If you are searching a better way of living, a life that doesn't
depend on
chemicals - literally, drugs! - to keep you awake and
motivated, if you are
tired of being tired, then being wired, and
then being tired again, then set
the coffee cup down, step away
from the supersized Diet Cokes, and turn to
holistic living.
There are better, healthier ways to achieve higher levels of
physical and
mental energy.
Here are ways to get more energy, naturally.
1) Exercise
It doesn't matter what time you exercise, just be consistent. Fit
it in
based on your schedule and personality. If you have to do it
first thing when
you wake up, just do it. Don't even let yourself
think about it. Just get
started.
A lot of people think too much about their plan. That's why
Turbulence Training works for so many people...they don't have to think, they just follow
the workouts and get done fast.
Focus on intense strength training for 20 minutes followed by a
brief
interval training session to boost your metabolism all day
long.
Exercise is a drug. Like caffeine and nicotine, exercise causes the release
of many chemicals into your blood, resulting in mental stimulation and an
improved sense of overall well-being. Exercise just makes you feel good.
2) Eat smaller, more frequent meals.
Skip the cycle of starving and feasting characterized by no
breakfast, a
high-carbohydrate lunch, and a huge dinner. Instead, eat breakfast and then
continue to eat every 3 hours for the rest of the day.
Research shows that a high-fiber breakfast helps control appetite and
increases mental alertness all morning, and improves your ability to process
information.
Do not skip breakfast and rely on a coffee to get you through the
day. You can get up 10 minutes earlier to have a
protein shake, some almonds, and an apple.
3) Eat only whole, natural foods, such as fruits, vegetables,
organic
proteins, raw nuts (not roasted in oil), Green Tea, water.
Trying to run on processed foods is a recipe for an energetic
disaster.
Stick to whole, natural foods during the day, snacking
rather than binging on
big meals, and you'll never feel like dozing off.
If a food is from a bag or a box, it doesn't deserve a place in
your
nutrition plan. Avoid all added sugars.
Bonus Tip!)
Take mini-breaks during the day to work on your mobility.
Work environments zap our 'energy'. From poor posture, to
eye-strain from
computer screens, your office, cubicle, and car
seat will suck the life out
of you.
Daily exercise breaks are essential to not only boost energy,
but
mobility. Each day, as your computer sucks you into its visual
vortex,
your upper body becomes rounded forward and tense. You need to reverse that
movement. Here's how...
Stickup
Stand with your back to the wall and feet about 4 inches from the
wall. Place the back of your arms against the wall with upper arms parallel to
floor and forearms at 90 degrees. Stick up your arms over head while keeping
your arm against the wall at all times. Slowly return to below the starting
position tucking your elbows into your sides and bringing shoulder blades
together. Repeat for 12 reps. Do this every 60-90 minutes.
In addition, get outside into natural light whenever possible.
For a complete exercise and nutrition plan to help you burn fat,
sculpt
your body, and give you all-day energy, get started with
Turbulence Training
today!
Showing posts with label cardio. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cardio. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Monday, March 5, 2012
Top Weight Loss Mistakes
Six Mistakes People Make When Trying to Lose Fat
1. They fail to consider the consequences of their actions.
It is always helpful to think "Will this help me or not? Is this a positive step or not?" If you can see that every action that you take is either helping you lose fat or stopping you from losing fat, then you will start to make better choices. So remember that everything you eat is either for or against fat loss. And every exercise choice you make is either for or against fat loss.
2. They neglect to control their insulin and blood sugar
levels - 2 key factors in determining whether or not the body fat will come
off.
If you eat processed foods you are guaranteed to elevate your insulin & blood sugar levels. If you do that, your body sends the message, “Store fat!”, and you won’t make any progress. So avoid white-flour based bakery products, sugary drinks, and almost any carbohydrate snack that comes in a bag or a box.
3. They don’t take 30 minutes to plan their next day’s food intake.
If you fail to do this, you will set your fat loss efforts back. Without a good meal plan, you are left to hunt and gather food in the modern world. And that’s a recipe for fat loss disaster. You are bound to eat something processed if you aren’t prepared. You will lose the fat burning benefits from yesterday’s workout and it will take until the end of the following day to get back on track.
4. They don’t eat enough vegetables.
You should eat fibrous vegetables at every meal to assist your fat loss efforts. By doing so, you’ll control your blood sugar and insulin - thus supporting the optimal hormonal situation for fat loss.
5. Their hormones become less effective with poor lifestyle
choices.
If you are out drinking alcohol and staying up late on the weekend, you are shutting down your fat loss and messing up the optimal hormonal environment for fat burning. Optimal hormonal levels for fat loss, is the underrated key to building your best body ever.
6. They don’t plan and monitor their training sessions.
If you are still going to the gym without a plan, then you are going to have a hard time losing fat. And if you aren’t recording your workouts and eating habits, then you aren’t losing as much fat as you probably can. To fix this mistake, start by getting on track with strength training and interval training. It’s guaranteed to get you lean.
Did You Know Ab Workouts Slow Fat Loss?
Not only are most traditional ab workouts a waste of time, but they also slow
your fat loss efforts. Each workout you spend crunching takes time away from
more effective fat loss methods - such as interval training.
That's right, the common man's and woman's ab workout taken from Shape magazine or Muscle'n'Fitness often hurts their fat loss program more than it helps it.
Instead, focus on exercises that build a 6-pack AND burn a lot of calories at the same time. That's why I'm a big fan of making EVERY exercise an ab exercise (by bracing the abs in every movement), as well as using total body ab exercises (such as Mountain Climbers, the Spiderman Lunge/Climb, and the Stability Ball Jackknife).
These exercises use far more muscle mass than a traditional crunch. In fact, some of the total body ab exercises are "interval-like" in nature, helping to put more metabolic turbulence on the body, and as you know, that's what burns calories during AND after the workout.
Now of course you know that you can't spot reduce the fat on your body - so doing an endless number of crunches not only does little for you in terms of losing fat, it also wastes your time in your quest for a 6-pack.
Here are a couple of strategies to maximize your workout time when your goal is to get lean, and get down to a low-enough body fat percentage to see your abs in as little workout time as possible:
A) First, simply cut back on your ab training - If your goal is to
simply lose fat, gain a little muscle, and just look as good
possible, then you can't spend 30 minutes on abs everyday. You can build your 6-pack by doing less than 30 minutes of ab exercise per week.
B) Second, replace your crunches with the total body ab exercises I mentioned earlier. Also, if you have access to a cable machine, you can do weighted ab exercises such as kneeling cable crunches.
C) And finally, if you are doing intervals for fat loss as I
recommend, you can use the following approach to increase the
difficulty of your ab and interval training. However, this is an
advanced method only.
During your interval workout, perform an ab exercise during your active recovery period. For example, if you are doing running intervals on a treadmill...
Run for 60 seconds at your work interval speed. Immediately stop the treadmill, get off, and go into a set of 20 Mountain Climbers. Climb back on the treadmill and start it up for your next interval. Repeat for 3-6 intervals.
You can also use basic spinal stabilization "ab exercises" such as
the plank, side plank, or advanced plank versions (i.e. plank with your arms on the ball) to train your spinal stabilization while under heavy breathing stress.
Remember: Always train safe, with good form, and be conservative. Don't try to be a hero in the gym, but you should safely challenge yourself in each workout.
Stick to the Turbulence Training if you don't know where to start.
That's right, the common man's and woman's ab workout taken from Shape magazine or Muscle'n'Fitness often hurts their fat loss program more than it helps it.
Instead, focus on exercises that build a 6-pack AND burn a lot of calories at the same time. That's why I'm a big fan of making EVERY exercise an ab exercise (by bracing the abs in every movement), as well as using total body ab exercises (such as Mountain Climbers, the Spiderman Lunge/Climb, and the Stability Ball Jackknife).
These exercises use far more muscle mass than a traditional crunch. In fact, some of the total body ab exercises are "interval-like" in nature, helping to put more metabolic turbulence on the body, and as you know, that's what burns calories during AND after the workout.
Now of course you know that you can't spot reduce the fat on your body - so doing an endless number of crunches not only does little for you in terms of losing fat, it also wastes your time in your quest for a 6-pack.
Here are a couple of strategies to maximize your workout time when your goal is to get lean, and get down to a low-enough body fat percentage to see your abs in as little workout time as possible:
A) First, simply cut back on your ab training - If your goal is to
simply lose fat, gain a little muscle, and just look as good
possible, then you can't spend 30 minutes on abs everyday. You can build your 6-pack by doing less than 30 minutes of ab exercise per week.
B) Second, replace your crunches with the total body ab exercises I mentioned earlier. Also, if you have access to a cable machine, you can do weighted ab exercises such as kneeling cable crunches.
C) And finally, if you are doing intervals for fat loss as I
recommend, you can use the following approach to increase the
difficulty of your ab and interval training. However, this is an
advanced method only.
During your interval workout, perform an ab exercise during your active recovery period. For example, if you are doing running intervals on a treadmill...
Run for 60 seconds at your work interval speed. Immediately stop the treadmill, get off, and go into a set of 20 Mountain Climbers. Climb back on the treadmill and start it up for your next interval. Repeat for 3-6 intervals.
You can also use basic spinal stabilization "ab exercises" such as
the plank, side plank, or advanced plank versions (i.e. plank with your arms on the ball) to train your spinal stabilization while under heavy breathing stress.
Remember: Always train safe, with good form, and be conservative. Don't try to be a hero in the gym, but you should safely challenge yourself in each workout.
Stick to the Turbulence Training if you don't know where to start.
Friday, February 24, 2012
Why Cardio Doesn't Work for Fat Loss
Cardio exercise is such a strange thing. In theory, it should work
so perfectly well for all men and women, but as anyone who has
tried it knows, the practicality of it just doesn't add up.
After all, some men and women do cardio 6 hours, 9 hours, or more per week, and still have belly fat to burn. On the other hand, it works just fine for others.
British researchers wanted to get more insight into this paradox, and studied 35 overweight men and women, who weren't previously exercising.
(Reference: International Journal of Obesity 32: 177-184, 2008).
Subjects exercised 5 times per week for 12 weeks. That's a lot of
exercise, but it helped the subjects lose an average of 8.2 pounds, which is great - I was positively surprised by the results.
So cardio will work for some people, however, in my experience, it works best in young men, who need the help the least!
Back to the study, the variance in fat loss between individuals was huge. Check this out...
The best subject lost a staggering 32.3 pounds in 12 weeks, while the worst subject actually GAINED 3.74 pounds.
The scientists think they know where things went sour. They
classified the subjects into 2 groups, called the "Compensators"
and the "Non-compensators".
The Compensators were hungrier, and as a result consumed an extra 268 calories per day, all but wiping out their cardio efforts.
Therefore, the Compensators lost the least amount of weight, and scientists believe that was due to the huge "compensatory" increase in appetite experienced by this group.
Does your appetite increase when you do slow cardio? If it does,
research shows it will ruin your cardio efforts.
So if your cardio program is not working for you, check your
appetite and calorie intake to see if you are "compensating" for
your efforts. If you are, you might be better off using a program
of high-intensity resistance and interval training (i.e. Turbulence Training) for your weight loss efforts.
As Australian Professor Steve Boucher has shown in research,
interval training increases hormones called catecholamines. And
increased catecholamines can reduce appetite, among other fat-
burning benefits.
In the real world, few people lose 33 pounds after 12 weeks of
cardio. Heck, few even achieve an average weight loss of 8 pounds with aerobic exercise.
So again, check your appetite, and consider giving high-intensity
exercise a go for your next workout program.
Beat the curse of cardio with high-intensity Turbulence Training.
so perfectly well for all men and women, but as anyone who has
tried it knows, the practicality of it just doesn't add up.
After all, some men and women do cardio 6 hours, 9 hours, or more per week, and still have belly fat to burn. On the other hand, it works just fine for others.
British researchers wanted to get more insight into this paradox, and studied 35 overweight men and women, who weren't previously exercising.
(Reference: International Journal of Obesity 32: 177-184, 2008).
Subjects exercised 5 times per week for 12 weeks. That's a lot of
exercise, but it helped the subjects lose an average of 8.2 pounds, which is great - I was positively surprised by the results.
So cardio will work for some people, however, in my experience, it works best in young men, who need the help the least!
Back to the study, the variance in fat loss between individuals was huge. Check this out...
The best subject lost a staggering 32.3 pounds in 12 weeks, while the worst subject actually GAINED 3.74 pounds.
The scientists think they know where things went sour. They
classified the subjects into 2 groups, called the "Compensators"
and the "Non-compensators".
The Compensators were hungrier, and as a result consumed an extra 268 calories per day, all but wiping out their cardio efforts.
Therefore, the Compensators lost the least amount of weight, and scientists believe that was due to the huge "compensatory" increase in appetite experienced by this group.
Does your appetite increase when you do slow cardio? If it does,
research shows it will ruin your cardio efforts.
So if your cardio program is not working for you, check your
appetite and calorie intake to see if you are "compensating" for
your efforts. If you are, you might be better off using a program
of high-intensity resistance and interval training (i.e. Turbulence Training) for your weight loss efforts.
As Australian Professor Steve Boucher has shown in research,
interval training increases hormones called catecholamines. And
increased catecholamines can reduce appetite, among other fat-
burning benefits.
In the real world, few people lose 33 pounds after 12 weeks of
cardio. Heck, few even achieve an average weight loss of 8 pounds with aerobic exercise.
So again, check your appetite, and consider giving high-intensity
exercise a go for your next workout program.
Beat the curse of cardio with high-intensity Turbulence Training.
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