, cook food if necessary, and get it all packed up for work)

In addition to planning out all of your meals, you must also start keeping a food journal (you could do it online too), because studies show that keeping a food journal will help you lose fat faster.

Next, make sure you do 60 minutes of activity today AND take a “before” photo along with your weight, body fat (if possible), and measurements of your waist, hips, arms, and thighs. Continue to weigh yourself every other day, as research shows that frequent check-ins lead to greater weight loss.

Day 2 – Attend An “Online Fat Loss and Fitness Seminar”

You must set EVERY workout and activity session as an appointment with yourself that you must keep – just like a doctor’s visit. Let nothing, except real emergencies, come between you and your workouts.

Today you’re going to do a short, burst exercise workout.

Now if you are currently using long, slow, boring cardio to lose f at, stop that bad habit immediately and switch to short, burst workouts.

If you need to learn more about short, burst workouts, go to YouTube and search for interval workouts. While you are there, look up my “Diet vs. Exercise” video series to see why diet is much more effective for fat loss than cardio.

If you are a beginner, please start conservatively. But if you have been working out for a while, the next 3 weeks are your time to step your workouts up a notch.

Day 3 – Write Your Way to Fat Loss

First, you must schedule 60 minutes of easy to moderate activity. I’ll talk about that in a second, but you can do anything from a 60 minute walk, a yoga session, a light bodyweight and stretching session, an hour of playing with your kids, or playing an easy game of your favorite sport. Don’t go too hard, but stay active.

You must also carve out 30 minutes to sit down and write out 3 short term goals and 3 long term goals. Write down EXACTLY what you want to accomplish in these 14 days. After that, write down what you want to accomplish in the following 90 days.

Once you’ve done that, you’re going to prepare a contract with yourself promising to take the steps necessary to achieve these goals. Sign the contract and review it everyday to keep you on track.

Day 4 – Recruiting Day

Today’s another short burst workout. Make sure you are using a professionally designed structured and proven fat loss workout, rather than just “winging it” or using long slow cardio for fat loss.

You’ll also spend time today recruiting for these 3 components of your fat loss social support team:

• Nutrition buddy
• Workout partner
• Fat loss forum accountability buddies

Research shows that recording your nutrition in a food journal and having someone review your meals increases your chance of losing fat.

Another study found that if you workout with a partner who is losing fat, then you’ll have a greater chance of losing fat as well.

And finally, a third study found that the more often subjects checked in to an online fat loss forum, the more likely they were to lose a lot of fat.

Get your team together and you’ll get more results – faster.

Day 5 – The 60 Minute Solution

Why am I telling you to get 60-minutes of activity on your off days?

Well, to be honest, I do NOT expect you to burn massive amounts of fat with easy, off-day activity.

However, every minute you spend moving, you are NOT snacking! I know the biggest problem you will have is your diet. So instead of snacking in front of the computer or TV, spend your free time away from food. That’s the simple secret to the 60 minute solution.

So get 60 minutes of activity on Day 5.

Day 6 – The Challenge

Your 3rd workout needs to be a challenge workout so that you can improve your performance each week. In fact, you should set at least one personal best in each workout. If you improve your performance, your physique will improve as well.

Day 7 – Diet Check-In and Reward Meal

Congratulations, you’ve made it through 7 amazing days of fat burning. Today you’re going to double check your nutrition plan by reviewing your food journal.

If you haven’t already done so, eliminate all liquid calories and replace with water and Green Tea.

If you need to learn more about nutrition, start using the free service called Fitday.com. It will help you track your calories.

And if you’re really struggling to avoid night eating, try this tip. Place a small mirror on your fridge door. Research shows that subjects consumed fewer calories when they did this because it will remind you to make smarter choices.

Finally, as a reward for all of your hard work, you can treat yourself to your favorite meal. But that doesn’t mean gorging. It simply means having a normal meal of your favorite foods to give you a mental break from your plan. When the meal is over, don’t go back for seconds. Get right back on the 14-day plan instead.

Days 7 and 8 are also 60 minute off-day activity days.

Day 8 – Review your goals.

It’s no good to write your goals down and then forget them. Review them at least weekly, if not daily. Heck, carry them around in your pocket and look at them at every meal.

As you workout, visualize yourself reaching your goals. Believe in yourself, keep a positive attitude, stay motivated and you’ll continue to make fast fat loss progress every day.

This will also be another great day to plan, shop, and prepare.

Day 9 – Take It to Another Level

Week one was great, but with only 5 days left it is time for you to step it up again. This time I want you to hire a trainer for just one session to make sure you are doing all the exercises correctly and training as hard as you can (safely, of course).

Add this trainer to your support team. And by the way, a good trainer should be able to estimate your body fat better than any of those “fat scales” you can buy at a store…so get them to check that too.

Day 10 – Plan Your Next Shopping Trip

Today is another 60 minutes of off-day activity, and you’ll also work on improving your nutrition even more. What I want you to do is focus on eating more from the Fat Loss Foundation.

The 3 components of my Simple Nutrition Fat Loss Foundation are raw fruits, vegetables, and nuts. Research shows that eating more of these 3 foods will help you lose weight better than a diet that is low in fruits, vegetables and nuts.

Make an effort to eat one new fruit, vegetable, and nut each week during your between meal snacks.

If you aren’t already eating grapefruit, try one today and see how it helps fill you up (because it contains a lot of soluble fiber called pectin). Add a new vegetable – such as broccoli, cauliflower, or asparagus – to your dinner. And try walnuts or pecans instead of almonds at your morning break.

Slowly but surely increase the fiber in your diet until you hit the recommended amount of 35 grams per day.

And I hope this goes without saying, but you should have eliminated all foods that contain added sugar. That is one the simplest yet most effective nutrition changes you can make.

Day 11 – Recruit Again

Add a new member into your social support team, such as a new workout partner or healthy-eating partner. This will add strength to your commitment. If possible, join a transformation contest online, or start one among your friends or co-workers.

But when you do that, keep in mind that you want to help other people succeed. The more you can help others lose fat, the more you will help yourself as you share what’s working with your friends and they show you their fat loss secrets too. Stay positive, and you’ll build a powerful fat loss team.

Today is also another fat loss workout day, so give it your best.

Day 12 – Check-In Time

Today you’ll re-measure your weight, body fat, and measurements. Take a look in the mirror to compare yourself against your before photo to see big changes that will motivate you to stay strong.

I also want you to start thinking about getting a tan. Yes, I said getting a tan. Why? Because simply adding a little bit of color to your body can make you look leaner. There’s a reason all those models in supplement ads are tanned, you know.

Finally, if there is a “big day” at the end of the 14-days, make sure you try on the outfit you are going to wear to double-check that it is going to look great on you.

Make sure you do this check-in either before your 60 minutes of activity or a few hours after so that exercise does not mess-up the numbers.

Day 13 – Mental Performance Review

Write down all obstacles that are still in your way of success, and then brainstorm 2 solutions to overcome each. Get some help from your social support team on this. The more you and your team share solutions, the more fat you – and everyone else – will lose.

For example, you might come up with rules like, “No eating in the car” to help cut down on bad food choices. Someone else might suggest “brush your teeth after dinner to avoid night-time snacking”. Those are simple yet powerful tips to keep you on the fast-track to fat loss.

Follow up this positive session with your best TT workout yet!

Day 14 – Review, Plan, and Prepare

Congrats on making so many powerful changes in just 2 short weeks.

By now, you’ll probably have lost 5-12 pounds of fat and just as importantly, you’ll have developed proven, life-long fat burning habits that will be easy for you to stick to forever.

Keep this weight loss train moving by reviewing your original goals. Next, do your planning, shopping, and preparing for another week, and get ready for even more fat loss.

Enjoy your 14-day results and celebrate with a reward meal (and show off your firmer, leaner body at the big event too!).

Wishing you success!

Please email me with your success story in 14 days (or sooner!).

Craig Ballantyne is a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist and writes for Men’s Health and Oxygen magazines. His trademarked Turbulence Training For Fat Loss have helped thousands of men and women with weight loss and fat burning in less than 45 minutes three times per week. Turbulence Training for Fat Loss workouts help you burn fat without long, slow cardio sessions or fancy equipment. Craig’s bodyweight workouts for fat loss help you lose fat without any equipment at all.

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By Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
Author of Turbulence Training

Today, we’re going to focus on something that I know a lot of men and women are struggling with – MOTIVATION.

So here are my top 11 inspirational tips to help motivate you to stick to your fat loss plan and transform your body and life forever.

11. Never Give Up

If you fall off the wagon, cut your losses. Don’t let it weigh on your mind and hold you back because it’s only minor damage that can be dealt with. The important thing is to get back on track, immediately. Never, ever, EVER give up. I believe in you.

10. Don’t Procrastinate

Do it now. Whether you’re thinking of cleaning out the pantry or finally starting to exercise, STOP procrastinating and DO IT now!

9. Identify Exactly What It Is You Want…

…then don’t let anything stand in your way of getting it. By setting specific goals along with deadlines you are providing yourself with a measuring stick.

8. Do Your Best With Everything You Have Control Over

Most people fail to control themselves, and end up only with regrets. We trade minutes of pleasure (i.e. fast food) for days, weeks, months, and years of regret.

Remember that the pleasure of eating lasts for only minutes, but you inhabit your body 24 hours per day, 7 days per week for life.

Rather than trying to “out-cardio” your bad diet, you must PLAN ahead to overcome obstacles. Otherwise, you’ll never succeed.

7. Replace Bad Habits

Everyday you will be tempted to fall back on old bad habits. To make a lasting change in your health and appearance you must do everything you can to resist that. Try adding a new healthy habit each day to replace an old unhealthy habit. 

6. Be Consistent With Baby Steps

The best approach is to build your life one positive step at a time and the way to do this is by taking baby steps to improvement each and every single day. Be a little better than yesterday.

5. Test

There are no failures, only good and bad tests.  

You should always be trying something new, monitoring your body’s response, and deciding whether or not that food or exercise belongs in your “tool box”. Do everything you can to learn more about your body. The more you know, the faster your success will be.

4. Social Support and Role Modeling

You can’t soar with eagles if you’re hanging around turkeys. 

By hanging around others who want to lose weight, you can leverage their knowledge, commitment, support, and success to push yourself harder than you otherwise would be able to.

3. Get Out Of Your Comfort Zone

People will do almost anything to stay in their comfort zones.

If you want to accomplish anything, get out of your comfort zone and strive to increase order and discipline in your life.

Discipline means doing the opposite of what you feel like doing.

Setting goals and deadlines are the easy roads to discipline.

2. Plan

Planning is the ultimate key to fat loss success.

With a weekly plan of meals and workouts in place, you will be much less likely to hit a road bump that takes you down the wrong path.

Try setting aside one day a week to map out your weekly itinerary and you’ll be amazed at how quickly your body transforms itself.

1. Realize YOU Are In Charge of Your Success

Og Mandino once said, “I shall shape my future. Whether I fail or succeed shall be no man’s doing but my own. I am the force; I can clear any obstacle before me. Or I can be lost in the maze. My choice. My responsibility. Win or lose; only I hold the key to my destiny.”

Translation – Everyone can succeed and reach their goals. It’s a just a matter of how badly you want it.

I know you want it. And I know you can do it. And I’m really looking forward to your success.

Craig is currently offering 50% off his Turbulence Training program, but only for a limited time. Don’t miss out on this!

by Dr. Joseph Mercola

The notion that lifting heavy weights will make you big and bulky may be a myth, according to a New York Times article.

In order to get bulky muscles, most people would need to consume extra calories as well, to the tune of well over the 2,000 daily amount recommended for many adults.

They report:

“For people who lift weights to tone up and slim down, experts say, a regimen that includes a combination of challenging weights and fewer repetitions can help significantly. In a 2002 study, for example… subjects lifting more weight fewer times burned more energy and had a greater metabolic boost after exercise.”

The conclusion? Heavier weights and fewer reps may be your best route to improving your muscle tone.

Sources:  New York Times April 4, 2010

These interesting new findings suggest that when you start to consume fewer calories, your body automatically responds by reducing your activity levels. In generations past, when finding your next meal was not as easy as opening your fridge, this mechanism could help your body to hold on to valuable energy stores and survive longer in times of famine.

In the modern day, however, this innate process may backfire, causing you to hold on to excess weight if you do not consciously make an effort to increase or at least maintain your activity levels.

Further, although low-calorie diets have been highlighted as a strategy for lengthening your lifespan, if you simply cut way back on calories without meeting your body’s nutritional requirements, it can send you into starvation mode. This will actually slow down your metabolism and make it more difficult to lose weight.

Exercise alone may also not help you lose weight, especially if you’re “rewarding” yourself for working out by eating an order French fries accompanied by a chocolate shake.

The key to healthy weight loss is to use a combined approach of both diet and exercise together. This is the strategy that will lead to gradual weight loss and a healthier lifestyle that you can actually sustain and live with. 

A Lack of Activity is Detrimental to Your Health

Whether you’re trying to lose weight or not, regular physical activity simply must be a part of your life if you want to stay healthy. This is true even if you’re eating a stellar diet, and whether you’re overweight or not.

In fact, one study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that women who were at least somewhat active were less likely to develop heart disease than those who were not, and this was regardless of their weight.

Another revealing study also found that both diet and fitness levels are crucial for lifelong health. After analyzing more than 115,000 nurses, results showed that being overweight or being sedentary increased your risk of death independently:

• Women who were obese and inactive had a 2.5 times higher mortality rate than women who were lean and active
• Those women who were active (despite being obese) were twice as likely to die a premature death than those who were lean and active
• Lean women who exercised under 3.5 hours a week increased their risk of premature death by 55 percent, compared to those women who worked out more often
• Obese women who worked out for at least 3.5 hours a week experienced a death rate that was 91 percent higher than lean women who exercised similarly
• The premature death rate was 142 times greater for obese, inactive women

So while being overweight or obese certainly increases many health risks, those who were lean and inactive also had their share of risks. And as you might suspect, the most significant risks apply to those who are both overweight/obese and also sedentary.

The moral of the story, of course, is that you want to carefully tailor both your dietary and your exercise habits in ways that will support your health and well-being.

Why Many Forms of Exercise Don’t Work Very Well

As many of you know, I have been an exercise fanatic for the last 42 years. But I only recently became aware that some of my foundational understanding of exercise was seriously flawed.

Most exercise works just fine for most people so long as they are under 30 years old. At that time one’s growth hormone dramatically starts to drop.

It turns out that nearly ALL exercises that are typically done in this country by those over 30 do not generate growth hormone. This is because they are not exercising the super fast muscle fibers.

Cardio, aerobics and even most all strength training do NOT increase growth hormone. The only way to do that is by using anaerobic exercises.

These are typically sprint type of workouts but they don’t have to be done by running. You can do them on many pieces of aerobic equipment. One of the best is a recumbent bike.

The principle is simple. You warm up for two minutes then increase the intensity to as high as you can and pedal as hard as you can for 30 seconds. If you can pedal for 45 seconds you are not working out hard enough. You simply have to push it very hard.

After your 30-second workout you pedal at a comfortable intensity and relaxed pace for 90 seconds to recover, then you repeat this 7 times for a total of 8 cycles. If you are doing it correctly you will be sweating profusely, and it will likely be one of the best workouts of your life.

The beauty of this approach is that it only requires 20 minutes of your time. If you do it properly I can assure you that it will improve your health far more than HOURS of regular cardio.

For the next two hours you will radically increase your level of growth hormone too, as long as you avoid sugar.

This really is some radical new information that can change your life. Once I started doing this I was able to easily drop extra weight I had picked up and could not lose despite doing my standard cardio.

The master educator who taught me this was Phil Campbell and his term for it is Sprint 8. I recently met him at a fitness camp in Mexico. He has a book where you can get more information on this phenomenal form of exercise; it’s called Ready Set Go.

I plan on introducing more detailed articles on this in the future.

Other Tried-and-True Weight Loss Tips

Everyone’s metabolism is different, but you can speed it up or slow it down within a reasonably short amount of time by making the following commonsense changes to both your diet and lifestyle:

• Eat according to your nutritional type to ensure your body is getting the right fuel it needs
• Avoid sugar, especially fructose and grains as they are the leading cause of insulin- and leptin-resistance, which affects your hunger levels, your weight, and your risk of any number of diseases
• Listen to your hunger, and eat a healthy meal or snack when hunger calls
• Implement a well-rounded exercise regimen that includes strength training to build muscle, as well as interval training, which has been demonstrated to significantly increase fat loss

by Tom Venuto, author of the Holy Grail Transformation

“How can I gain muscle and lose fat at the same time?” That’s right up there with “How do I get six pack abs” as one of the most frequently asked fitness questions of all time. The problem is, when you ask it, you get all kinds of conflicting answers – even from experts who are supposed to know these things. So what’s the deal? Is it really possible to lose fat and build muscle simultaneously?

Short answer: Yes, you can gain muscle and lose fat at the “same time.”

Long answer: It’s difficult and it’s complicated. Allow me to explain….

First we have the issue of whether you really lose fat and gain muscle at the “same time.”

Well, yes, if your definition of the “same time” is say, a month or 12 weeks. But in that case, you’re probably not gaining muscle at the “same time” literally speaking, as in, right now this very moment you are reading this, or 7 days a week, 24 hours a day for months in a row.

The best explanation for what’s really happening is that you alternate between periods of caloric surplus (anabolism) and caloric deficit (catabolism) and the net result is a gain in muscle and a loss in body fat.

You see, if you stay in a calorie surplus, it’s the body’s natural tendency for body fat and lean body mass to go up together. And if you stay in a calorie deficit, it’s your body’s natural tendency for body fat and lean body mass to go down together.

There may be exceptions, but the general rule is that it is very difficult to gain muscle and lose fat at the same time – the mechanisms are mostly antagonistic to one another. When it does happen, it’s almost always the result of “unusual conditions” – I call them X factors.

The 4 X-Factors

The first X-factor is “training age” . Ever hear of “newbie gains?” The less trained your body is and the further you are from your genetic potential, the easier it is to gain muscle. The reverse is also true – an advanced bodybuilder with 20 years experience would be thrilled just to gain a few pounds of solid dry muscle in a year!

The second x factor is muscle memory. It’s easier to regain muscle you’ve lost than it is to gain new muscle in the first place (ergo, the fat out of shape semi retired bodybuilder who starts training again and blows up and gets ripped “overnight”).

The third X factor is genetics (or somatotype). Ever heard of the “genetic freak?” That’s the dude who sprouts muscle like weeds even when he’s on the “50-50 diet” (50% McDonald’s and 50% pizza)… and he never gets fat. (That dude chose the right parents!)

The fourth X factor is drugs. It would stun (or sadden) you if you knew how many people take performance and physique-enhancing drugs. I’m not just talking about pro bodybuilders, I’m talking about “Joe six pack” in the gym – not to mention those fitness models you idolize in the magazines. How did they get large muscle gains with concurrent fat loss? Chemicals.

I’m not a gambling man, but I’ll place a wager on this any day: I’ll bet that in 99% of the cases of large muscle gains with concurrent large fat losses, one or more of these x factors were present.

That’s not all! There are actually 5 more X factors related to your body composition and diet status (the X2 factors). But I’ll have to talk about those later.

So you’re not a beginner, you don’t take roids, you’re not a genetic freak and you have no muscle memory to take advantage of. Are you S.O.L? Well, I do want you to be realistic about your goals, but…

There IS a way for the average person to gain muscle and lose fat at the same time.

The Secret: You have to change your “temporal perspective!”

Traditionally nutritionists and fitness pros have only looked at calorie balance in terms of 24 hour periods. At midnight, you could tally up the calories like a shopkeeper closing out his register, and if the balance were positive, you’d say you were in a surplus for the day. If the balance were negative, you’d say you were in a deficit for the day.

But it’s entirely possible that you might pass through periods of “within-day” surplus where you were in a highly anabolic state (for example, you eat the biggest, highest carb meal of the day after your workout), and you were in a deficit the rest of the day.

If you did intense weight training, and you timed your nutrient intake appropriately, Isn’t it possible that you could gain a small amount of muscle during those anabolic hours, while losing fat the rest of the day? Granted it might only be grams or ounces – but what if you kept that up for a week? A month? Three months?

As you pan out and look at the bigger picture, what if most days of the week you were in a deficit for the entire day, and on some days you were in a surplus? If so, then isn’t it possible that over the course of the week, you’d have a small net gain of muscle and loss of body fat a a result of the caloric fluctuation?

These within-day and within-week phases are called microcycles and mesocycles. If you also had a primary goal with a longer term focus of several months, say 12 weeks or 16 weeks, that would be a macrocycle.

What I’ve just described is nutritional periodization. Some people call it cyclical dieting. it’s where you manipulate your calories (primarily by fluctuating carbohydrate intake, hence “carb cycling”) in order to intentionally zig zag your way through periods of surplus and deficit and create specific hormonal responses.

The end result: muscle gain and fat loss during the same time period!

I know that someone out there is having a hissy fit because I’ve only talked about calories: deficits and surpluses. Rightfully so. Calories matter but there’s more to it than calories – most importantly, hormones and “nutrient partitioning.”

If you’re in a calorie deficit you are going to pull energy from your body.The question is: From WHERE? If your hormones are out of whack and you’re eating crap, you could lose more muscle than fat in a deficit and gain almost pure fat, not muscle, in a surplus!

But WHAT IF you could manipulate within day energy balance, use nutritional periodization AND control your hormones with food and lifestyle strategies?

Make no mistake – concurrent muscle gain and fat loss is a difficult goal to achieve. The good news: difficult does not mean impossible. Or as George Santayana said, “The difficult is that which can be done immediately, the impossible, that which takes a little longer.”

The Holy Grail Body Transformation Program: How to Gain Muscle and Lose Fat at The Same Time

You’ll learn all about nutritional periodization, cyclical dieting, hormonal manipulation, within day energy balance, nutrient partitioning, AND the all the X factors, including the 5 “X2-Factors” – which are the keys to gaining muscle and losing fat at the same time.

You’ll also get Tom’s new “TNB” training system, as seen in Men’s Fitness magazine (the complete, expanded version that Men’s Fitness didn’t have room to print).

To learn more about the Holy Grail Body Transformation Program Click Here

By Tom Venuto
www.BurnTheFat.com

I have very little interest these days in all the media-hyped stories of dramatic, rapid losses of body weight. “Big losers” don’t impress me, for numerous reasons. For example, weight is not fat. “Weight” could be composed of mostly lean tissue, or it could be mostly water weight. In fact, I would go a step further and point out that rapid loss of bodyweight correlates very highly with a greater chance of relapse, weight re-gain and long term failure.

So what does impress me? What gets my attention?

I pay attention to what the “long term maintainers” have to say – those are the people who have maintained an ideal weight for over a year… preferably even 2-5 years or more.

The difference between losers and maintainers

As I was researching the subject of long term weight maintenance recently, I was surprised at the huge amount of research that’s already been done in this area.

One paper that caught my interest was published by Judy Kruger and colleagues in the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, titled,

“Dietary and physical activity behaviors among adults successful at weight loss maintenance.”

This was not an experimental study, but a compilation of data from the “Styles Survey” which was representative of the U.S. population and asked questions about strategies to aid with maintaining an ideal weight.

In this particular survey, only one-third (30.96%) of the respondents said they were successful at keeping their weight off. The researchers wanted to know the difference between the small group that was successful and the majority that were not.

Both groups reduced the amount of food they consumed, they ate smaller portions, more fruits and vegetables, fewer fatty foods and fewer sweetened beverages.

Not really any surprises there, but what we want to know most is not what losers and maintainers have in common, but what the maintainers did that the losers didn’t.

Some major differences emerged between losers and maintainers:

First, a significantly higher proportion of successful maintainers reported exercising 30 minutes or more daily, and they also reported adding other physical activity to their daily schedules (recreation, sports, physical work, etc). In addition, more of the successful maintainers included weight training in their exercise regimens than did the losers.

Reducing sedentary activities (TV watching, etc) was also a significant difference between those who successfully maintained and those who did not.

The next big difference that separated the successful maintainers from the unsuccessful was in their “self-monitoring behaviors” including:

• tracking calories
• tracking body weight
• planning meals
• tracking fat
• measuring the amount of food on their plate

Unfortunately, these types of self-monitoring behaviors, especially weighing and measuring food and counting calories, are among the most avoided and even criticized weight control techniques. Some weight loss “experts” even claim that it’s detrimental to count calories, weigh yourself or measure and weigh your food.

However, these self monitoring behaviors are being identified more and more frequently in the research as part of “the difference that makes the difference.” I agree, and they have always played a major role in my own Burn The Fat program.

A final difference was that people who reported self-perceived “barriers” to their success were 48-76% less likely to be a successful maintainer.

For example, they said they had no time to exercise, they were too tired to exercise or it was too hard to maintain an exercise routine. I interpret this as: the unsuccessful losers were excuse makers!

THE TOP 5 STRATEGIES TO BE A SUCCESSFUL MAINTAINER

So let’s recap and turn these research findings into some practical action steps you can apply today.

1. Increase your total daily activity level, including formal exercise as well as sports, physical work or recreational activity. Exercise improves weight loss, but more importantly, it is critical for weight maintenance.

2. Decrease sedentary recreational activities by cutting back on TV watching, computer games and web surfing. Take up physical recreation such as sports, boating, biking, walking, hiking, gardening, physical hobbies and playing with your kids, if you have them.

3. Include weight training as part of your formal exercise program, throughout the fat loss phase and even more seriously during maintenance.

4. Track and monitor everything! Count calories and nutrients, measure your portion sizes, weigh your food, plan your menus in writing and monitor your body weight and body fat percentage.

5. Avoid excuses and maintain positive beliefs and attitudes towards your environment and what you perceive as “barriers.” For example, say, “I can always make time for what is most important to me” instead of, “I don’t have time to exercise.”

If you’re currently on a fat loss journey, and you want to know how good your odds are for being a successful maintainer, it’s pretty easy to predict using these 5 strategies. If you’re not using all 5 of them yet, then when would be a good time to start today?

There are limitations to survey results such as these, including the fact that they are cross sectional, and therefore cannot prove causality. However, I believe these findings are important and significant.

Not only do they confirm previous similar studies and agree with the findings of other groups of successful maintainers (such as the National Weight Control Registry), I found that these results match precisely what I’ve seen among my most successful “Burn The Fat” clients.

THIS is the type of advice I’d suggest you listen to the most: Advice about how to lose body FAT, not body WEIGHT, and how to maintain an ideal bodyweight and body composition over the long haul, not how to lose weight as fast as possible.

Train hard and expect success,
Your friend and coach,

Tom Venuto
www.BurnTheFat.com
Founder and CEO, Burn the Fat Inner Circle
www.burnthefat.com/innercircle

P.S. There was one more “difference that made the difference,” in this study, and this one may surprise you (although it didn’t surprise me). Successful maintainers were LESS likely to take over the counter diet products (pills, etc).

By Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
Turbulence Training For Fat Loss

I often get asked, “What’s the best way to burn fat and lose my belly?” People want to know if aerobics is better than strength training, or if traditional cardio exercise is better than intervals.

Well, to say I’ve done them all would be an understatement.

With over 15 years experience helping others, training myself, training for sports, spending countless hours in the gym, AND actually conducting laboratory research studies on different exercise methods, I’m pretty confident in knowing what works and what does not.

But first of all, I want to frame my responses. I’m going to talk about what works for people that have a limited amount of time to exercise, mostly because I expect your readers don’t have 90 minutes per day to devote to a workout, unlike the typical audience of a fitness magazine.

That’s why there is a huge disconnect between some of the information found in magazines and the ability of the reader to apply it to their lives.

We just don’t have 6-8 hours per week for exercise, nor do we need it. If you’re a triathlete, you might need that, but not someone that just wants to lose fat and gain muscle.

Having said all that, the bottom line for getting a better body is…

Use bodyweight exercises to warm-up, strength training supersets to build muscle, and then finish your workout with interval training to burn fat in a short amount of time. I’ve structured my system so that you are in and out of the gym in 45 minutes, three times per week.

You’ll do 5 minutes of bodyweight exercises to warm-up. This is a much more efficient approach than spending 5 minutes walking on a treadmill, which really doesn’t prepare you for anything except more walking on a treadmill.

Then we move into the strength training supersets, where we use two exercises performed back to back with minimum rest between each. This cuts our workout time, while still giving us maximum results. We only need 20 minutes for this, and we’ll use basic exercises, and sometimes even more bodyweight exercises, depending on the client’s goal for muscle building.

And finally, we’ll do 18 minutes of interval training. A warm-up, followed by six short intervals at the appropriate fitness level for the client, interspersed with short periods of low-intensity recovery. Finish with a cool-down. And that’s the workout. Again, about 45 minutes total.

Compare that to what most people do, which is run, jog, cycle or use the cardio machines for 45 minutes straight. Sure, that will burn calories, but it doesn’t build a better body.

In fact, there are a few “dark sides” to long slow cardio, including less-than-optimal results, the potential for overuse injuries, and it is an inefficient form of exercise. If you only have 30-45 minutes for your workout and you spend it all on a cardio machine, when are you going to train the rest of your muscles and sculpt a better body?

So the best way to burn belly fat is with a combination of strength training and interval training. It’s fast, it works, and it’s fun!

About the Author

Craig Ballantyne 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 been featured multiple times in Men’s Fitness and Maximum Fitness magazines, and 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 Turbulence Training For Fat Loss