Six Pack Abs And Body building

The Hidden Truth about Cholesterol

2008-01-27T08:26:00.000-08:00

by Mike Geary, Certified Nutrition Specialist, Certified Personal Trainer

We all know that heart disease is one of the leading killers of people around the world, particularly highest in countries such as the US and Australia.

However, did you know that there are several medical studies worldwide that clearly show that higher cholesterol levels in the body actually increases longevity instead of decreasing it? Yes, you heard that right! People with high cholesterol have been statistically shown to live longer and healthier than people with low cholesterol in several studies. There are multiple references for this phenomenon in Shane Ellison's controversial book, The Hidden Truth about Cholesterol Lowering Drugs, Dr. Uffe Ravnskov's (MD, PhD) book entitled The Cholesterol Myths, as well as Sally Fallon and Mary Enig's book, Nourishing Traditions.

So why in the world are the pharmaceutical and medical industry pushing for practically everyone on the planet to "lower their cholesterol"? Well, the first, and more innocent answer, is flawed medical studies from decades ago that have been accepted as fact and never fully analyzed for their validity. Another answer is that this practice of recommending that half of the damn planet takes a cholesterol lowering medication (currently, statins), regardless of whether they truly have any real risk for heart disease, creates insane multi-squillion dollar profits for the drug companies!

As a perfectly absurd example of how doctors have been wrongly influenced by the drug companies... a couple years ago, I was a perfectly healthy 28 yr old, in great shape, exercising daily, eating a balanced healthy diet full of antioxidants and quality nutrition, no smoking, and with no real risk factors for heart disease, and just because my cholesterol level has been consistently measured over 200 for my entire life, my doctor recommended I consider using a statin drug.

Consider how outlandish this scenario is! The drug companies have hypnotized doctors into prescribing unnecessary prescription drugs to healthy young people with perfectly normal cholesterol levels that just happen to be over this arbitrary number of 200 that they've come up with. Luckily, I refused to be a guinea pig and fork over my hard earned duckets for potentially dangerous drugs, and decided to start researching this whole cholesterol and heart disease connection myself. Consider also that my father, who is now 60 years old, has had cholesterol levels slightly over 200 his entire life also (just like me), yet he is perfectly healthy at his ripe age of 60.

As time goes on and scientists continue to learn more about heart disease, it has become quite clear over the recent years that inflammation within the body (NOT cholesterol levels) is what causes plaque build up in the arteries and eventual heart disease. Inflammation can be caused by many personal factors such as stress, smoking, viruses, consumption of refined and/or hydrogenated fats (man-made trans fats), an imbalance of omega-6 polyunsaturated fats to omega-3 polyunsaturated fats in the diet, excess refined sugars in the diet, etc.

Here's a quick and dirty of how it works in general. Cholesterol is a healing substance within the body (among many other important functions), and responds to arterial inflammation by getting deposited in combination with other substances, forming "plaque" as a healing agent on the artery lining.

Levels of inflammation in your body can be measured with what's called a CRP test (c-reactive protein). The accuracy of this test still has room for improvement, as it can vary depending on the time of day and other factors, but it is a much better indication of heart disease risk than a cholesterol test (which is practically useless for determining heart disease risk).

Another more important test than cholesterol levels for heart disease risk is a test for serum homocysteine levels. The next time your doctor wants you to get blood cholesterol tests, request CRP and homocysteine tests instead. He/she should be well aware of the validity of these tests if they are up to date.

Basically, if you have significant internal inflammation, this plaque will be deposited as a healing agent regardless of whether you have high or low cholesterol. On the other hand, if you don't have inflammation, high cholesterol levels just keep circulating without getting deposited on the artery linings. Therefore, it is more important to control inflammation rather than trying to lower your cholesterol.

Lowering your cholesterol doesn't attack the root of the problem (what is actually causing the inflammation in you). Lowering your cholesterol does nothing except to make the drug companies rich, and possibly leave you with a whole assortment of possible negative side-effects.

The good news is that preventing heart disease is about living a healthy lifestyle, not about throwing down a drug pill everyday. Controlling your inflammation to prevent heart disease is as easy as reducing the stress in your life (try deep breathing exercises, Qigong, yoga, etc.), maintaining a healthy weight, eating a high-antioxidant, highly nutritious unprocessed diet (as recommended in my Truth about Six Pack Abs program), and avoiding smoking and other causes of heavy free radical production in the body.

I hope this article has given you some helpful info about the real causes of heart disease and not the propaganda that has been shoved down your throat for years, based on flawed medical studies from 40-50 years ago, making drug companies filthy rich.

If you or anyone you care about is currently taking statins, or if you just want to learn more about cholesterol and the scandal that is revolving currently around statin drugs, please see The Cholesterol Myths.

On a related topic, were you aware that there is also quite a controversy these days in the health industry over the fact that saturated fat is not necessarily bad for you, and can actually be downright good for you in some cases? I posted this article a few months ago, but thought I would mention this article again - The Truth about Saturated Fats

Unique Lean-Body Workouts for the Time-Crunched Individual

2008-01-27T08:21:00.000-08:00

by Mike Geary, Certified Nutrition Specialist, Certified Personal Trainer

Warning: this style of workout is WAY different than anything you've ever tried before and may result in a dramatically leaner, stronger body so that your friends no longer recognize you in a matter of weeks!

Alright, I exaggerated about your friends recognizing you, but this workout is still great for busy people that always use the excuse that they don't have time to go to the gym, or even for the normal gym rat to try out for a few weeks to break out of a plateau.

Please keep an open-mind and don't worry so much about what other people think, because this is quite different and you may get some funny looks, but you'll get the last laugh with your new rock hard body! To be honest, most people are too self conscious to try something like this. If that's the case for you, then that's your loss.

Here's how it works:

Instead of doing your traditional workouts of going to the gym 3-4 times a week and doing your normal weight training and cardio routines for an hour at a shot, with this program, you will be working out for just a couple minutes at a time, several times throughout each day, 5 days/week.

The program will consist of only bodyweight exercises done for about 2-3 minutes, 6-8 times per day, throughout each day. Now obviously if you work a normal office job, you are going to have to not be shy about doing a few exercises in your office and having your cube-mates watch you. Actually, I've found that some people that have tried this have actually gotten their co-workers to join them!

If you have a private office, then you don't have to worry about anybody watching you. If you work from home, or are a stay at home mom, there's no reason you can't fit these in throughout the day while at home. If you end up having a busy day with meetings and so forth, and can only fit a couple of these 2-minute workouts in, then so be it, but try to get as many done each day as you can.

If you're on a normal 9-5 office schedule, I recommend doing your 2-minute workouts every hour, on the hour, with the exception of lunch. For example, you could try 9 am, 10 am, 11 am, 1 pm, 2 pm, 3 pm, and 4 pm.

Some of the exercises that are the best to focus on are:

bodyweight squats (and variations)

pushups (and variations)

forward, reverse, or walking lunges

up & down a staircase if one is available

floor planks (holding plank position from forearms and feet)

floor abs exercises such as lying leg thrusts, ab bicycles, etc.

one-legged bodyweight Romanian deadlifts

This list is not fully comprehensive, but I wanted to keep it relatively simple. If you know other good bodyweight exercises, you can add those to your routine also. If you want to keep it real simple and don't want to get down on the floor for anything, you can stick to squats, lunges, and pushups and still get great results.

The good thing about these workouts is that you do enough in 2-3 minutes to get your blood pumping, heart rate up a bit, a large portion of your body's muscles worked, and body temperature raised. However, it's usually not enough to break a sweat in only 2 or 3 minutes, so you don't have to worry about sweating in the office or where ever you may be. At most, you might just get a little moist on the skin.

Here's an example routine (adjust the reps up or down based on your capabilities):

Mon/Wed/Fri
9 am - 10 pushups/15 bodyweight squats, repeat 1X for 2 sets
10 am - plank holds (hold the planks as long as you can taking short rest breaks for a total of 3 minutes)
11 am - 5 pushups/10 bodyweight squats, repeat for 4 sets
1 pm - plank holds (hold as long as possible in 3 minutes)
2 pm - 8 pushups/12 bodyweight squats, repeat for 3 sets
3 pm - plank holds (hold as long as possible in 3 minutes)
4 pm - max pushups/max bodyweight squats in one set (no repeat)

Tues/Thurs
9 am - 6 fwd lunges each leg/6 rev lunges, repeat 1X for 2 sets
10 am - one legged bw Romanian deadlifts (RDL) 6 each leg/floor abs for 20 sec, repeat 1X for 2 sets
11 am - 3 fwd lunges each leg/3 rev lunges, repeat for 4 sets
1 pm - one legged bw RDL 3 each leg/floor abs for 20 sec, repeat for 4 sets
2 pm - 5 fwd lunges each leg/5 rev lunges, repeat for 3 sets
3 pm - one legged bw RDL 10 each leg/floor abs for 30 sec (no repeat)
4 pm - max fwd lunges each leg/max rev lunges in one set (no repeat)

In order to progress on these workouts, you could either add 1 or 2 reps to each set per week, or you could progress to more difficult versions of each exercise each week (for example, close grip pushups, one leg raised pushups, squats with arms raised straight over head, etc.).

The above routines are just a couple examples of how you can use this very unique style of training. Use your creativity and come up with your own. Think about what you've accomplished with these "mini" workouts completed throughout each day... You've increased your heart rate and pumped up your muscles 6-8 different times throughout each day, burning a lot of extra calories and stimulating your metabolism.

Even though each "mini" workout was a very short duration, you've accumulated lots of repetitions for almost every muscle throughout your entire body, and you didn't even have to break a sweat during any of the "mini" workouts. And there's hardly any excuse for not being able to take a 2-minute break once per hour and do a couple of exercises.

Another benefit of this style of training is that now you don't have to devote any time before or after work to going to the gym because you already got your workouts little by little throughout the day. You've now got some extra free time on your hands!

Try this type of routine out for 3-4 weeks and then go back to your normal gym routines. I think you'll find that it was a great way to break out of a plateau and stimulate new results in your body. You can try mixing in a cycle of these "mini" workouts every couple of months to keep things fresh.

Keep in mind that this is only one method of training and doesn't mean that you should only stick to this method for eternity. You will hit a plateau on any given training method, so I'd recommend just rotating it into your arsenal of various training methods. And by all means, don't worry so much about what other people think...have the courage to try something a little different. In the end, you'll be the one laughing back at all of the "blubber-bellies" that are giving you funny looks while they eat their donuts!

If you liked these training ideas, my internationally best-selling ebook The Truth about Six Pack Abs contains hundreds of more innovative training ideas to lose stubborn body fat and carve out a rock hard set of abs.

Potatoes, Glycemic Index, and "White Foods" - Friend or Foe for a Lean-Body?

2008-01-27T08:14:00.000-08:00

by Mike Geary, Certified Nutrition Specialist, Certified Personal Trainer

I'd like to start a little discussion today about carbohydrates... and in particular, "white foods" as well as potatoes. One reason I wanted to mention this is because so many health and fitness professionals trash talk potatoes about being a bad carbohydrate choice because of the high glycemic index. Some even say such ridiculous things as "avoid any and all white carbohydrates".

Ok, now while I certainly agree that white bread and refined white sugar are two of the worst things we can be feeding our bodies, I definitely don't agree with avoiding any and all "white carbohydrates". Now I know all of the buzz lately has been about colorful foods and the protective antioxidants that they contain. They tell you to focus on colors and stay away from white.

It's true that colorful foods are great, but it is a big mistake to specifically avoid white foods! There are plenty of white foods that have specific nutrients that are hard to find elsewhere. Let's look at a few examples...

Onions & Garlic

What about onions and garlic? They are both white and they are chock full of protective phytonutrients, vitamins, and trace minerals that aren't easy to find elsewhere in a normal diet... such nutrients as allicin, quercetin (an important flavonoid), chromium, and other unique anti-inflammatory nutrients.

Cauliflower

Another example of something white that is great for you is cauliflower. Cauliflower is loaded with vitamin C, fiber, minerals, and special compounds such as glucosinolates and thiocyanates, which are specifically abundant in cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage. And a little-known fact is that some of the compounds in cruciferous vegetables help to combat other estrogenic compounds in our food supply and environment and can help prevent excess belly fat. So eat up on that cauliflower!

Mushrooms

Not many people realize this, but surprisingly, even white mushrooms have high levels of unique nutrients and antioxidants. White mushrooms are high in a couple types of antioxidants called polyphenols and ergothioneine.

Potatoes

Now that also leads us to another example - white potatoes (which by the way, can also be found in red, yellow, purple varieties, etc). Many health professionals claim that potatoes are a bad carbohydrate because they are thought to have a high glycemic index. First of all, if you've read my Truth about Six Pack Abs book, then you understand that glycemic index is not necessarily the most important factor in choosing your carbohydrates.

While a generalization can be made that most low glycemic index carbohydrate choices will help you lose body fat easier than high glycemic index choices, it is not all that it's cracked up to be. There are many other factors that determine how your body will react-to and process the carbohydrates you ingest, such as glycemic load and also how you combine the high GI food with other foods.

For example, using glycemic load as an example... it is known that watermelon has a high glycemic index. However, the glycemic load of a normal serving of watermelon is just way too low for your body to start packing on body fat just because you ate a high glycemic index fruit. You would have to eat such an enormous quantity of watermelon just to get enough grams of carbohydrates to have any negative glycemic effect, that it is just non-sensical.

Not to mention that watermelon is also a great source of vitamins, minerals, and lycopene. There's just no reason to avoid it simply because it has a high GI. My point is... candy bars, cupcakes, and donuts make you fat... NOT watermelons, carrots or potatoes.

Also, as i mentioned, food combinations are important in how your body processes the carbohydrates and the associated blood sugar and insulin response you receive. For example, if you mix a high glycemic index carbohydrate with an extra source of fiber, healthy fats, or even certain proteins, many times the blood sugar and glycemic response will be slowed down considerably by the way you combined the food. Again, I talk in detail about this entire topic in my Truth about Six Pack Abs book

Alright, so back to my point that white potatoes are actually a healthy carbohydrate as long as you eat them in the right form... with the entire skin, and please don't ruin them by deep frying them into french fries either! French fries are one of the most evil things ever invented for your health, but only because we ruin them by soaking them in a scorching bath of trans fats in the deep fryer from the hydrogenated oils that are typically used.

Keep in mind that potatoes contain so many vitamins and minerals that the list is way too long to even try. Also, as long as you eat the skins, you get a decent shot of fiber too.

On the topic of potatoes not being so bad after all, I don't remember where I saw this referenced, but I recently saw a particular study that had participants eat something like 7-9 whole potatoes per day for several weeks.

At the conclusion of the study, the potato eaters had actually consistently lost weight! I'd venture a guess that the reason the people lost weight is that they were probably so full from eating all of those damn potatoes, that they actually consumed less calories than normal! An average sized potato only has about 100-120 calories, and I can surely imagine you'd be full constantly from eating 7-9 potatoes each day.

Now I would never recommend going to those extremes, but my point is that an occasional potato is not going to hurt your efforts to get lean, especially if you combine it with some other fibrous vegetables and maybe a healthy fat and some protein. On that note, I have one of my favorite recipes for you, using potatoes.

Geary's Lean-Body Potato Side Dish

Desired quantity of baby potatoes (I like to use this mixture I found recently at a health food store... it is a mixture of white, red, yellow, and purple baby potatoes)
1 red pepper
1 green pepper
1 yellow pepper
1 or 2 onions
a couple cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 or 2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
a little salt and pepper to taste (I like using a sea salt instead of normal commercial salt)

Cut the baby potatoes into slightly smaller pieces and place in a steamer until soft all the way through. Slice up the peppers and onions into strips and add with the chopped garlic into a pan with the olive oil. Cook the peppers, onions, and garlic until tender, and then add the steamed baby potatoes. Stir it all together and serve. This is a delicious and healthy side dish that goes great with chicken or red meat.

I hope you've enjoyed this little topic today about potatoes, healthy carbohydrates, glycemic index, and my killer potato recipe idea!

The Ultimate Secret of Mind Control and Motivation to Achieve the Exact Body Shape You Want

2008-01-25T03:55:00.000-08:00

by Mike Geary - Certified Personal Trainer, Certified Nutrition Specialist

I ask you to have an open mind and accept some ideas I'm going to throw at you today. If you can take full grasp of these ideas, take my word that this will be the most powerful secret you've ever discovered for attaining the exact body that you desire.

I'm basically going to take the concepts from the hit movie "The Secret" and show you how to apply it towards your fitness goals.

Keep in mind that this "ultimate secret" has nothing to do with our normal discussions of reps and sets. It has nothing to do with calories or fat or protein. It has nothing to do with cardio training or abs exercises. But once you discover the "Secret", you will be on your way to the body of your dreams, or any other goals that you have in your life, for that matter.

Elite athletes have practiced the "Secret". Champion bodybuilders have practiced the "Secret". Virtually all of the most influential, powerful, wealthiest, and happiest people throughout history have either knowingly or not, practiced the "Secret". Some didn't even realize that they knew the "Secret", but applying its power is the sole reason for their success. In today's discussion, I'm simply putting a little twist on this "Secret" and applying it to your fitness goals. But in reality, it works for any of your goals and desires in life.

Before I reveal the "Secret", I want to ask you a few questions today and I want you to answer the questions that are appropriate to your goals. I want you to be honest with yourself. If you discover that you have not accomplished your goals related to these questions, pay close attention, because I'm going to reveal to you how you can change this immediately and be on the path to achieving whatever it is that you want in life.

Do you currently have the body that you want?
Do you feel full of energy every single day?
Do you feel strong, confident, and proud of your body?
Do you feel that you have no physical limitation to be able to do whatever you want to do in life?
Do you want to be thinner?
Do you want more muscle?
Do you want sexy flat abs or a tighter butt?

The answers to these questions will be vastly different for everyone. Not everyone wants the same things. Not everyone has the same goals.

But the most important thing to realize, is that ANY of your goals can be achieved, no matter who you are, if you understand and APPLY the "Secret". Alright, enough of the build-up. What exactly is the "Secret"? Drum roll please.....

The "Secret" lies within your mind and revolves around the powerful Law of Attraction. What you focus on becomes your reality. To put this another way, "What you resist, persists. Whatever you are feeling and thinking is a perfect reflection of what you will become".

In other words, if all you ever focus on is how frustrated you are that you can never lose weight or get rid of that belly fat, then you are doomed to a flabby body forever, because you are actually creating that reality. On the other hand, if you focus on your successes with every ounce of your being, every single day, and continually feel in your mind what your dream body is going to be like, you will create that reality. The key point is that your thoughts and feelings must revolve around already having the body that you want. You must actually imagine daily that you are already living in your new body.

If you're closed-minded, at this point in reading this article, you will probably say something like, "what is all of this gobbly-gook crap this idiot is talking about". And then you will click away to another site, go back to your daily life, and continue to be frustrated by failing to achieve the body you want for the rest of your life.

On the other hand, if you're open minded, and truly want to succeed, you will continue to read, absorb, and start to apply the "Secret", and watch your body slowly become exactly what you want it to become.

I've discovered the "Secret" a couple years ago and how to apply this towards my other goals in life aside from fitness.

However, I also realized that the reason I've been successful with my fitness goals is that I've been unknowingly applying the "Secret" towards my fitness goals for many, many years now. I have always visualized exactly how I wanted my body to look, how energized I wanted to feel day in and day out, how strong and confident I wanted to feel. These visualizations led me on a constant mission to take massive daily ACTION towards exactly what I wanted.

So how do you get the exact body you want? Well, the first thing I want you to realize is that how you feel today and the body that you see in the mirror today is actually a combined result of how you have lived your life in the past... the habits, thoughts, and actions that you have taken throughout every single day that has preceded today. If your past has not given you the body you want today, the energy you want, the powerful feeling of health that you want, then you need to change your mindset and start taking immediate and massive action towards exactly what you want.

You need to visualize yourself living in that desired lean, strong body... feel the energy, vitality, and strength running through every inch of you. Imagine the confidence you feel. If you want it bad enough, you WILL achieve it, but it takes a BURNING DESIRE to succeed.

You need to keep running through this imagining process, and actually capture this "feeling" every single day, until the day comes that you realize that you have achieved your goals. If you practice this enough, you will attract into your life exactly what you want. Again, if all you focus on is your failures, and continue to think negatively, you will only attract more failures and negativity into your life.

Amazing things and amazing people have been coming into my life ever since I discovered the "Secret". If you have an open mind and focus your entire being on what you want, it WILL come into your life. It starts with the mindset, and your journey towards your goals continues from there with massive action taken on a daily basis toward your goals. Once you get this process right, you CAN'T fail.

I will leave you with one more powerful quote that has totally transformed the way I think about what I can achieve in life:

"Whether you THINK that you can or can't do something, either way, you are right".

Read that one again, and believe it! It is a powerful shift in mindset that will change your life.

I want you to do me a favor and read this entire article over again and really start thinking about how you can apply it towards your goals. They don't even have to be fitness goals. It can really be anything that you want to achieve.

Once you've got your mind in the right place, you are now ready to take massive action towards your goals starting now! Getting back to your fitness goals... If your goals revolve at all around losing body fat, tightening up your entire body, and creating an energy filled lifestyle, then a great place to get all of the information you need to achieve this and start taking action is in my Truth about Six Pack Abs book.

By the way, this book does not simply revolve around abs exercises. To be honest, the abs exercises are the LEAST important part of the book. The most important parts of the book are carrying out the nutritional program and compiling all of the training information into a full body training program to stimulate your metabolism and create the right hormonal environment in your body that removes body fat consistently.

Combining a fool-proof training and nutrition program such as this with the proper mindset and application of the "Secret", will give you a very powerful solution to the lean-body that you desire.

The solution is here - The Truth about Six Pack Abs

All that stands now between you and your goals is getting your mindset right, and taking action!

I hope this article has given you some things to think about. I urge you to have an open mind and allow yourself to attract what you want into your life.

Please feel free to copy/paste and email the link to this page to any of your friends and family that you think will enjoy it. If you received this from a friend and would like to sign up, go here to become a member of my free Lean-Body Secrets Ezine .

One of the Best Butt Exercises for a Firmer Sexier Butt and Thighs

2008-01-25T03:52:00.000-08:00

Want to know what the best butt exercise is to get that sexy tight firm butt? I don't think I know one single woman that doesn't want to achieve a tighter firmer butt.

Well, the answer to your quest for the best butt exercise is not in some fancy machine or butt blaster. In fact, most of your best butt exercises are simply done with bodyweight or free weights. I'll cover one of the most effective exercises for tightening the old buttocks in this article. I'll reveal some of the other top butt exercises in future articles.

The topic of this article is the single-legged Romanian Deadlift. It's a great exercise for firming both the butt and the back of the thighs (hamstrings). Also, because this is a single-leg exercise, it really helps strengthen your ankles and other stabilizer muscles throughout your legs. Here's how to do it:

1. Looking straight ahead, stand and balance on one leg, and kick the other leg out slightly behind you.

2. Maintain a very slight bend in the knee throughout this exercise.

3. Now start to bend forward while simultaneously pushing the butt and hips back and keeping a flat (not rounded) back.

4. While bending over and pushing the hips back, kick your other leg out behind you and reach down with your hands towards the toe of your foot that's planted on the ground and try to touch it. You should feel a stretch in the hamstrings as you get to the deepest part where your back is parallel to the floor.

5. Then, focus on squeezing the butt muscle hard while you reverse the movement and bring yourself back to upright (all the while maintaining that flat back)

Alright, that was one rep! Now do 5-10 reps with each leg for 2-3 sets mixing this exercise into one of your normal workouts (or even just try this at home in your living room). At the end of a couple sets, I guarantee you'll be feeling this big-time in your buttocks and the back of your thighs!

I know it may sound a little complicated, and the first time you try this butt exercise, you may really need to concentrate on your balance. But after a couple sessions of practicing these one-legged romanian deadlifts, you'll start to get the hang of them and be able to focus more concentration on keeping the butt tight throughout the range of motion.

Once you get this down and practice this killer butt and thigh exercise regularly, you'll be well on your way to showing off a tighter, sexier butt!

If you want to discover an even better exercise to tighten and tone your butt and thighs, go to Sexy Butt Exercises

For those of you that want a flat and sexy stomach with more toned abdominals, be sure to Flatten Your Stomach Fast with my Truth about Six Pack Abs Program

Stop With the Lame Excuses and Procrastination and Get Your Butt in the Gym!

2008-01-25T03:50:00.000-08:00

by Mike Geary, Certified Nutrition Specialist, Certified Personal Trainer

How many times have you said "Oh, I'm too busy... I'll get started on my weight loss plan tomorrow", or "I'll just wait until after the holidays to start working out and getting in better shape"?

Working as a fitness professional, I hear people every single day say that they want to improve their shape... whether they want to lose weight, build some muscle, get stronger, lose the fat on their belly... whatever it may be. Can you guess what happens when I say to them, "Well, if you really want it that bad, then why don't you start today... seriously, why not start working out and eating healthy today and lets make this happen now". Well, what usually happens is that they say that they'll just wait until next month because they're "too busy" right now.

Come on... Give me a break! It's nothing but LAME EXCUSE after lame excuse as to why you don't workout regularly or eat right. This becomes an endless cycle of excuses and procrastination for getting your butt in shape. Once next month comes, now you have another excuse... work has been too busy, or you're just too busy working on the house, and so on.

Consider this... Do you really think that all of the people walking around out there in great shape with their kick-ass bodies are any less busy than you? Hell no! Chances are, they are easily just as busy as you, yet THEY find the time to keep themselves healthy and in great shape.

Let's make a pact and STOP THE LAME EXCUSES FOR GOOD! Start on your goal today!

The bottom line is... If you really want it, you'll find the time. It's all about priorities and getting in the right mindset.

If you are one of these people that's always using excuses as to why you don't have time to eat right or workout, then I have bad news for you... You are NEVER going to get in good shape for the rest of your life! You are going to continue to yoyo back and forth and struggle with your fitness FOREVER!

Sorry to be so "in your face", but sometimes we all just need a wake up call. I'll even admit that although I've got my fitness pretty well handled, I've needed these wake up calls in other areas of my life where I was struggling, and I've appreciated those people that showed me the way.

I thought about writing about this whole topic of "lame excuses" for not getting into shape because I recently met an incredible fitness professional, Scott Tousignant, who is labeled "the excuse-buster". Luckily, in my business, I have the great fortune of networking with some of the best fitness professionals in the world.

I also found out that Scott calls himself "The Fit Bastard", and he's not afraid to be a little in your face and show you how to beat the procrastination and excuses that have been keeping you from getting the body you've always wanted.

I must say that I absolutely loved his approach and wish I had thought of it first myself! To help people that are struggling with procrastination and excuses, Scott has prepared a motivational MP3 audio (Get Your Butt To The Gym And Make The Most Of It) that you can download for free, as well as a 1-month workout program that you can grab for free also. Go check it out... It's great stuff! You can even do the workouts in your own home.

For the guys, go check out:

The Fit Bastard

For the ladies, you can check out:

The Fit Chic

Enjoy the downloads!

Feel free to copy/paste this page link and email it to anyone you know that is also struggling with lame excuses and procrastination for getting in shape.

Wishing you a lean body for life,

Mike Geary

Is Your Exercise Routine Keeping You Fat & Unhealthy?

2008-01-25T03:48:00.000-08:00

by Rob Poulos, founder of Fat-Burning-Furnace

The majority of exercisers today still rely on long duration moderate paced aerobic exercise as their primary routine to burn fat fast. But recent studies have shown that this is a big, I mean big mistake.

In fact, you could say that the whole aerobics explosion of a few decades past was one of the biggest mistakes in the health and fitness industry. Why?

There are several reasons, but I'll focus on the two main issues here. When you exercise at a moderate pace for extended periods of time (as in the typically recommended percent of your target heart rate), your body is burning fat during the exercise.

While this may sound good, it's actually bad news. This sends a signal to your body to keep a certain amount of stored fat available for your next workout. You're essentially telling it that it needs fat available to burn, ‘because you'll be doing this exercise again.

So while we may be burning some calories during this exercise, after the exercise is over, our body begins storing up some fat for the next workout. Obviously not what we're looking for in terms of maximum ability to burn fat fast.

The other big concern with moderately paced aerobic exercise performed several times per week is that it trains your body (heart, lungs, muscles, etc.) to become efficient. Again, this may sound good, but what is actually happening is bad for long term health.

You are working only within your existing aerobic limits, without improving your aerobic capacity. This is important because your aerobic capacity is what determines how your body responds in times of physical, emotional, and mental stress.

If you reduce your capacity for work, as you do in this type of exercise, you're reducing your long term health, no to mention a poor chance of burning fat.

The good news is, you can reverse these effects by instead focusing your workouts on high intensity resistance training, with workouts that last 15-20 minutes on average, and can only be performed 2-3 times per week. These workouts will burn carbohydrates instead of fat during the workout, and will cause your body to use its fat stores to replenish the burned carbs over the next 24 hours, after the workout is done!

This type of work will also increase your reserve capacity and thus your ability to handle all types of stress, leading to lasting health and fitness...and 24/7 fat burning. Nice!

But the exercise must be performed correctly to be effective, and that means using sufficient intensity, and keeping your rest periods between exercises and sets down to 60 seconds or less.

The students of my Fat Burning Furnace method know this, and are reaping the benefits. When you think about how little time you have to spend compared to the typically recommended methods to get these fat burning and health creating results, it's almost magical.

Check out the free gift "7 Forbidden Secrets of Fat Loss" Report that Rob is giving away.

That about it for today. Hope you're having a great one!

Stay lean,

Mike Geary
Certified Nutrition Specialist
Certified Personal Trainer
Founder - TruthAboutAbs.com & Busy Man Fitness .com

The "Land Meat" That Rivals Wild Salmon in Omega-3 Content -- Grass Fed Beef & Other Grass Fed Meats

2008-01-25T03:44:00.000-08:00

by Mike Geary -- Certified Nutrition Specialist, Certified Personal Trainer

TruthAboutAbs.com

I know you've heard all of the buzz over the last few years about the health benefits of wild salmon and other fish that have higher levels of omega-3 fatty acids.

However, did you know that there's a "land meat" that has similar omega-3/omega-6 ratios as wild salmon? In fact, this "land meat" not only contains as much, or even higher levels of omega-3 fatty acids, but without the possible negatives such as heavy metals (mercury, etc) and PCBs that can be found in fish frequently.

I've talked about this type of meat before and how it's one of the healthiest forms of meat you can possibly eat... It's grass-fed beef and other grass-fed ruminant meats such as bison, buffalo, lamb, and venison.

Now I know that a lot of people will try to convince you that meat is not good for you... and to be honest I partially agree with them when it comes to your typical factory farm-raised meat where the animals are fattened up with huge quantities of grains & soy that are not their natural diet & given unhealthy doses of hormones, antibiotics, etc.

However, when animals are healthy and eat the diet they were meant to eat naturally, the meat is actually healthy for us.

Let's take beef for example... When cattle eat mostly grain and soy, the fat composition of their meat becomes higher in inflammatory omega-6 fatty acids and lower in beneficial omega-3 fatty acids.

On the other hand, when cattle eat mostly grass instead of grains/soy, their meat becomes higher in omega-3s and lower in omega-6 fatty acids. In addition, grass-fed beef also contains much higher levels of conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), which has shown some promising benefits in studies for losing body fat and gaining lean muscle mass.

A similar comparison can be made between wild salmon and farm raised salmon. Wild salmon is a healthier option than farm raised salmon and has higher levels of omega-3s because the wild salmon eat what they're supposed to eat naturally. On the other hand, farm raised salmon are fattened up unnaturally with grain/soy based food pellets which detrimentally changes the salmon's fat ratio of omega-6 to omega-3.

The problem is that it is VERY hard to find healthy grass fed meats in typical grocery stores. In fact, even at health food stores, you might find some "organic" meats (which is at least a little better than standard), but it is often hard to find any real grass-fed meats.

Well, about 2 weeks ago, I did some searching and found a great website that sells all kinds of varieties of grass-fed beef and other healthy grass fed meats...

http://healthygrassfed.2ya.com

They have everything you could ever want... grass-fed burgers, filet mignon & any other quality beef cuts, grass-fed buffalo, grass-fed cheeses, and even free-range chicken and turkey!

And better yet, they deliver it right to your house with no shipping costs either... and I actually found that the prices were pretty comparable to what I usually pay at the grocery store anyway.

I'll tell ya... I was like a kid in a candy store when I found this site. I placed my order for all kinds of goodies on a friday, I got a shipping notification email that Monday, and my delivery came right to my door the very next day in a sealed cooler... I couldn't believe the service I got from this company.

Wouldn't it give you peace of mind to know that you and your family are eating meat that is actually good for you instead of the mass produced junk at most grocery stores? I know I'm getting most of my meat from them from now on.

Everything in my order ended up being awesome... here's my recommendations:

*the grass-fed filet mignons (delicious and tender!)
*grass-fed burgers and bison burgers when I need a quick but healthy 5-minute meal (use some grass-fed cheese and sprouted grain roll for the ultimate balanced meal)
*the free-range chicken and turkey sausages (makes great italian dishes or healthier breakfast sausage)
*grass-fed cheese and butter (higher in CLA and omega-3 than normal butter or cheese)
*they even have free-range turkeys available for upcoming thanksgiving (you won't find free-range turkeys in stores)

Plus, besides getting much healthier meat than you'd ever find in the store, another benefit to this site was that it was like doing my grocery shopping from my living room, instead of fighting the crowds at the store.

Well, they've got me hooked, and thought I'd pass on this little discovery to you. Here's the site again...

http://healthygrassfed.2ya.com

(FYI - from looking at the site, I believe you can only order the meats if you're in the US and Canada)

Enjoy!

If you liked todays article, feel free to email this page on to any of your friends, family, or co-workers that would enjoy it.

Til next newsletter...

Don't be lazy, be lean.

Mike Geary
Certified Nutrition Specialist
Certified Personal Trainer
Founder - TruthAboutAbs.com & Busy Man Fitness .com

back to how to get a flat stomach and 6 pack abs home page

Does Diet Soda Make You Fat, or is it Really Good for Weight Loss?

2008-01-25T03:36:00.000-08:00

by Mike Geary, Certified Nutrition Specialist, Certified Personal Trainer
TruthAboutAbs.com
We all know by now that soda (aka "pop" in some areas) is one of the most evil things you can put in your body... the nasty chemicals, the gut-fattening high fructose corn syrup, and a myriad of health problems caused by this carbonated cocktail worshipped by those that don't care about their health or body.

Since you're one of my subscribers, I know that you actually do care about your health and the appearance of your body.

Surprisingly, many people falsely believe that "diet" soda is in some way a good thing for losing body fat. In fact, I hear people all the time proudly state that they eat so healthy and only drink diet soda.

So let's set the record straight...

There is NOTHING even remotely healthy about drinking diet soda. In fact, I've even seen several studies that showed dedicated diet soda drinkers got even FATTER than their regular soda drinking counterparts.

Here's some findings from an 8-year University of Texas study that I had read...

An excerpt from the study author:

"What didn't surprise us was that total soft drink use was linked to overweight and obesity," Fowler tells WebMD. "What was surprising was when we looked at people only drinking diet soft drinks, their risk of obesity was even higher."

"There was a 41 percent increase in risk of being overweight for every can or bottle of diet soft drink a person consumes each day," Fowler says.

Ok, as if we didn't already know how bad regular soda was for us, and now they're showing us studies that diet soda makes us even fatter than the already bad stuff!

There's a lot of complicating factors as to why this occurs...

One reason is that the artificial sweeteners in diet sodas create a negative hormonal response in the body that increases fat storing hormone production and increases cravings for more sweets and refined carbohydrates in the time period after consuming the diet drink.

Another reason is that people may subconsciously think that because they are drinking a diet soda, that gives them more leeway to eat more of everything else, hence consuming more calories overall.

I've said this all along, but the bottom line is that if you're serious about your health and body, soda of any kind (and artificial sweeteners in anything for that matter!) should be avoided at all times, except for very rare occasions when you can't avoid them.

Another article I did about artificial sweeteners explains more of the problems with them and good substitutes

So what is a good alternative to diet sodas?

The best alternatives are good old water with lemon or unsweetened iced teas... you have plenty of options with teas - green, white, black, oolong, red... be creative in making your iced teas and you'll enjoy it more. Plus you'll get a more diverse array of antioxidants.

I just add a little of the natural non-caloric sweetener stevia to my iced teas and I love them. I get my stevia here.

Recent TruthAboutAbs Reader Review

"Hi Mike,

A few months ago I bought your Truth about abs book with my wedding in mind. Anyway, I was procrastinating getting started and kept putting it off. Then, a few weeks ago I finally got started on your program. I had previously been going to the gym doing the boring machines and the tedious running etc etc.

After reading your book, one day, I picked up a pair of free weights, a medicine ball and got to work... I'm amazed, I'm more than amazed, I'm totally blown away!! I now refuse to work out on machines anymore; I do HIIT on the rowing machine instead of running (I HATE RUNNING).

I work out 4 times a week for 30-45 minutes and I have seen the biggest results EVER! I feel fantastic, I'm starting to lose this ugly big belly, I'm developing and defining my arms, shoulders and back and butt! And all of this, really after only a few weeks of your method of training. I haven't even worked through the whole book yet, or all the exercises yet and as I discover them I work them into my routine!

Thank you for a wonderful book and product. People are still a bit skeptical when I tell them about the weight training and other workout methods you use, but I know I'll win them over when they see my results!

Regards from South Africa,

-Libby

Don't be lazy... be like Libby, and get results!

If you are unsure if the Truth about Abs program is right for you, visit the page for frequently asked abs and fat loss questions about the program

Mike Geary
Certified Nutrition Specialist
Certified Personal Trainer
Founder - TruthAboutAbs.com & Busy Man Fitness .com

The Top Fat Loss Secrets for Flat Six-Pack Abs

2008-01-25T03:33:00.000-08:00

an interview by Geovanni Derice with Mike Geary - Certified Nutrition Specialist, Certified Personal Trainer

I had the pleasure of being interviewed recently by a fitness professional from NYC, Geovanni Derice, of 4evertoned.com. The interview is below and I think you're going to like it...I reveal some of the hardest hitting strategies for getting rid of that stubborn stomach fat to uncover those flat six pack abs that everyone wants.

"GD: Welcome Mike Geary to 4everToned's Fitness Journal. For those who do not know you, please tell us a few things about yourself.

MG: Thanks for having me, Geo. Well, to go back a little, I have been heavily involved in fitness and sports for about 15 years now, ever since I was a teenager. Being involved in sports in high school got me interested in strength training and conditioning. At that point, once I started feeling more energetic, getting stronger, and looking better, I was instantly hooked for life. I'm 30 now and still addicted to the way living a healthy and fit lifestyle makes me feel energetic, confident, strong, and youthful on a daily basis.

I decided earlier in my 20's that I wanted to make the commitment to help other people experience the excitement of being fit and getting in the best shape of their lives, especially since we've reached an epidemic of obesity, heart disease, diabetes, cancer, depression, etc. That's why I became a fitness professional. It just gives me so much satisfaction to help others, who have struggled for years to get in good shape, and show them that it can be done, and it can be fun in the process.

I've expanded over the years from just reaching local individuals with personal training, into being able to help people all over the globe achieve their fitness goals with the reach of the internet. I only hope that my passion for fitness inspires people to take action and improve how they look and feel for life.

GD: Now Mike, there's so many things out there as to what works and what does not work...if you had to pick 3 things that work time and time again to get flat abs, what would they be?

MG: The first and most important thing to get control of in order to get flat abs is cleaning up your diet. Exercise is important, but your diet is king when it comes to losing body fat so that you can see your abs.

There's so much confusion these days about what a healthy diet that promotes fat loss really is...after all, we are bombarded by conflicting messages in the media about what is healthy and what is not, and you have all of these gimmicky diet books about low carb, low fat, high protein, vegetarian, fasting, atkins, south beach, liquid diets, and hundreds more. There's so much conflicting info, that the average consumer doesn't even know where to start when it comes to eating for fat loss.

The second thing that works time and time again, is to focus on the intensity of your workouts and focus on working the body as a whole in order to get the best metabolic response to lose that stubborn stomach fat. In order to really get lean, the workouts should have a high intensity, with short rest periods, working the largest muscle groups of the body, instead of trying to isolate specific small muscles like the biceps, triceps, or calves.

For the third thing, let's talk about actually training the abs specifically. When it comes to training the abs, if you want real results, I always recommend forgetting about the crunches and situps for the most part. They are ok for someone that is really deconditioned, but most people that already have some training under their belt need a much better stimulus for their abs than crunches. Crunches are one of the abs exercises that actually provide the least amount of resistance, and remember that resistance is what develops and tones the muscles.

I provide a ton of great abs exercises in my book, but one of THE highest resistance exercises for the abs, is hanging leg raises (but NOT the way you see most people at the gym doing them). The key to doing these and actually working the hell out of your abs is to curl your pelvis up as you raise your legs. Almost nobody ever does this right. To be honest, the majority of people cannot do this at first, but I provide some strategies in my book as to how to progress to doing these correctly.

GD: What are people doing wrong when it comes to developing the coveted "6 pack abs"?

MG: Well Geo, I know this sounds funny to most people, but the MAIN thing that people are doing wrong to get those flat 6-pack abs is...are you ready for this? They spend entirely too much time focusing on training their abs! WAY too much time spent on abs exercises. Sounds crazy, but it's true.

Remember, having a flat and visible six pack of abs is all about getting down to a low body fat percentage. In order to do that, your workouts must focus on stimulating a fat burning hormonal environment in your body, and increasing your metabolic rate. That just does not happen when you focus too much time training a small muscle group like the abs.

Instead, you must use the majority of your time focusing on training the largest muscle groups of the body like the legs, back, and chest. That's what stimulates your metabolism and the fat burning hormones that will get you truly lean and sporting a flat sixxer!

GD: Which exercises are the top exercises that people need to do if they are to get maximum defintion with their midsection?

MG: When it comes to developing the abs themselves, I again refer to any kinds of hanging abs exercises, as well as some good floor abs exercises like lying leg thrusts (all described and illustrated in my book).

However, maximum definition in the abs and midsection comes from losing bodyfat, and the most effective exercises featured in my program for that goal are various forms of swings and snatches (unique dumbbell or kettlebell exercises that almost nobody ever does in normal gyms), squats, deadlifts, lunges, step-ups, clean & presses, mountain climbers, sprinting, and other full body exercises and calisthenics. If you want great looking flat abs, focus on those instead of focusing so much on training the abs directly!

GD: When it comes to diet Mike, people really have tried millions of ways to get one thing...and that is fat loss. What recommendations have you used to successfully help your clients lose fat and keep it off?

MG: I have included a fully comprehensive discussion of this topic in my book, which accounts for almost half of the book, but I'll try to make some nice simple generalizations to get people started on the right path immediately. The most important thing is that your diet is as natural and unprocessed as possible. It almost always comes back to the overprocessing of food that makes it unhealthy, and makes it totally wreck your metabolism and hormone balance in your body.

For example, why eat refined grains, when you can eat whole grains. Why eat refined sugar, when you can get natural sources of sugar from a high nutrient whole food like fruit. Why eat highly processed, refined, and hydrogenated vegetable oils (these are THE worst thing in the modern diet), when you can eat natural sources of healthy fats like nuts, avocados, fish, eggs, coconut milk, organically raised meat, and so forth.

The point is to not fall for some gimmick like low carbs, low fat, high protein, or any other combination that has you focusing on one macronutrient vs. another. Your body needs all macronutrients to thrive and obtain a variety of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, etc. Trying to cut an entire food group out just works against what your body needs. I get into much more detail on this vitally important topic towards losing body fat (especially that stubborn stomach fat) for life in my book.

GD: Thank you very much Mike for sharing with us all of this great information.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this interview and plucked several nuggets of info to get you motivated and started on showing off your flat abs shortly. If you don't already own a copy, be sure to pick up a copy of my Truth about Six Pack Abs book and discover the entire system I've developed for ridding yourself of that extra ab fat for good!

Workouts, Exercise, & Diet Articles

The 3 Best Abdominal Exercises that Are Not Traditional Ab Exercises

2008-01-25T03:30:00.000-08:00

by Mike Geary - Certified Nutrition Specialist, Certified Personal Trainer

Instead of the typical ab routines that we see so often with crunches, situps, leg lifts, etc... I like to give my readers better options for metabolism-boosting high intensity workouts that work their entire body while also working their abs.

I'm going to show you an example today of one of my favorite "ab workouts" that doesn't include any direct "ab exercises" at all. It's in a tri-set format (similar to a super-set but alternating between 3 exercises).

Here goes:

1a. Renegade Dumbbell Rows
1b. Front Squats with Barbell
1c. Mountain Climbers on Floor

A good rep scheme to use with this could be 3-4 sets of 8 reps for each exercise, or more sets for less reps, such as 5 sets of 5 reps of each exercise. Mountain climbers can be done for a time interval (such as 30 seconds) instead of "reps".

Exercise Pics & Descriptions:

Renegade dumbbell rows are done starting in a pushup position with the hands on 2 dumbbells. You then row one dumbbell up while stabilizing your body with the other arm. Bring the dumbbell back to the ground and alternate the rowing arm while stabilizing with the opposite arm. This stabilizing effect during the rows creates incredible work for your entire midsection core area. Trust me... you'll feel it in the abs!

Renegade Rows shown above

Front squats are done similar to back squats, however with the barbell in front of your body on the front of your shoulders instead of resting on the upper back as in back squats. You stabilize the barbell on your shoulders by crossing your arms and pushing your fists into the bar against your shoulders while keeping your elbows out in front of the body.

This takes a little practice at first, so you will want to seek a professional trainer at your gym to help you with the form. Front squats require extreme stabilization strength from the abs due to the barbell weight being shifted to the front of the body instead of the back. Even though this is mostly a leg exercise, you'll feel this one in the abs big time!

Front squats shown above

Mountain climbers are done by starting in a pushup position and then shuffling your feet in and out so that your knees are moving in under your chest and then back out to starting position. It sort of resembles climbing a mountain but flat on the floor. If you want an advanced version, you can also shuffle your hands 8-10 inches forward and backward in addition to the leg movements. This really makes it a full body exercise and MUCH more difficult than standard mountain climbers.

Mountain Climbers shown above

After finishing each exercise, rest about 30 seconds before starting the next exercise. Rest about 1-2 minutes after completing each "tri-set" before repeating.

This will give you one of the best ab workouts you've ever had without even doing any direct ab exercises. You'll see what I mean after you try it!

This is just a sampling of some of the killer ideas you'll discover in my internationally best-selling ebook program, The Truth about Six Pack Abs, currently the #1 most popular abs program on the internet (as ranked by clickbank.com) with 10's of thousands of users in over 150 countries. If you don't already have a copy be sure to pick one up today...

Not only will you receive a complete blue-print for challenging full-body workouts that will thoroughly define your entire body in addition to your abs (can be adjusted to beginners or advanced levels), but you'll also gain a thorough understanding of what types of nutritional strategies and other lifestyle aspects that it takes to reduce your belly fat to the level where your abs are visible.

Check out what other users are saying about their results with the Truth about Six Pack Abs program

Don't be lazy... Be lean.

Mike Geary
Certified Nutrition Specialist
Certified Personal Trainer
Founder - TruthAboutAbs.com & Busy Man Fitness .com

Do You Really Need "Cardio" Workouts?

2008-01-25T03:27:00.000-08:00

by Mike Geary, Certified Nutrition Specialist, Certified Personal Trainer

In this article, I have an intriguing discussion about cardio workouts, which will hopefully get you thinking differently, and trying new things.

You may know I've been called the anti-cardio guy before, but this week I'm back posing the question to you...Do you really need cardio training to get lean and in great shape? By the way, you'll see in a minute that I'm not really "anti-cardio", just "anti traditional cardio".

Most fitness buffs, weekend warriors, or anyone trying to get in shape or lose body fat, consider it a fact that they need "cardio" exercise to accomplish these goals. They would never even question it. However, I'm not only questioning it, I'm going to refute it! In fact, you may be surprised to know that some of the leanest and meanest people I know (men and women), NEVER do any type of normal or traditional cardio. And I've spent over 15 years working out in various gyms, and hanging out with athletes of all sorts, so I've seen it all.

I will say that there can be a place for low-moderate level cardio for really overweight or deconditioned people, but even in those cases, there can be more effective methods.

But what exactly is "cardio"? Most people would consider cardio to be pumping away mindlessly on a treadmill, riding a stationary bike, or coasting on an elliptical machine, while watching the TV screen at their state of the art gym. This is what I call "traditional cardio". Hmmm, no wonder the majority of people get bored with their workouts and give up after a couple months without seeing results.

But if you look closer, "cardio" exercise can be considered any type of exercise or activity that strengthens the cardiovascular system. I'm not going to get into anything technical like increasing your VO2 max or anything like that. To keep it simple, if it gets your heart pumpin, and gets you huffin and puffin, it's cardio. I don't care if you're holding dumbbells or a barbell and everyone calls it a weight training exercise...it's still conditioning your heart.

Let's take a look at a couple examples. Take a barbell (or dumbbell, or kettlebell) clean & press for example, which involves lifting a barbell from the floor up to shoulders, then push pressing overhead. And listen up ladies, because even though this is usually seen as a manly exercise, it doesn't matter if you're not lifting 250 lbs; if 45 lbs is challenging to you, then you will still benefit just as much.

At first glance, most people think of the barbell C&P only as a weight training exercise or strength exercise. However, I challenge you to do a hard set of around 10-15 reps on the C&P. If you used a challenging enough weight, what you'll find is that your heart rate is probably up to about 80-90% of your recommended max, and you are huffing and puffing like you just ran a 100-meter sprint (which by the way, sprinting kicks the crap out of jogging any day if you want the easiest way to lose the flab).

Try the same thing for a set of 20 reps of one-arm snatches or swings with each arm with a kettlebell or dumbbell, and tell me your legs aren't burning, heart racing, and you're gasping for breath. How about trying 5 minutes straight of bodyweight squats, lunges, and pushups with very little rest. Again, notice your heart pounding, sweat pouring off of you, and chest heaving for breaths!

Try and tell me you're not conditioning your heart with this style of training! Conventional thinking says that these are weight training or strength training exercises. However, they are fullfilling your cardio workout needs as well.

Not only do you save time, but you strengthen and condition almost every muscle in your entire body with these full body exercises if you do them with enough intensity...something that can't be said for that boring stationary bike ride or treadmill jaunt while reading or watching TV. Seriously, if you can read or watch TV while doing any exercise, you're not concentrating enough on what you're doing, plus you're probably not working out hard enough to see any real results.

I challenge you to give the "traditional cardio" a rest for a month or two, and start training the way I explain in my internationally-selling Truth about Six pack Abs Program, and see how you start getting leaner, more defined, and your six pack starting to show through what used to be stubborn stomach fat deposits.

If you're interested in more reading about the topic of cardio training and better alternatives, here's an interesting cardio article I wrote a few months back.

back to How to Get 6-Pack Abs home page

Strategies You MUST Know if You Ever Want to Stand a Chance of Getting a Flat Stomach with 6-Pack Abs

2008-01-25T03:25:00.000-08:00

by Mike Geary, author - The Truth about Six Pack Abs, interviewed by Craig Ballantyne - CSCS, Men's Health Magazine Training Advisor

Below is an interview that I did with world-famous trainer and Men's Health Magazine Training Advisor, Craig Ballantyne as he grilled me on the top secrets for fat loss and six pack abs. Check it out...

CB: Mike, give us a brief background about yourself

MG: Sure Craig. Well, I'm currently a Certified Nutrition Specialist and a Certified Personal Trainer. I've been dedicated to improving my knowledge of fitness, both training techniques and nutrition aspects, for over 15 years now, and I never stop trying to learn more each and every day. I've also been a contributing writer for Muscle & Fitness Hers Magazine, and I'm the author of the popular internationally-selling book, "The Truth about Six Pack Abs" which has had tens of thousands of readers in over 150 countries currently.

I just love helping people with this area of their lives, as not only does it improve their outward appearance and confidence, but more importantly, improves how they feel and their internal health, helping them to live longer and healthier lives. It's something I'm very passionate about.

CB: Okay, so where does the average man or woman go wrong when it comes to training abs?

MG: Ok, most people are probably going to be surprised with this answer. In their quest for 'six pack abs', the biggest mistake I see people making is wasting WAY too much of their time training their abs directly... pumping away with all kinds of different abs-specific exercises.

I'm sure you know what I'm referring to. The person is trying so hard to get those abs to show, that they're spending almost all of their time in the gym with hundreds of reps of various crunches, leg raises, twisting exercises, etc. Meanwhile, all of that wasted time directly training the abs could have been better spent on a properly designed full body workout program that would elicit a much better metabolic response and increase the fat-burning hormone levels in their body as well.

After all, losing the stomach fat that is covering the abs is the MOST important aspect for most people to finally be able to make their abs visible. Unfortunately, pumping away with hundreds of crunches and leg raises does NOT cause much of a metabolic or fat burning hormonal response. This is the main focus of my Truth about Six Pack Abs book... full body training programs and proper nutrition to strip off that stubborn belly fat and reveal the six pack that's hiding underneath!

Of course it wouldn't be an abs book if I didn't focus on ab development too, but I make sure firstly that the most important concepts for lasting body fat reduction are understood.

CB: Do you see any gender differences in mistakes they make? And more importantly, do you see any gender differences in the response to various types of ab training?

MG: To be honest, I don't really see any need for men or women to train differently. Bottom line... the best exercises are the best exercises regardless of gender.

However, in regards to mistakes I see between genders... Yes, I tend to see women more often are deathly afraid to use weight training with anything but really light weights. That is a shame, because THE most effective way to gain control over your body fat for life, is to maximize your lean muscle that your body carries, as well as working that muscle hard through intense resistance exercise regularly.

It's important for women to realize that regular strength training using heavier resistance will NOT "bulk them up" (as long as caloric intake is controlled), but rather is one of the key secrets for losing body fat and staying lean year-round. As a matter of fact, some of the leanest females that I've trained over the years are the ones that aren't afraid to work hard with the weights.

I also notice that most women (and a lot of guys too) spend way too much time with slow cardio exercise. This is simply not necessary, and the way I combine high intensity resistance training into full body routines provides enough of a "cardio" workout in itself usually. We'll get back to this in a minute though.

CB: What about ol' school sit-ups? Do you use these? Are they good, bad, or does it "depend"?

MG: Sit-ups are a controversial topic. I don't think they're good or bad per se, but rather "in between". I didn't include them in my program. I simply don't feel they are necessary, and I think there are much more effective abs exercises to focus on. Personally, I almost never do sit-ups except occasionally for a little variety every now and then.

CB: Give us a weekly sample ab training program. How many days per week? What are a couple of the best exercises you'd pick? How many sets? Reps? Rest?

MG: Well, first I'd like to point out that the full body movements that make up the majority of my programs indirectly work the abs and the entire "core" area to a fairly decent extent. However, I do include abs-specific exercises into the routines generally about twice per week. The "abs-specific" portion of the workouts generally only take about 5 minutes at most with very little rest between exercises.

Once people are past the beginning phase of gaining some initial ab strength, I try to get them away from the exercises that are too easy, where someone can do 50 or 100 reps, as is frequently common with standard crunches. Instead, I like to focus on higher resistance exercises that actually stimulate the muscle fibers to a much greater degree. One example of a higher resistance abs exercise is hanging leg raises with a proper "pelvic curl up".

It's funny but usually someone that has been wasting so much time with hundreds of reps of crunches can usually only do a few solid reps when they first attempt some of these higher resistance exercises. We also make sure not to neglect some rotational movements, as well as some work for the deeper muscles like the transversus abdominis.

CB: What do you use for burning fat, intervals or slow cardio? Or both? Any gender differences here? Or differences between fitness levels (beginner vs. advanced)?

MG: In most cases, my answer is definitely intervals... or as I like to call it "variable intensity training". In general, I think slow steady pace cardio is a waste of time, especially if the goal is lasting fat loss.

I think people need to get away from this thinking about "fat burning zones" and calories burned during the actual workout, and look at the bigger picture of what you're doing in your workout to stimulate the greatest metabolic response in your body... and the best metabolic and hormonal response is achieved through variable intensity training and strength training, not slow steady-pace cardio.

Now I will say that if someone is really deconditioned and can't handle higher intensity exercise routines just yet, this still doesn't mean that they can't simply use lower intensity routines, but still use it in a "variable intensity" fashion, by alternating between higher and lower exertion levels throughout the workout.

CB: And finally Mike, 1 or 2 of your top secret nutrition tips for carving out those abs. Open your vault of info!

MG: Well Craig, I think you'd agree that there has never been a more confusing time regarding proper nutrition for consumers. Every so called "expert" out there seems to disagree and contradict each other on what's the best way to eat for fat loss and overall good health.

One of the most important messages I try to teach my readers in this world of heavy confusion is that your diet doesn't need to conform to any of the fad diets... you don't need to go "low carb" or "low fat", or high or low anything for that matter to be successful in losing enough body fat to get lean enough to be able to see your abs. I like to try to simplify things for my readers. I think that balance is the key to success along with eating a diet that is made up of nutrient dense foods in their natural state (as unprocessed as possible).

In general, it is the heavy processing of foods that makes it wreak havoc inside our bodies. Most foods in their natural unprocessed state are inherently good for us. Of course there are always exceptions... a salad of poison ivy leaves is "natural and unprocessed" but certainly would not be good for us!

I'll leave your readers with a couple of the most important aspects of nutrition that help to get you lean for life...

1. Get enough quality protein in the daily diet - not only does it have a higher thermic effect than carbs and fat (so you burn more calories digesting it), but it also creates satiety so your hunger is satisfied longer. Plus it's a building block for maintaining and building lean muscle... And remember that the amount of lean muscle you carry is one of the main factors for controlling your metabolism.

2. Think fiber! When it comes to carbs, make sure that almost all of your carbohydrate intake is from higher fiber sources like vegetables, fruits, and high fiber unrefined grains. Try to avoid refined sugars and refined grains as that is one of the main reasons so many people struggle with body fat. I personally don't eat many grains as I prefer to get most of my carbs from veggies and fruits, but I do use sprouted grain breads fairly regularly too.

I generally recommend looking for carbohydrate sources that have at least 2-3 grams of fiber per each 10 grams of total carbs. Remember that fiber helps fill you up and also slows down the glycemic response of the foods you eat, all beneficial for getting lean.

3. Don't be afraid to eat fat! Many people try to go way too low on their fat intake and this can negatively affect hormone levels in your body as well as causing more cravings. Try to eat enough healthy fats daily.

Good sources are all nuts and seeds, nut butters, avocados, olive oil, organic meats and eggs, coconuts and virgin coconut oil. On that note, saturated fats from tropical oils are VERY misunderstood, even by many nutritionists and other health professionals. Yes they are composed highly of saturated fats, but are actually beneficial (but that's way beyond the scope of this article).

4. Avoid the two worst things in our food supply at ALL COSTS:

artificial trans fats from margarines, shortening, and hydrogenated oils that are in most processed foods and deep fried foods
high fructose corn syrup, which is in almost all sweetened products on the market

Again, if you avoid processed foods, it becomes easy to avoid these two worst offenders in our food supply.

I always contend that once you get a handle on these 4 main points of your diet detailed above, the rest starts to take care of itself as you gain control over your appetite, blood sugar levels, hormone levels, etc. It all falls into place, and you eventually gain total control over how lean you want to get.

CB: Thanks Mike! Check out the results that some of Mike's readers from over 150 countries are getting using the Truth about Six Pack Abs program

Truth about 6-Pack Abs home page

Excess Abdominal Fat is Not Only Ugly, but Extremely Dangerous to Your Health - This is More Than a Vanity Issue!

2008-01-25T03:18:00.001-08:00

by Mike Geary, Certified Nutrition Specialist, Certified Personal Trainer

Did you know that the vast majority of people in this day and age have excess abdominal fat? The first thing that most people think of is that their extra abdominal fat is simply ugly, is covering up their abs from being visible, and makes them self conscious about showing off their body.

However, what most people don't realize is that excess abdominal fat in particular, is not only ugly, but is also a dangerous risk factor to your health. Scientific research has clearly determined that although it is unhealthy in general to have excess body fat throughout your body, it is also particularly dangerous to have excess abdominal fat.

There are two types of fat that you have in your abdominal area. The first type that covers up your abs from being visible is called subcutaneous fat and lies directly beneath the skin and on top of the abdominal muscles.

The second type of fat that you have in your abdominal area is called visceral fat, and that lies deeper in the abdomen beneath your muscle and surrounding your organs. Visceral fat also plays a role in giving certain men that "beer belly" appearance where their abdomen protrudes excessively but at the same time, also feels sort of hard if you push on it.

Both subcutaneous fat and visceral fat in the abdominal area are serious health risk factors, but science has shown that having excessive visceral fat is even more dangerous than subcutaneous fat. Both of them greatly increase the risk your risk of developing heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, stroke, sleep apnea, various forms of cancer, and other degenerative diseases.

Part of the reason visceral fat is particularly dangerous is that it apparently releases more inflammatory molecules into your system on a consistent basis.

If you care about the quality of your life and your loved ones, reducing your abdominal fat should be one of your TOP priorities! There's just no way around it. Besides, a side effect of finally getting rid of all of that excessive ugly abdominal fat is that your stomach will flatten out, and if you lose enough stomach fat, you will be able to visibly see those sexy six pack abs that everyone wants.

So what gets rid of extra abdominal fat? Is there actually a REAL solution beyond all of the gimmicks and hype that you see in ads and on commercials for "miracle" fat loss products?

The first thing you must understand is that there is absolutely NO quick fix solution. There are no pills or supplements of any sort that will help you lose your abdominal fat faster. Also, none of the gimmicky ab rockers, rollers, or ab belts will help get rid of abdominal fat either. You can't spot reduce your stomach fat by using any of these worthless contraptions. It simply doesn't work that way.

The only solution to consistently lose your abdominal fat and keep it off for good is to combine a sound nutritious diet full of unprocessed natural foods with a properly designed strategic exercise program that stimulates the necessary hormonal and metabolic response within your body. Both your food intake as well as your training program are important if you are to get this right.

I've actually even seen a particular study that divided thousands of participants into a diet-only group and an exercise & diet combined group. While both groups in this study made good progress, the diet-only group lost significantly LESS abdominal fat than the diet & exercise combined group.

Now the important thing to realize is that just any old exercise program will not necessarily do the trick. The majority of people that attempt getting into a good exercise routine are NOT working out effectively enough to really stimulate the loss of stubborn abdominal fat. I see this everyday at the gym.

Most people will do your typical boring ineffective cardio routines, throw in a little outdated body-part style weight training, and pump away with some crunches and side bends, and think that they are doing something useful for reducing their abdominal fat. Then they become frustrated after weeks or months of no results and wonder where they went wrong.

Well, the good news is that I've spent over a decade researching this topic, analyzing the science, and applying it "in the trenches" with myself as well as thousands of my clients from all over the world to see what works to really stimulate abdominal fat loss.

The entire solution... all of the nutritional strategies, as well as training sequences, exercise combinations, and more have all been compiled in my Truth About Six Pack Abs Program.

Keep in mind that the point of this whole program is NOT abdominal exercises (that is only a very small portion of it). The main point of this program is showing you the absolute most effective strategies for losing your stubborn abdominal fat, so you can get rid of that dangerous health risk, as well as get a flatter more defined midsection.

If you follow the guidelines, you WILL lose your belly fat that has been plaguing you for years. This is not guesswork... it is a proven system that works time and time again for all of my clients on every corner of the globe that actually apply these strategies. If you apply it, the results will come. It's really that simple.

The only reason most people fail in their fitness goals is that they have good intentions at first to adopt a new lifestyle, yet after a few weeks or months, they abandon their good intentions and slip right back into their old bad habits that gave them the excess body fat in the first place.

I want to help you succeed in finally getting rid of that extra abdominal fat that is not only UGLY, but also DANGEROUS. A lot of people have emailed me with questions about whether they need any special equipment, if they're too old or too young for this program, etc. I've made a page that should answer all of your questions...

FAQ - Questions about the Truth about Six Pack Abs abdominal fat loss program

Also, I think you'll want to see some of the reader reviews from people that are using the system and getting killer results...

Reader Reviews of the Truth about Six Pack Abs abdominal fat loss program

Don't waste another day allowing that nasty abdominal fat to kill your confidence as well as contribute to your risk for MAJOR diseases.

Get the solution to rid yourself for life of this problem by reading more details about the program at the Losing Dangerous Abdominal Fat home page

Train hard, eat right, and enjoy life!

Mike Geary
Certified Nutrition Specialist
Certified Personal Trainer
Founder - TruthAboutAbs.com & Busy Man Fitness .com

The Shocking Truth about Dietary Fats and Saturated Fats

2008-01-25T03:12:00.000-08:00

by Mike Geary - Certified Nutrition Specialist, Certified Personal Trainer

I’ll preface this article by saying that it will help if you have an open mind and accept that some of these facts are a slap in the face to politically correct nutrition in this day and age where fats are admonished by many doctors, health "experts", and the mass media.

To start, eating an adequate supply of healthy dietary fats is vitally important to your overall health. Fats are one of the main components in all of the cell membranes throughout your entire body. If you eat enough healthy natural fats, your cellular processes will proceed normally. On the other hand, if you eat man-made, heavily processed, chemically altered fats (damaged fats) that are found in most processed foods, your cellular function will be impaired as these damaged fats become part of your cell membranes, the body will have to work harder to operate correctly, and degenerative diseases can develop.

In addition, healthy dietary fats are necessary for optimal hormone production and balance within the body and are therefore essential for the muscle building and fat burning processes. Other important functions that dietary fats play in a healthy body are aiding vitamin and mineral utilization, enzyme regulation, energy, etc.

I cringe every time I hear so called "health experts" recommend restriction of dietary fat, claiming that a low-fat diet is the key to good health, weight loss, and prevention of degenerative diseases. Restriction of any one macronutrient (protein, carbs, or fat) in your diet works against what your body needs and can only lead to problems.

All three basic macronutrients serve important functions for a lean, healthy, and disease-free body. As Dr. Mary Enig, Ph.D, and one of the leading fats researchers in the world, notes in several of her books and articles, there is very little true scientific evidence supporting the assertion that a high fat diet is bad for us.

For example, if these so called "health experts" that admonish fat are correct, and a low-fat diet is the solution to good health, then why did traditional Pacific Islanders who typically obtained 2/3 to 3/4 of their total daily calories from fat (mostly from coconut fat), remain virtually free from heart disease, obesity, and other modern degenerative diseases (that is, until Western dietary influences invaded)? Also, why did traditional Eskimo populations, consuming up to 75% of their total caloric intake from fat (mostly from whale blubber, seal fat, organ meats, and cold water fish), display superior health and longevity without heart disease or obesity?

Why did members of the Masai tribe in Africa remain free from degenerative diseases and maintain low body fat percentages on diets consisting of large quantities of raw whole milk, blood, and meat? What about the Samburu tribe of Africa, which eats an average of 5 times the quantity of dietary fat (mostly from raw whole milk and meat) as overweight, disease-ridden Americans, yet Samburu members are lean, healthy, and free of degenerative diseases? What about traditional Mediterranean diets, which are known to be very high in fat in some cases (sometimes up to 50-70% fat), and are also well known to be very healthy?

These examples of high fat diets and the associated excellent health of traditional populations around the world go on and on, yet it seems that many doctors, nutritionists, and media outlets still ignore these facts and continue to promote a diet that restricts fat intake.

Well, the problem is that the good fats (the natural unprocessed health promoting fats) have gotten mistakenly lumped together in nutritional advice with the deadly processed fats and oils that make up a large percentage of almost all processed food that is sold at your local grocery store, restaurant, deli, fast food joint, etc. These deadly processed fats are literally everywhere and almost impossible to avoid unless you know what to look for and make smart choices in what you feed your body with.

Take note that I’m not recommending following a super high fat diet. Active individuals that exercise on a regular basis certainly also need adequate supplies of healthy carbohydrates for energy and muscle glycogen replenishment as well as good sources of protein for muscle repair. The above examples of the high fat diets of traditional populations and their corresponding excellent health were simply to prove the point that you don’t need to be afraid of dietary fats as long as you make healthy natural choices and stay within your daily caloric range to maintain or lose weight (depending on your goals).

Following is a list of some of the healthiest fatty foods (some will surprise you!) as well as some of the deadliest fatty foods to try to avoid at all costs:

The Healthy Fatty Food Choices:

Coconut fat: Coconut fat is approximately 92% saturated fat, yet surprisingly to most people, is considered a very healthy natural fat. The health benefits of coconut fat lie in its composition of approximately 65% medium chain triglycerides (MCTs). Specifically, about 50% of coconut fat is a MCT called lauric acid, which has very potent anti-microbial properties helping to enhance the immune system. Also, MCTs are more easily utilized for immediate energy instead of being stored as body fat. Coconut oil is also an excellent cooking oil for stir-frying, etc. since saturated fats are much more stable and do not oxidize like polyunsaturated oils when exposed to heat and light, which creates damaging free radicals. The best sources of healthy coconut fat are organic coconut milk, virgin coconut oil (available at http://coconut-info.com), or fresh coconut.

Extra virgin olive oil: Olive oil is approximately 71% monounsaturated, 16% saturated, and 13% polyunsaturated. Choose “extra virgin” olive oil, which comes from the first pressing of the olives and has higher quantities of antioxidants. Unlike most other oils on supermarket shelves, extra virgin olive oil is not extracted with the use of harmful industrial solvents and is one of your healthiest choices for liquid oils. Try making your own salad dressing by mixing a small amount of olive oil with vinegar. This is healthier than most store bought salad dressings, which are usually made with highly processed and refined (chemically damaged) soybean oil extracted with industrial solvents.

Dark, bittersweet chocolate (>70% cocoa): The cocoa bean is a very concentrated source of antioxidants and responsible for part of the health benefit of dark chocolate. The fat portion of the cocoa bean (cocoa butter) is a healthy natural fat, composed of approximately 59% saturated fat (mostly healthy stearic acid), 38% monounsaturated fat, and 3% polyunsaturated fat. I’ll limit the description of healthy chocolate to ONLY dark bittersweet chocolate with >70% cocoa content. Most milk chocolates are only about 30% cocoa, and even most dark chocolates are only about 55% cocoa, leaving the remainder of those products composed of high amounts of sugar, milk fat, corn sweeteners, etc. Look for a quality dark chocolate that lists its cocoa content like Chocolove Extra Dark (77%) or Dagoba New Moon (74%), which contain mostly cocoa and very little sugar. Keep in mind that although dark chocolate can be a healthy treat, it is still calorie dense, so keeping it to just a square or two is a good idea.

Avocados or guacamole: The fat in avocados (depending on where they’re grown) is approximately 60% monounsaturated, 25% saturated, and 15% polyunsaturated. Avocados are a very healthy natural food that provides many nutrients, fiber, and healthful fats, while adding a rich flavor to any meal. Try sliced avocado on sandwiches or in salads or use guacamole in wraps, sandwiches, or quesadillas.

High fat fish such as wild salmon, sardines, mackerel, herring, trout, etc.: Just about any fish or seafood are good sources of natural omega-3 polyunsaturated fats, but the higher fat fish listed above are the best sources of omega-3’s. Due to the radical switch to a higher proportion of omega-6 polyunsaturated fats like soybean oil, corn oil, safflower oil, etc. in our food supply during the middle of the 20th century, the average western diet is currently way too high in omega-6’s compared to omega-3’s, which wreaks havoc in your body. This is where good omega-3 sources like high fat fish, walnuts, and flax seeds can help bring you back to a better ratio of omega-6/omega-3.

Nuts (any and all - walnuts, almonds, peanuts, cashews, macadamias, etc.): Nuts are great sources of healthy unprocessed fats as well as minerals and other trace nutrients. Macadamias, almonds, and cashews are great sources of monounsaturated fats, while walnuts are a good source of unprocessed polyunsaturated fats (including omega-3’s). Try to avoid nuts that are cooked in oil. Instead, choose raw or dry roasted nuts.

Seeds (sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, flax seeds): All of these seeds are great sources of natural unprocessed healthy fats. In particular, flax seeds have received a lot of attention lately due to their high omega-3 content. However, keep in mind that omega-3 polyunsaturated fats are highly reactive to heat and light, and prone to oxidation and free radical production. Therefore, freshly ground flax seed is the only way to go. Instead of using the store bought ground flax seed, you can buy whole flax seed and use one of those miniature coffee grinders to grind your own flax seed. Try grinding fresh flax seed into your yogurt, cereal, or even your salad. If you’re using a flax oil, make sure it’s a cold-pressed oil in a light-proof refrigerated container, and use it up within a few weeks to prevent it from going rancid. NEVER cook with flax oil!

The fat in organically raised, free-range animals: This is where most people have been misinformed by the mass media. Animal fat is inherently good for us, that is, if it came from a healthy animal. Human beings have thrived on animal fats for thousands of years. The problem is, most mass produced animal products today do not come from healthy animals. They come from animals given loads of antibiotics and fattened up with hormones and fed un-natural feed. The solution is to choose organically raised, free-range meats, eggs, and dairy. At this time, the price is still a little higher, but as demand grows, the prices will come down. I've found an incredible website that actually offers free-range grass-fed meats delivered right to your doorstep at very reasonable prices. Believe me, it's very hard to find grass fed meats at any grocery stores, so I was pleased to find this site.

The Deadly Fatty Foods:

Hydrogenated oils (trans fats): These are industrially produced chemically altered oils subjected to extremely high pressure and temperature, with added industrial solvents such as hexane for extraction, and have a metal catalyst added to promote the artificial hydrogenation, followed by bleaching and deodorizing agents…..and somehow the FDA still allows this crap to pass as food. These oils aren’t even worthy of your lawnmower, much less your body! They’ve been linked to obesity, heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and more. Even small quantities have been shown in studies to be dangerous. If you care about your health, check the ingredients of everything you buy, and if you see partially hydrogenated oils of any kind, margarine, or shortening, protect yourself and your family by choosing something else. The FDA has mandated that all food manufacturers are required to show the quantity of trans fat on all labels by January 2006.

Refined oils: Even if the oils are not hydrogenated, most oils on your supermarket shelves are refined, even most of the so called “healthy” canola oils. Most refined oils still undergo the high temperature, high pressure, solvent extraction, bleaching, and deodorizing processes. Anything labeled vegetable oil, soybean oil, corn oil, cottonseed oil, safflower oil, and even many canola oils have been damaged by this refining process (unless they say "virgin" or "cold expeller pressed"). This damages the natural structure of the fats, destroys natural antioxidants, creates free radicals, and produces a generally unhealthy product. Take note that the explosion of heart disease in the middle of the 20th century coincides quite nicely with the rapid increase in the use of hydrogenated and refined oils in the food supply.

Anything deep fried: including tortilla chips, potato chips, French fries, donuts, fried chicken, chicken nuggets, etc. All of this crap shouldn't even pass as real food in my opinion!

Homogenized milk fat - Milk fat is a very healthy fat in its natural raw state. Milk and beef from grass fed organically raised cows is known to have higher quantities of healthy fats like conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) and omega-3 fatty acids compared with grain fed cows. Traditional populations around the world have thrived in perfect health while consuming huge quantities of raw, non-pasteurized, non-homogenized, full fat dairy products. Once again, food processing ruins a good thing by pasteurizing and homogenizing milk fat, rendering it potentially dangerous inside the human body. Unfortunately, you will find it almost impossible to find raw milk in the US unless you personally know a farmer. Check out http://www.realmilk.com for more info on the benefits of raw milk and to find out if it’s available near you. As an alternative, cultured dairy products like yogurt have at least had beneficial microorganisms added back to them making them better for you. Realistically, since you probably won’t find raw milk, sticking to skim milk is the best option to avoid the homogenized milk fat. If you use butter for cooking, your best option is grass-fed butter.

I hope this article has shed some light on the truth about dietary fats and made you realize their importance in a healthy diet. A fully comprehensive analysis on dietary protein, carbohydrates, and fat, and how to compile all of this information into a diet that promotes a lean healthy body with a low body fat percentage is provided in my book “The Truth About Six Pack Abs”. Give it a try and you won’t be disappointed!

The Top Fat Loss Secrets for Flat Six-Pack Abs

2008-01-25T03:05:00.000-08:00

an interview by Geovanni Derice with Mike Geary - Certified Nutrition Specialist, Certified Personal Trainer

"GD: Welcome Mike Geary to 4everToned's Fitness Journal. For those who do not know you, please tell us a few things about yourself.

GD: Now Mike, there's so many things out there as to what works and what does not work...if you had to pick 3 things that work time and time again to get flat abs, what would they be?

GD: What are people doing wrong when it comes to developing the coveted "6 pack abs"?

GD: Which exercises are the top exercises that people need to do if they are to get maximum defintion with their midsection?

GD: Thank you very much Mike for sharing with us all of this great information.

Potatoes, Glycemic Index, and "White Foods" - Friend or Foe for a Lean-Body?

2008-01-25T02:58:00.000-08:00

by Mike Geary, Certified Nutrition Specialist, Certified Personal Trainer

Ok, now while I certainly agree that white bread and refined white sugar are two of the worst things we can be feeding our bodies, I definately don't agree with avoiding any and all "white carbohydrates". Now I know all of the buzz lately has been about colorful foods and the protective antioxidants that they contain. They tell you to focus on colors and stay away from white.

Onions & Garlic

Cauliflower

Mushrooms

Potatoes

Keep in mind that potatoes contain so many vitamins and minerals that the list is way too long to even try. Also, as long as you eat the skins, you get a decent shot of fiber too.

Geary's Lean-Body Potato Side Dish

Desired quantity of baby potatoes (I like to use this mixture I found recently at a health food store... it is a mixture of white, red, yellow, and purple baby potatoes)
1 red pepper
1 green pepper
1 yellow pepper
1 or 2 onions
a couple cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 or 2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
a little salt and pepper to taste (I like using a sea salt instead of normal commercial salt)

I hope you've enjoyed this little topic today about potatoes, healthy carbohydrates, glycemic index, and my killer potato recipe idea!

You can also get further information in detail here.

The Hidden Dangers of Your Excess Abdominal Fat - It's More Serious Than a Vanity Issue!

2008-01-25T02:54:00.000-08:00

(by Mike Geary, Certified Nutrition Specialist, Certified Personal Trainer)

However, what most people don't realize is that excess abdominal fat in particular, is not only ugly, but is also a dangerous risk factor to your health. Scientific research has clearly demonstrated that although it is unhealthy in general to have excess body fat throughout your body, it is also particularly dangerous to have excess abdominal fat.

There are two types of fat that you have in your abdominal area. The first type that covers up your abs from being visible is called subcutaneous fat and lies directly beneath the skin and on top of the abdominal muscles.

The second type of fat that you have in your abdominal area is called visceral fat, and that lies deeper in the abdomen beneath your muscle and surrounding your organs. Visceral fat also plays a role in giving certain men that "beer belly" appearance where their abdomen protrudes excessively but at the same time, also feels sort of hard if you push on it.

Part of the reason visceral fat is particularly dangerous is that it apparently releases more inflammatory molecules into your body on a consistent basis.

If you care about the quality of your life and your loved ones, reducing your abdominal fat should be one of your TOP priorities! There's just no way around it. Besides, a side-effect of finally getting rid of all of that excessive ugly abdominal fat is that your stomach will flatten out, and if you lose enough stomach fat, you will be able to visibly see those sexy six pack abs that everyone wants.

So what gets rid of extra abdominal fat? Is there actually a REAL solution beyond all of the gimmicks and hype that you see in ads and on commercials for "miracle" fat loss products?

The ONLY solution to consistently lose your abdominal fat and keep it off for good is to combine a sound nutritious diet full of unprocessed natural foods with a properly designed strategic exercise program that stimulates the necessary hormonal and metabolic response within your body. Both your food intake as well as your training program are important if you are to get this right.

I've actually even seen a particular study that divided thousands of participants into a diet-only group and an exercise/diet group. While both groups in this study made good progress, the diet-only group lost significantly LESS abdominal fat than the diet & exercise combined group.

The entire solution... all of the nutritional strategies, as well as training sequences, exercise combinations, and more have all been compiled in my Truth About Six Pack Abs Program.
Keep in mind that the point of this whole program is NOT abdominal exercises (that is only a very small portion of it). The main point of this program is showing you the absolute most effective strategies for losing your stubborn abdominal fat, so you can get rid of that dangerous health risk, as well as get a flatter more defined midsection.

If you follow the guidelines, you WILL lose your belly fat that has been plaguing you for years. This is not guesswork... it is a proven system that works time and time again for all of my clients on every corner of the globe that actually apply the information I teach. If you apply it, the results will come. It's really that simple.

I want to help you succeed in finally getting rid of that extra abdominal fat that is not only UGLY, but also DANGEROUS.

Don't waste another day allowing that nasty abdominal fat to kill your confidence as well as contribute to your risk for MAJOR diseases.

Get the solution to rid yourself for life of this problem at.

http://vinodka07.mikegeary1.hop.clickbank.net/

Train hard, eat right, and enjoy life!

Mike Geary
Certified Nutrition Specialist
Certified Personal Trainer
Author - The Truth about Six Pack Abs

Banishing Misconceptions about Vegetarian Body Building

2008-01-25T02:47:00.001-08:00

Who says that you need to eat meat in order to succeed in body building? Vegetarians are not the stereotypical thin and gaunt images that you see portrayed in some public arenas. Rather with complete understanding about nutrition, you can create a diet chock full of healthy essentials that could help support your vegetarian body building. There are many misconceptions about vegetarians which is the reason why many people don’t associate them with body building.

Proteins Can Be a Problem

Many people believe that without eating the flesh of an animal, you will not be able to get enough protein and other essential nutrients. That is simply not true when it comes to vegetarian body building as you can easily get proteins from other food sources. Soy products, beans, various grains, eggs and dairy product provide plenty of muscle building proteins.

Of course, many vegetarian body building athletes are drink supplemental shakes with whey protein as well as other important vitamins and minerals like zinc, vitamin B12, iron and more. While meat can provide those items, it doesn’t provide enough for the minimum daily allowances for body builders. The same applies with other foods that contain those essential vitamins and minerals. Supplements are important to get enough of the essentials that are lacking in any diet, vegetarian or not.

Cannot Build Strength or Muscle Mass

Vegetarians actually have a better chance of increasing their strength and size while on their meat-free diet. Vegetarian body building means exactly that – building muscle mass and strength based on a diet filled with fruits, vegetables and whole grains. Eating meats can actually slow down your metabolism because it takes so much energy to digest it whereas with a vegetarian diet, your body actually speeds up its digestion.

Vegetarian body building means being creative with meals to ensure that you have plenty of vitamins and minerals represented in the foods you eat. Many body builders who abstain from meat have consulted with nutritionists to ensure that their diet as well as supplements provides what is needed to maintain and grow muscle mass.

Vegetarianism Not Healthy

Vegetarianism is actually quite healthy as seen by the much lower cholesterol and blood sugar counts that many vegetarian body building athletes can attest to! Many meats, even the lean ones have the presence of “bad” cholesterol or LDL which can raise cholesterol and therefore, blood pressure. In addition, trans fats and saturated fats are almost a thing of the past when dropping meat from the menu. All the foods that vegetarians eat along with some supplemental items can more than provide all of the vitamins and minerals that your body needs to succeed at vegetarian body building.

Senior Body building: Simple Steps That Will Ensure Both Better Health And Safety

2008-01-25T02:46:00.002-08:00

Senior bodybuilding is an activity that can prove to be very beneficial because it helps to create a healthier senior person and it improves the condition of the heart, and can even can prove to be a good means of prolonging life, and there is another advantage to senior bodybuilding and that is that it helps to make an elderly person look as much as ten years younger and thus contributes to feelings of well being as well as improves the confidence levels also.

Learn About The Best Means

There is also enough evidence to suggest that senior bodybuilding contributes to improved health, though it is still necessary to learn about the best means that will help form more muscle mass even though there is nothing novel in such means which everyone can try with good results as well.

There is nothing to suggest that senior bodybuilding is in any way different to what other people do though obviously there is a greater need to perform the bodybuilding exercises slower, and if suffering from health problems, should need to consult a doctor first. For senior bodybuilding, it is still necessary to get professional advice first before proceeding any further, and in any case, it is always better to put safety ahead in everything that you do.

Once you are sure that you want to indulge in senior bodybuilding, it would mean lifting the right amount of weight that will cause your muscles to fail which would in turn require you to use more intensity which may even cause your muscles to tear or break down. However, once your muscles heal, you will find them to have built up more muscle mass which would improve even further with the proper diet that includes taking of high amount of protein. That in turn means eating a gram of protein for each pound of your body weight on a daily basis and though this is quite some amount of protein, you can still achieve your goal by taking protein supplements and in addition, also eat vegetables that help in the healing of muscles and so does eating of fruits.

Thus, despite the fact that there is no best method for senior bodybuilding, there is nevertheless need to lift the weights in an appropriate manner and in this regard you must always remember to wear a weight belt which will prevent hypertension and you should also lift weights when there is a spotter present who can help prevent you from hurting you.

Regarding Natural Body Building

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When it comes to the subject of amateur and professional body building, only the most naïve person would not acknowledge the prevalence of anabolic steroids in the sport. Needless to say, there is a great deal of performance enhancing drugs in competitive body building, but also there are a number of people who prescribe to natural body building which is essentially a drug free approach to the sport of body building. Sadly, many people who are proponents of natural body building do not always get the credit they deserve in regards to the contributions to the sport.

Understanding Anabolics

So what exactly are anabolic steroids? These are drugs designed to increase the body’s ability to grow muscles by increasing the body’s ability to release growth hormones, reducing the amount of rest one needs in order to grow muscle, and allowing the body to exercise for significantly longer durations than what would be possible without the use of drugs or drug agents.

Needless to say, the physiques that these drugs create are more massive and more defined than what could ever be achieved with a natural body building physique. Of course, there are a host of negatives associated with anabolic steroids as well. For example, excessive use of steroids has been associated with a number of serious medical conditions such as heart disease, kidney failure and many other problems. As such, sticking with a natural body building program is much better for overall health and safety.

For the Hobbyist…

For the hobbyist, there is really no reason to use anabolic steroids. While there are many arguments for and against the risks associated with taking drugs for a profession in body building, for someone who is simply trying to get in shape or look good the risks associated with drug taking simply makes the risks not worth it. There is an old saying that many gyms use as a mantra: “It is better to feel good than to look good.”

This is a veiled reference to all the problems that are associated with the health issues that can derive from using steroids. If you are a hobbyist, then it is best to stick with natural body building because there are no risks associated with it. In fact, this is a healthy pursuit that can greatly increase a person’s quality of life. Why would anyone want to do anything different? Again, it is best to stick to the natural route.

Tips On How To Go About Muscle Body Building

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It is important to learn of as many tips as is possible with regard to muscle body building that will help you build up your muscles and keep your body in good shape. To begin with, it is important that you learn to do the right warm up exercises prior to beginning your workout that will enable you to have more exercise outputs and it will also add to your efficiency while also safeguarding you against injuries such as strained muscles or even pulled muscles that are common occurrences.

Need To Recuperate

Another important tip with regard to muscle body building is the need to recuperate properly, which many a bodybuilder often overlooks and which can also result in poor development of the muscles. What you really need to do is to muscle-up and then get adequate rest which will help your muscles to grow, and even getting the right amount of sleep helps in this regard.

While performing muscle body building, you should also not try and train your abs in order to shed weight, which is an activity known as spot reduction and which is almost impossible to achieve, though there does no doubt the fact that you can burn fat by training hard. Still, fat is later reclaimed from other parts of your body prior to it being reclaimed from a particular area on your body which means that training will lead to the burning up of fat from other parts of the body before a particular area of fat is burnt.

You may also consider jogging as well as running to be worthwhile exercises for losing body fat though there is no way by which you can turn fat into muscle, and all you can hope to achieve is to change the body’s composition and at the same time keep your body weight constant.

In addition, to have a realistic chance of gaining from muscle body building, you must also consume at least 2 grams of protein for each pound of weight on your body, which will result in gains in muscles. Furthermore, you should also expect that muscle body building will cause soreness in the muscles, especially on the day following your training and so you will need to rest till the soreness has vanished before returning to your muscle body building.

And, you can also gain more from your muscle body building by keeping a log of your workouts and also remember never to over train for it is really not necessary to workout for long hours since that won’t benefit you all that much and may even do some damage in the process.

Health and Fitness Body Building Tips for Women

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Just a decade or two ago, it was not fashionable for women to be in the weight room confines of a gym. Rather, women were relegated to walking, jazzercise, aerobics and other similar type of pursuits to lose weight. However, these days, many women think nothing of pumping iron with the men to achieve overall health and fitness body building benefits.

Why is weight training so important to women in the pursuit of health and fitness body building? The reason why it is so important is because it jumpstarts their metabolism and therefore provides a more efficient and effective way to burn calories. As muscles start to gain mass from the weight training, more calories are being burned off in order to fuel this muscle transformation.

It’s All about Balance

When it comes to health and fitness body building for women, weight training does not leave much room for fat to stick around and that is a great thing. Women will actually lose some fat if they decide to tweak their diet a bit and lower calorie intake. Doing so allows the new burgeoning muscle to eat up the calories you consume as well as take care of some of the calories held in reserve in body fat.

There is a balance that must be determined in the diet to avoid the body from retaliating by shrinking muscle and storing more fat than before to compensate. In addition, while training with weights is not considered an aerobic activity, studies have shown that it will still elevate the heart rate just as like cardiovascular exercise which is important in the burning of fat.

No Fear about Bulking Up

In health and fitness body building for women, there should be no hesitation about starting a work out plan. Weight training does not ad bulky mass to a woman’s body unless they pump steroids into their blood stream. Rather weight training for women creates a solid, fibrous muscle with less fat content which actually serves to provide a smaller, svelter appearance.

Women are genetically predisposed toward less muscle mass when compared to men and as a result will have lovelier feminine curves with weigh training. Many experts warn women who embark on a health and fitness body building regiment to not hop on the scale for a while.

The reason is because muscle actually weighs more than fat does which can be a bit disconcerting at first. However, with less fat on their frame, women will discover that they could weigh the same before the weight training but wear a few sizes smaller. Less fat and more muscles is what matters in terms of health and fitness body building for women.

Discover Carbohydrate Importance in Body Building

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Perhaps one of the most important keys to body building success is nutrition because it provides the fuel you need not only to survive but also to build muscle and provide energy. For body builders, eating small frequent meals throughout the day will increase metabolism and prevent your body from feeding on muscle mass to maintain energy. You have the carbohydrate importance in body building as well to balance within a diet.

Role of Carbs

Carbohydrate importance in body building is significant as carbs are one of the most significant nutrients your body needs for energy. In fact, carbohydrates are your body’s primary source of fuel because it kick starts your pancreas to produce insulin, a hormone that plays a huge role in how proteins and fats are stored.

Insulin’s role in carbohydrate importance in body building is this: This hormone latches onto the carbs and will store them as fat or within the muscle. Plus, the insulin snatches the amino acids that make up protein and uses it for the rejuvenation and repair of muscle cells. It is important to eat the right amount of carbohydrates so that the body uses it as fuel rather than produce too much insulin and end up storing it as fat.

Types of Carbs

When talking about carbohydrate importance in body building, it should be noted that there are two types of carbs – simple and complex. The simple carbohydrates are those that give you an immediate energy release whereas the complex carbohydrates slowly release energy over a period of time.

The complex variety should be consumed throughout the day during your frequent mini-meals to keep you energized. The simple carbohydrates should only be consumed immediately after a workout when your energy stores are depleted and you need an immediate pick-me-up. As you can see, carbohydrate importance in body building can be a bit involved and requires in-depth knowledge of nutrition as well as what foods will provide the best energy bang at the appropriate times.

To give you an idea of the different foods out there that are considered simple carbs, here are a few suggestions: apples, bananas, grapes, pears and pineapple. Complex carbohydrates are many and can be split into two categories – fiber and starch. Some examples of these types of carbs include oatmeal, potatoes, rice, corn, broccoli, lettuce, mushrooms, spinach and peppers.

To accurately interpret carbohydrate importance in body building and strike a healthy balance in your daily diet, it is important to assess your training needs first so then your diet can be arranged to accommodate those needs. The frequency, intensity and duration of your workouts as well as your overall performance body mass goals all play a part in determining the overall carbohydrate importance in body building.

The Basics Of Body Building Workouts

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If anything were absolutely required in order to make body building workouts successful, it would be consistency. This is an absolute and those who do not approach their workouts with this in mind simply will not find themselves very successful in their goals. Now, this does not mean that a person needs to train every single day, twice a day, for six months in a row. If you are not specifically training for the Mr. Olympia contest then you probably will not want to go that route! However, if you are looking to get in shape, burn fat, build muscle and increase your health you will need to set aside a few days a week for your body building workouts and then you will need to make those workouts worthwhile. If your training is infrequent then results will either be minimal or they will be non-existent. If you want to succeed then you are going to need to invest the time that is required.

Four Day A Week Program

On a baseline level, if you are a beginner and you need some quality body building workouts to follow it would probably be best to dedicate four days a week for a mass building program. During this four day a week program, it would be best not to hit any body part more than once a week and make the entire week a cross training routine that hits the entire body. Cross training here refers to mixing up exercises for body parts and does not necessarily refer to mixing cardio workouts into the routine, but if you did wish to add cardio there is nothing wrong with that at all. While this may not seem like an elaborate workout program that is because it isn’t an elaborate one! Instead, it is a very simple program that is quite helpful and effective and can greatly aid in achieving one’s goals.

Additional Notes

If you can’t make it to the gym, however, you may wish to perform bodyweight exercises like pushups, chair dips, etc. These types of body building workouts may not have the same effectiveness as training with free weights, but they are definitely better than doing nothing at all.

Additionally, if you are sore and don’t feel like training…take time off. Yes, sometimes it is best to just take a little break as opposed to forcing yourself. This way overtraining and needless injuries will be avoided. Remember, it is always best to train properly and to train smart.

Some Important Body Building Tips

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Everyone is looking for new body building tips. Usually, these new tips are designed to replace the old body building tips…or at least that is the idea. In other words, people are looking for “secrets” that will help them to develop a new breakthrough that will provide the break in the plateau that they may find themselves. There is, of course, nothing wrong with this approach, but it does ignore a simple common sense approach that can provide them with the true success that they desire. You see, the true secret to body building success lies in the fact that proper and successful body building is rooted in simplicity and not in any magic formulas.

The Best of All Tips

If there was a king of all body building tips that was the most critically important tip to follow it would be to avoid overtraining. What overtraining entails is working out too many times per work or working out for durations that are excessive. (Excessive would generally be anything longer than one hour straight) Also, it is also unwise to work out if you feel sick or are seemingly suffering from an injury so as not to aggravate the injury. Now, there are those individuals out there who may be reading this and saying…no way! If you don’t work hard, you won’t make any gains! Well, this is partially true. One of the most critical of all body building tips, however, is that not only must one work hard one must also work smart!

If a person works himself too hard in the gym, the body simple will not grow muscle. In fact, the body might reject the additional stress and start to atrophy instead. Clearly, this is not what anyone working out could ever want so it would be wise to avoid such excessive training. Instead, simple consistency of attending the gym (3 or 4 times a week) and working out at a moderate to difficult pace would be enough to make further gains. If one is working himself to the point that injuries are common then the entire process will be self defeating. Clearly, this is the best of all body building tips.

So, if there was a moral to the story it would be that there are no magic formulas and that the body does have a limit. When pushing oneself beyond the limits of good sense, success will not be achieved…it will be eradicated.

About Some Very Common Body Building Techniques

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Engaging in weight training requires performance of a number of steps and which also involve learning the correct body building techniques which will help in attaining a better form and which will thus lead to performing harder exercises rather than easier ones. Thus, to improve your physique you will have a number of different body building techniques to choose from including negatives, pyramids and drop sets, giant steps as well as twenty-ones, partial reps and even forced reps.

Choose According To Your Requirements

Obviously, you need to choose the body building technique that best suits your needs and you may even need to consider using constant tension without actually attaining a locking point which is a body building technique that is very effective in many an exercise. In addition, it is also important to make full contraction along with full range of stretch exercises that will require you to perform each rep of each exercise at the fullest range of motion.

You may also want to use body building technique known as giant step in which you will need to work on single muscle groups which means performing three different exercises while laying emphasis on a particular muscle and though it may be used on each muscle in the body, when exercising the back you will need to be more selective and careful.

Another one of the many body building techniques that you may want to use is drop sets that are ideal for rounding off your workout on certain muscles and which will cause you to feel pumped up especially in your muscles and which will also drain off all of your remaining energy from your muscles.

In the same vein, you can choose to do twenty-ones that is another bodybuilding technique in which each and every area of your muscle is worked rather than any one range, and you should also think constantly about maintaining tension at the time when you increase tension on your muscle while performing your reps.

There are also super sets that are another of the many body building techniques you would want to use which will exercise certain range of muscles and which will totally exhaust your muscle fibers and which will also work on two separate muscle groups. Perhaps the simplest technique that you can use is to slow down your reps and repeating them in a slow manner makes the reps more effective since it improves the form and will also provide a fillip to development of muscles.

The Truth About Body Building Supplements

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Do body building supplements work? This is a common question that many people may have when they walk into any health or nutrition store and see the large volume of powders, pills and other products that flood store shelves. Now, this is a very fair question to ask, but it is unlikely that anyone in the store will say that they offer a product that does not work!

However, people need to be realistic about what they expect body building supplements to be able to offer. They are not miracle products that will pack on 50lbs of muscle nor will they magically burn off 10lbs of fat. Body building supplements have their particular values, but these values and benefits are based on realistic nutrition and science and not over the top advertisements. Well, that is not entirely accurate. Often, the advertisements and their claims act as substitutes for actual science and this is unfortunate.

The Magazine Days

In the early days prior to the great expansion of nutrition shops all across the USA, virtually all body building supplements were sold via mail order through body building magazines. These ads were generally bombastic and promised that the person who took the supplements would develop a body builder physique of massive dimensions. Now, this is a bit of a stretch! However, within the hyperbole was some truth – these supplements are helpful. However, they will not pack on a massive amount of unrealistic muscle. So what is it the body building supplements will actually do?

The Supplements

Different body building supplements do different things. In general, however they are designed for building mass and reducing fat. In terms of mass building, there are those supplements that increase testosterone production, there are creatine supplements that help the muscle retain water, there are supplements that aid in providing significant calories without excess fat and then there are those protein supplements that aid in the repair of muscle after a hard workout. The fat loss supplements either suppress appetite or they speed up heart rate to burn more calories.

While this may seem somewhat mundane it is because it is an explanation of what these products actually do without any hyperbole that attempts to sell a particular product. While this is not over the top, it is accurate and accuracy is what you want when selecting a product. Or would you prefer to take the word of a nutty over the top ad campaign instead?

Bodybuilding Routines Work Differently For Each Individual

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Depending on who designs them, bodybuilding routines can vary to an extent that spans quite a few routines or many, though you can expect that the best routines are those that provide the required results in the shortest possible period of time. Thus, most people would rather choose bodybuilding routines that will maximize the benefits accrued while causing them to perform as little work as is possible, which has given rise to a greater demand for the best in bodybuilding routines.

Copying Is Not The Answer

For budding bodybuilders, it may come as a small surprise to learn that achieving the type of body Arnold Schwarzenegger has is not all about reading up Pumping Iron and copying the moves that Arnie made in his prime. Thus, those who feel that copying bodybuilding routines such as those used by a Mr. Universe or a Mr. Olympias may end up a bit disappointed when their bodies do not become the sculpted masterpieces that Arnold achieved or those of other Mr. Universes.

There is nothing wrong with copying these bodybuilding routines except that you cannot hope to achieve exalted levels in as short a space of time since these routines will not provide you with those kinds of results in less time than is absolutely necessary. And, what works for one person need not work with another person and no bodybuilding routines will provide the same results for everyone, and it does mean using different weights and different exercises as well as different amounts of reps after which you can then expect to have the sculpted body that you so much wanted. Thus, you should be prepared to go through trial and error phases and success and failure will also rise and fall as you try and modify your bodybuilding routines to suit your needs the best.

Another important consideration for you to carefully take into account is the need for change, since even if particular bodybuilding routines are working well for you, they still requires modifying the routines through the addition or elimination of certain exercises which will then help chisel your body the way that you want. In addition, bodybuilding routines can be enhanced further by taking the proper nutrition that will aid your routines.

It is also necessary to realize that bodybuilding routines should not be performed longer than is absolutely necessary, which in most instances would be no longer than seventy-five minutes in a single session and that the maximum sessions you should perform your routines per week should not exceed five. Beyond that, your body may actually wilt under the strain and in any case by overdoing the routines, you will need a longer recuperation period.

The Two Main Body Building Programs Explained

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Body building is a sport many people are not entirely familiar with mainly because they generally only hear about the results of contests and generally not about the actually training that is involved in such preparation for the contests. Additionally, most people work out in gyms to keep in shape and generally follow the same workout all year round. When one is training for a body building competition there will be a need for two separate body building programs in order to achieve the ability to enter a contest. These two phases will be clearly examined and explained herein. The body building programs are the off-season phase, the pre-contest phase and the contest phase.

Off Season Phases

The off season phase involves body building programs that center on mass building. That is to say, during this phase the goal is to get as huge as humanly possible and not worry so much about definition. Now, this weight gain must be primarily muscle because packing on excess fat will not do anyone any good. It will simply make the pre-contest cycle significantly more difficult and that is a self-defeating venture. So, instead one needs to watch diet closely and to perform a significant volume of mass building exercises. That means the primary exercises to be performed during this phase will involve serious compound exercises such as military presses, bench presses, etc. This cycle usually runs several months and requires much consistency in order to effectively be undertaken.

Pre-Contest Contest Phases

The pre-contest phase is usually refers to the six to eight weeks that precede a competition and involve a “shredding” process where the goal to be achieved is definition of the muscles. This involves a significant amount of isolation exercises that target single body parts as well as a great deal of cardio…repeat…a great deal of cardio. Of course, the other area of consideration that is critical during this phase is diet. Often, when people think of body building programs they often think of exercises as opposed to the quality diet that is the epicenter of all body building programs. No matter how hard a person works out or how much time they invest in exercise, all work will be completely thrown out the window if a poor and sloppy diet is employed. As such, it is critical not to eat poor quality foods or to eat any type of food at levels of excess that could prove self defeating.

What Is A Body Building Muscle Supplement?

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If you walk through any health or nutrition shop you will notice that there is a tremendous number of body building muscle supplement products on store shelves. The sheer volume of products is overwhelming and their popularity is quite strong. While many people are familiar with the fact that these products exist, they may not be aware of how these body building muscle supplement products work. Unfortunately, because these products are in such fierce competition with one another they have a tendency to employ a ton of over the top advertisement campaigns so as to stand out in the marketplace. Unfortunately, a number of these ad campaigns leave the false impression that there is a miracle out there that will maximize one’s ability to grow muscle.

The Truth

First, what must clearly be understood about these supplements is that no body building muscle supplement is a miracle product. There is no product that will magically burn fat and enhance muscle growth while eliminating that pesky need for working out. Sure, there are a number of products with wild over the top ad campaigns that make these grandiose promises, but these products are less than honest and even less successful in terms of actually delivering what they promise.

The products out there that fall into the body building muscle supplement category are essentially one of two things known as mass gainers and whey protein supplements. A mass gainer is a drink that provides a massive amount of calories in liquid shake form so as to help someone who is having difficulty gaining weight the ability to gain weight without packing on fat. What whey protein does is that it provides the body with quality protein so as to aid in the repair and growth of muscle after a solid exercise program. While this description of these products may make them sound mundane, it is also an accurate assessment. Again, there is no body building muscle supplement that can provide any miracles so avoid looking for them. Instead, keep your feet grounded to the earth and look for those products that provide an honest and sensible result.

These products are not necessarily expensive and are generally quite effective. Of course, some brands are a little better than others and then there will also be issues of personal taste involved in the selection that you make. But ultimately if you stick with legitimate products you will achieve the results that you desire.

Your Guide to the Essentials of Body Building Home Gym Equipment

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You don’t necessarily have to shell out the big bucks to join a sweaty gym half way across town in order to be a body builder. You can create your own workout nirvana with body building home gym equipment. This means you can end up saving on membership dues over time and you don’t have to put up with anyone else’s egos. Another upside is that you can listen to your choice of adrenaline pumping music and you can wear what clothing you want as well.

So do you know what body building home gym equipment you should invest in to create a cut body? There are a few essentials that you should not do without plus a few “it would be nice to have” pieces of equipment as well.

Dumbbells and Barbells

The most versatile of all your body building home gym equipment has got to be adjustable dumbbells. You can perform a vast array of muscle pumping exercises with them and they create a more cut physique. This is because it takes more effort to stabilize the dumbbells which in turn kick starts those muscle cells to create more mass.

Barbells, specifically the Olympic variety, are the second most important piece of body building home gym equipment you can invest in. These will allow you to add on or take away weights during your training and are also the best way to add muscle bulk more quickly.

Weight Benches

A weight bench, specifically an adjustable one with a leg curl and extension attachment is optimal for your body building home gym equipment. This versatile weight bench allows you to work your muscles in different ways besides what the dumbbells and barbells can do. If you add the optional bar pull down attachment, you can virtually perform every weight exercise possible.

Chin Up and Be a Dip

Both a dip station as well as a chin up bar with a squat rack can add another dimension to your workout. This body building home gym equipment will take you far past the dumbbell performance and challenge you physically just as a dip station where you work against your own body weight.

Protection Items

While not an actual piece of body building home gym equipment, protection items such as weight belts and gloves are essential for your safety when pumping iron. The gloves will help keep those sweaty hands for hindering your grip on those weights. The weight belt will help stabilize your back and abdominal muscles to avoid injury.

There are a number of other things you can invest in when it comes to your body building home gym equipment. A calf raising machine, cable and pulley weight system, easy bars and even an exercise ball can all add an additional element to your workout routines.

The Two Spheres Of Body Building Exercises

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When it comes to body building, many people erroneously assume that all one needs to do is haphazardly do any type of exercises without any rhyme, reason or logic. This is not a wise move because there are very specific purposes for body building exercises designed to provide two goals of either increased mass or increased definition. By understanding that there are differences between mass building exercises and those exercises that are designed for more definition the ability to arrive at one’s goals will be greater facilitated. After all, if you are exercising then you have a certain set of goals in mind and you will want the proper exercises that will be required to reach those goals.

Mass

The most common body building exercises people perform are compound exercises. When you are performing compound body building exercises you are primarily working on mass. That is, compound exercises mean that more than one body part is used to lift the weight. Bench presses, while generally considered chest exercises, also provide secondary stress to the biceps, triceps and shoulders. So, these other muscles grow as well as the chest although not to the same degree. Other common body building exercises that perform compound exercises include squats and military presses. Now, these exercises are not necessarily designed to make the person’s muscle mass huge (although they certainly can be used for this purpose) these exercises can be used in a lesser capacity so as not to massively pack on muscle.

Definition

The second type of body building exercises that are employed are those exercises that are isolation exercises. These exercises do not involve more than one muscle group and are designed to specially develop the muscles of a particular area. These exercises can be employed with high repetitions to burn fat and usually follow a cycle of mass building so as to create the definition that mass requires for aesthetic looks. Please note, contrary to popular belief these exercises cannot spot reduce fat in a particular area. Yes, fat will be burned, but it will be burned evenly throughout the body as opposed to any specific or particular area.

Of course, there are other areas that need to be taken into consideration as well such as diet, cardio etc, but the areas of mass building and definition generally cover the basics that one would need in order to achieve a baseline level of success and to reach his or her goals.

Understanding Body Building Diet Basics

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Legendary body building mogul Joe Weider once said that the true secret to body building success what found in the proper body building diet. What Weider meant was that people who over eat and pack their body with fat ultimately harm all the benefits of body building because the lean, ripped look becomes impossible to attain. Hence, if you eat the proper body building diet of low fat, high protein and decent carbs you will do ok. Now, while a body building diet will consume more calories than a common diet, there are certain considerations that also must be understood as well.

Basic Metabolism and Basic Myths

While it is true that a ton of calories eaten will be burned while working out, there will also be a metabolic calorie burning effect that will occur as well, but please keep in mind that it is wrong to over do it! The larger the mass of a person is, the more the person will want to eat more and more.

This is not a bizarre side effect it is simply a logical reaction the body will have to maintaining a significant volume of muscle mass. Keep in mind, muscle is significantly more dense than fat and this means that muscle will require more calories to maintain its size. This is why muscle bound people do not pack on fat when they increase their calorie intake – the muscles burn the calories by “eating” the excess calories. Now, that is often misunderstood by people as a green light to eat whatever it is they want and in massive quantities.

This is a huge fallacy of the body building diet. That is, you will increase your calorie intake…slightly…but if you increase it ridiculously then you will start to pack on a lot of fat on top of whatever muscle that you have. The resultant physique will make you look like someone who enjoys working out, but enjoys overeating more. That is hardly the type of physique to aspire!

As one can see, there is a great deal of common sense associated with the body building diet. Basically, if you eat quality food you can get away with eating a lot provided you have solid muscle mass. However, once you slip into the fallacy of eating whatever you want and in significant amounts that far exceed what you need, you will find yourself undermining your own goals. Now who would want that?

Prepare Mind And Body Well Before Body building Competitions

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Bodybuilding is an activity that people enter into for a number of different reasons and among the reasons why you may want to build your body is the need to train in order to achieve better health and to also appear fit and also trim. However, there are also those that want to excel in bodybuilding and would thus like to enter into bodybuilding competitions in order to win a title and become the best in their field of activity.

Self Discipline

Thus, bodybuilding can be used to both live healthy and stay in good shape while at the same time also wins at bodybuilding competitions, and thus are able to live a good life as well. However, participating in bodybuilding competitions is not a simple task and requires a great deal of self discipline, and it requires being emotionally as well as physically stable, and keeping a close control over your diet and also remaining stable all the time.

Entering bodybuilding competitions also means preparing hard for it, which in turn requires a great deal of self belief and being totally in control with regard to what you eat and also maintain control over all of your other activities. It also requires conditioning your own mind so that you are well prepared for what lies ahead of you (both the good and the bad), and thus must be in peak physical and also emotional condition at all times.

For those who are nervous ahead of bodybuilding competitions, it requires training to stay calm and cool in the face of all odds and you should be careful that other competitors are never allowed to even sniff that you are nervous about the competition, which will egg them on to taunt you and even beat you.

You should learn also to exercise your mind over body since it is the mind that will control your actions and the body only follows through instinct, and because the body is sure to respond to what you think inside of your mind, it is thus very important to pay close attention to your own thoughts so that they follow a desired path and lead you in the direction of the winning podium.

It is only the contestant that can remain confident about his body shape when he is on the stage that is going to get ahead in bodybuilding competitions, while those with doubts and lack of mental strength will most certainly lag behind. It is thus in your best interests to keep a healthy training regime and to keep your mind healthy as well.

Wearing Body Building Clothes

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If you are an avid gym rat then you know that you need to have some special clothes for when you work out. Jeans and a t-shirt simply don’t cut it in the gym because they are restrictive in terms of the motion you can employ as well as the fact that they are totally uncomfortable. Needless to say, the way around this would be to purchase a nice set of body building clothes that would be more appropriate for the gym and workout session.

Looking Stylish

Body building clothes are not only comfortable they are also stylish to look at. Many of the top name brands of body building clothes are very well designed and have a unique look about them. This is why many top brands commandeer a solid price and are the envy of many people who wish they could have them. Of course, there is far more to these types of clothes in addition to their looks. As previously mentioned, there is a functional need for these clothes that is critical to understand.

Why These Clothes Are Important

In addition to looking good, these body building clothes are designed to be loose enough so that a person can easily have full range of motion. (On a side note, there are also body hugging Lycra shirts that allow range of motion, but they are really not all that popular anymore) Without full range of motion, the ability to perform exercises properly becomes greatly inhibited. This is why wearing a button down flannel shirt is not exactly the type of attire you would want to wear in the gym. It just flat out doesn’t help your ability to exercise. Additionally, it is not exactly safe to attempt to lift weights with restrictive clothes either so using quality attire designed specifically for working out in the gym is a far more preferable option to explore.

Saving Money On The Expense

Now, there are body building clothes that are quite expensive and this will surely cause some budgetary concerns for those who may not have much to invest in such clothes. While expensive name brands often receive a great deal of publicity, there are also a number of inexpensive brands that are on the market that are equally effective and well within the affordability range of the average person. Also, there are a number of overstock services that can provide excellent discounts for those looking to save a little money. So, there will be a set of clothes for any budget range; you just have to look for them.

Lou Ferigno: Legend of Body Building

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If there ever was a true legend in the sport of body building it would be the legendary Lou Ferigno. In the 1970’s, Ferigno was a true rags to riches story as he came from humble origins to worldwide fame as a bodybuilder and then to even greater fame in his endearing portrayal of the titular green monster in the classic television program THE INCREDIBLE HULK. While some may be familiar with Lou and his work, they may not be all that familiar with his background which may prove to be quite interesting even to those who do not follow the sport.

Early Years

Lou Ferigno was born in Brooklyn New York in the 1950’s and had the handicap of being deaf. Since attitudes towards the hearing impaired were not exactly progressive during this time period, Lou became somewhat withdrawn and isolated. While in his teens he would discover a new hobby in the form of weightlifting. Lou became enamored with this new hobby to the point of obsession. He would work out everyday and watch his diet religiously. In time, he would set his sights on competing in amateur body building competitions. He entered them and did well enough that he caught the eye of body building mogul Joe Weider who brought Lou into the fold of professional body building competition. Lou did extremely well in this new profession although he alternated his time between competing and working in construction as construction paid far more than professional body building! Lou would then become featured in the classic documentary PUMPING IRON, a documentary that would bring him to the attention of a number of Hollywood producers.

The Hulk

When former James Bond villain Richard “Jaws” Kiel bombed as the Hulk during the first few days of shooting the pilot for the TV series, Ferigno got the call to play the green goliath. While few believed this series would be a hit, it turned out to be a colossal hit lasting many years on network TV and decades in syndication. Ferigno was now a bona fide worldwide star!

Ferigno no longer competes in body building these days as he is well into his retirement years. He does, however, appear at numerous competitions as a special guest and as a judge. He also signs autographs at comic conventions and meets with all his fans who have followed his career through the years. In terms of pop culture history, Lou Ferigno is a true icon and definitely one of a kind!

Pump It Up with Amino Acid Body Building

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How do some of those athletes and body builders look so sculpted with defined musculature? Well, there are a lot of factors at play to create a well-toned body and amino acid body building is one practice that seriously pumped up athletes rely on. Amino acids are often called the building blocks of the human body in layman’s terms but they are really the molecular building blocks that create protein.

Protein is one of the most essential components that create strong healthy muscles which is the reason why many athletes in strength training will indulge in amino acid body building, usually in the form of supplements and pushing weights. Protein also fuels the health of your hair, nails, ligaments, tendons, central nervous system and even how your muscles retain water for maximum elasticity and strength.

Reasons for Supplements

Many body builders have discovered that without enough amino acids in their system, the body tends to feed on its own muscles when faced with the crisis of not enough energy. This has led to the interest of amino acid body building to ensure that the body has plenty of fuel to build muscle rather than cannibalizing on it.

Serious body builders will take amino acid supplements either in a protein shake or pill form immediately after hard muscle exercises. This moment in time represents a unique opportunity to introduce amino acid into the body while the muscles still have optimal blood flow and is most amenable to nutrients. This timing takes a knowledgeable athlete to understand why amino acid body building can be very important.

Popular Supplements

Glutamine is one of the most popular in amino acid body building because it is plentiful in the muscles and is known for promoting muscle growth. Arginine is another amino acid that is beneficial to your amino acid body building practices. This particular amino acid kicks off the growth hormone in your body and helps regulate the metabolism of the muscles, building bulk. Fat decreases while your connective tissue, cartilage and bone strengthens under amino acid body building practices.

Supplements are important as these days people are slacking on their diets and not getting enough proteins, which means not enough amino acids. Without these helpful body building blocks, you would eventually become weaker and lose muscle tone. Therefore, stick with amino acid body building and you will discover that your muscles will not only get the workout they need but that they are also growing larger, creating the telltale body builder sign of a sculpted muscles.