If you are tired of losing weight the hard way, then here are some sensible weight loss tips for you. These tips are easy to follow and they really help you lose those extra pounds. For more easy tips like these, you can get yourself a copy of  Do It Once – Diet Right.

Weight Loss Tip 1: You are only as fat as your total calorie count. The book says that there are two reasons for people becoming overweight in the modern world: they enjoy plenty of food, but their lifestyle is seriously lacking in exercise. You can lose extra weight by increasing your activity levels. Push yourself out of that chair and take a walk, or climb the stairs instead of using the elevator, scrub, clean, mow the lawn. It’s all cutting into your calorie bank account!

Weight Loss Tip 2: When I was young, my mum always told me to eat three square meals a day. Seems like that was a mistake. Leaving a gap of 4-5 hours between meals may simply not suit some people. The moment I broke up my meals to 4-6 small meals, I had better control over my food cravings. Also, I found that I was less hungry.

Weight Loss Tip 3: All of us experience the sudden desire to snack. It could hit us any time, and if the opportunity is there, we could easily polish off one big bag of fries or marshmallows. Well, be prepared for your snacking urges and keep raw veggies ready! Vegetables are full of fiber and they are a good source of antioxidants. Besides they fill your stomach while supplying minimal calories. 100 g of fresh cucumber has less than 10 calories in it!

Weight Loss Tip 4: Shop wisely. As I see it, this is a very valuable weight loss tip. Remember how you go to the aisle of a supermarket and pick up all those low-fat or low-sugar foods, and you give yourself a pat on the back thinking you have cut down on calories? Low fat or low sugar does NOT mean low-cal! Count the calories you are taking in. It matters.

Weight Loss Tip 5: Eating out could be dangerous to your weight loss efforts. Restaurant foods and fast foods are generally jam-packed with extra salt, sugar, carbs and fats. Even one sufficiently large meal is enough to undo all your efforts to save on calories. If you MUST eat out, do so wisely. Order for salads and ask them to avoid fatty dressings. Cut portions or share your meal with your friends. Skip dessert.

Weight Loss Tip 6: A little outside help could make you lose weight easily. One of the main reasons people fail to lose weight is because they are helpless to control their hunger pangs. The moment hunger strikes, all good thoughts fly out of the window. But you can control hunger by using certain herbal supplements. These supplements are full of natural plant fibers. Fibers regulate your blood sugar levels and keep your stomach full. I could control my irregular snacking because of these fiber supplements. You can see from this website that a lot of others are also using it. Try it, or something similar to it. Your weight loss efforts will become much easier. Only take care to choose your products wisely because the wrong products may cost you both money and your health.

* The most excellent weight loss is without a doubt as a result of exercise and dieting

Nevertheless, workout is certainly an essential element of dropping weight. Research conducted recently opposed the impact of physical exercise against diet program only in fat loss. Even though the two communities (the people who are just dieting and those who exercise) able to lose some weight, just the exercisers preserved their power as well as muscular body and elevated cardiovascular capability, when people who are dieting missing muscle mass, durability as well as cardiovascular capability. Most people that shed some pounds through going on a diet alone in fact end up getting extra fats compared to the time they were started due to this muscle mass reduction.

Within the previous couple of decades a lot of people assume that small intensity cardio exercise like range running is the ultimate way to reduce weight, and also that specifically for ladies, resistance exercise is inappropriate. Many people also frequently perform workout routines like inner/outer quad equipment or sit-ups, expecting that this will assist you cut their thighs and also trim their waistlines. Nothing of those methods is actually proper.

Fat reduction plan that actually works!

1. Developing a calorie deficit via constantly becoming extra energetic as well as eating properly/strategically. Preferably, accomplish this within a day-to-day, long-term time frame.

2. Standard strength training, preferably combination workouts, carried out at a stage which is difficult (for many typical individual, such as six to twelve reps for each set is a great common point to shoot for). This maintains lean muscle mass that could be missing together with excess fat.

3. Interval cardiovascular exercise: switching short intervals of extremely high intensity (such as sprints) using intervals of lower intensity (such as taking walks). A different way to accomplish this is recognized as the Tabata method: changing twenty seconds of intensive exercise (which includes conventional weights workouts like squats or pushups) having around 10 secs resting time. So long as the higher than average intensity intervals are high enough, you are able to utilize the idea to whatever you prefer: mountain or stairway runs, striking a punching sack, biking, bouncing rope, elliptical exercise machine, dumbbell or kettlebell workout, and so on.

4. In case you are a novice or perhaps getting started with plenty of excess fat, you are able to alternate normal average cardiovascular for intervals, however, you can continue to attempt the interval theory through exercising with a smaller stage. Consider anything such as going for walks as quickly as possible for thirty to sixty seconds, then replaced with moderate walking for thirty to sixty seconds.

5. Should you take pleasure in strength based cardio exercise such as range running or trekking, go ahead and undertake it! The main point is you perform anything you take pleasure in, and also what you would carry out regularly and often. Nonetheless, even for resistance sportsmen, integrating interval training workouts should help in acceleration as well as total work capacity.

Considering the fact that everyone is different in age, size, shape, endurance and strength, different people are going to require different muscle building workout routines. These muscle building workout routines ideally should be carried out according to the recommendations of your family doctor or even better, an experienced personal trainer. However, in absence of that, there are many general muscle building routines which can be very effective that apply to most people.

Your mentality and attitude is one of the most significant factors to work on, as determination and sharp focus need to be maintained in order to receive the ideal results that you are looking for. This is one of the most important aspects to your success in building muscle and achieving that body you’re striving for.

In your muscle building venture, it is important that you shed any excess fat that may be present, and build your muscle up. So, being keenly aware of your food intake is quite important in this whole process. As I’ve said in the beginning of this article, there is no one size fits all in your muscle building workout routines, so the types of foods you take in should be determined in relation to your current physical stature or status. However, the manner in which you consume these foods should generally remain the same. This would be eating about six to a maximum of eight small meals throughout the day, as opposed to three big ones. This helps boost your metabolism for achieving maximum results in body performance and burning of excess fat.

It is generally a good idea to eat carbs after every meal to keep the metabolism moving after each meal, as well. Supplements of protein may be taken every three or four hours or so, and you should try to avoid based food or snacks as much as you possibly can. Sleep and rest is also quite important, you should do your best at sleeping for at least eight hours every night.

Muscle building workout routines should consist of around 3-4 workouts every week, once again depending on your own personal needs. A person doing muscle building that plans on working out to take part in a body building competition would typically work out around six days of the week, taking maybe only one day out of the week for rest.

An individual desiring weight loss and tone muscle would only require around a few days a week. Getting enough rest in between your sets is extremely vital in getting your muscles to grow to their maximum stature or build. The larger weights should be utilized for building up your muscles more, whereas the smaller or lighter weights are to keep your currents muscles at their peak size or tone them up.

If you do happen to have a personal trainer, your muscle building routines should be looked over and reviewed frequently by them to be assured that the maximum effects are being attained and you are up to par with your full potential!

What are the muscle building workout routines that will work best for you?

Anyone trying to get in shape or lose body fat, consider it a “fact” that they need “cardio workout routines” to accomplish these goals. I Am going to show you why you never have to do any traditional cardio to lose weight.

Some of the leanest and meanest people I know (men and women), NEVER do any type of normal or traditional cardio. Jogging,treadmill etc. When you hear cardio, what do you think of? Most people think cardio is working out on the treadmill,stationary bike, or maybe the elliptical machine. Well this is cardio but what I call “traditional cardio exercise routine”.

Cardio is ANY type of exercise that strengthens the heart muscles, improve respiration, provide muscle tone and increases bodily energy and endurance. To clarify, it’s any thing that gets your heart pumping.

Pick up some weights and started doing some reps and you will feel your heart going if you have a weight that challenges you, you are conditioning your heart. Don’t think because its weight training that it’s not a cardio workout routine. If you lift light weights, lift them properly, and take very few breaks during the workout, you will get an excellent cardiovascular workout and also build muscle.

Here are a few examples of good cardio workouts to name a few…

Clean and press exercises, kettle bell swings, try 20 reps of one arm swings, or two arm swings or dumb bell step ups. How about trying 5 minutes straight of rotating body weight squats, lunges, and pushups with very little rest between. Notice your heart pounding and sweat pouring off of you. I go into more detail about these exercises on my website. It needs to be intense with with very little rest between sets.

It doesn’t matter if you are lifting 250 pounds or just the bar bell at 45 pounds. If you are getting your heart rate up its working. Once you do these you won’t be saying that it is not conditioning your heart. Most people you see at the gyms and going steady on the cardio machines, many watching TV and reading magazines. Let’s get serious, if you can read or watch TV while doing any exercise then your not focused enough on what your doing not to mention probably not working out hard enough to see any results.

Look around your gym, find the people that have fit, sculpted bodies; I bet you won’t them see spending endless hours on the treadmills but most likely you will see them lifting weights. Don’t get me wrong cardio machines do have their benefits if done properly BUT if you want to burn fat and get that sculpted body then lifting weights is vital.

These styles of a cardio workout routines will save you time and strengthen and condition every major muscle in your body. Muscle burns fats so build more muscle and burn more fat. This sure beats long boring exercises on the treadmill.

Today I’m going to talk about something that may tick a lot of people off. It may go against what you believe, what you do, what you’ve read or studied. If that’s the case, so be it. I say this because you can go to all kinds of sites, talk to all kinds of folks, and you’ll have a whole bunch of different variations on this topic. To that I say GREAT! So, all that being said, let me get right into it.

Right away, when someone decides to start any kind of fitness program, they focus on the workout itself. What to lift, how far to run, how to gain muscle, etc. But the one thing they are leaving out is nutrition. Oh, believe me, anyone in the fitness industry (that’s worth anything) will tell you the most important stuff about a workout program is NUTRITION, NUTRITION, NUTRITION! That’s across the board folks, that ALWAYS should be part of your fitness plan. No one will argue that fact with you.

BUT, the difference then comes up about WHAT kind of nutrition. Should I eat meat or not? Should I switch my soda to diet soda? Should I eat 10 times a day? Should I not eat after 6:18pm? Should I wake up in the middle of the night and have a ultra supersonic vitamin milkshake? What should I do? This is the confusing part.

I’m here to tell you my take on this whole nutrition thing. As everyone knows, I like to keep things simple. I stay with simple stuff. Getting complicated is for the more advanced people, but not me. (Oh, I can hang with the best of them, but I choose not to) Of course, I enjoy talking about fitness/nutrition, and I always can (and will), but for the people that don’t know what to do to start off with, getting to involved and in depth may just shy them away from being healthy, which is something NOBODY in this industry wants, right?

So, all that being said, let’s talk a bit about nutrition. Let’s even break it down a bit more and say “what you put into your body”. Now for those of you that have the same mindset as me (heaven help you lol!), and view things a bit skewd, “what you DON’T put into your body” is just as important. You can even say to replace some of the bad stuff with good stuff, get it?

Again, keeping everything simple, let’s take soda pop for instance. I don’t care what kind you drink, I don’t care if it’s diet or not diet, I don’t care if it has sugar or not, generally speaking soda pop is BAD for you… PERIOD! (Oh, if a soda executive is reading this, sorry dude, but someone’s gotta say it!)

But Andrew, I love my soda pop, I need my soda pop! Well, too bad. Oh, and just so you know, I love me my Mountain Dew, which is probably one of the worst ones out there. In my younger days, I was a “Dew-a-holic”, and I proudly admit it! But in terms of being healthy, it’s garbage!

Now, instead of drinking your beloved soda pop (diet or not) drink some water. Heck, drink it from the tap, that’s fine with me, but drink water! I don’t care if you don’t like the taste of water (that one always cracks me up!), drink it anyway. Again, YOU are the one looking to get healthy, so do things that will make you healthy, duh!

Here’s another tip, instead of having that bag of chips, those chocolate chip cookies or that candy bar, eat an apple, or banana, or peach or some kind of fruit. Oh, it may not be as fun or as sexy, but is looking in the mirror at yourself right now sexy? Hmmm?

You want to know something real cool to do? Again, this is for people who WANT to be healthier, so if this is you, take note. Something cool is to get some sort of blender/juicer/mixer/pureer and start making some sort of blended veggie foo-foo drink once a day. There are all kinds of recipes throughout the world wide web, so have fun looking for them. (the picture above is actually the drink I made this morning. It was fun to do and it tasted awesome!)

Heck, you’re making trips to the grocery store anyway, pick up some fruits or veggies as well. (again, instead of that soda pop and bag of chips!)

I’m not saying this mixing thing is what you SHOULD do, I’m just saying it’s fun and you’ll be surprised at what you may find and how you start feeling.

I’m telling you, this isn’t a hard concept to figure out. Remember, I’m just keeping things simple here. All I’m doing is telling you things that you already know. All I’m doing is saying stuff that deep down you know, but maybe are afraid to admit.

Notice I didn’t say anything about supplements, I didn’t say anything about how often you should eat, I didn’t say anything about a specific vitamin to take. I didn’t say anything like that because you need to start somewhere. Once you start changing your habits and begin to feel better, you will find the more, let’s call it “hard core” stuff to consume like vitamins, supplements, etc.

But for right now, if you’re not doing stuff, just start by keep things simple. Learn to consume the right stuff AND NOT consume the bad stuff. Get it? Don’t worry about this type of fat is good, that type is bad; this carbo food thingy is better than that carbo food thingy. Use some common sense with your nutrition and you’ll be amazed as to your results. Once you start to see and feel the results, then dive deeper into the whole nutrition thing. But keep it simple and have

A lot of folks wonder whether or not if it makes a difference what order they do their workouts. Such as… am I supposed to do my strength training BEFORE doing cardio exercises? Or is it the other way around?

Great question!

And here is my take… first of all, you don’t really have to do both the resistance training and the cardio training the same time but it is BY FAR the most efficient way to do it. Especially if you are a busy man or woman that has very little time to keep your body in shape.

However, if you have a half an hour each day… sure… you can split up the workouts. Do cardio exercises one day and then the strength training the next day… and so on…

BUT! If you can do it… try to combine the two so you will only have to workout only three days a week (at only forty five minutes each workout!). Sounds like a good deal to you?

I also want to say that you always SHOULD do the resistance training portion of your workout FIRST! Before doing the cardio training. And the reason for that is if you did the cardio first… you are going to be too tired to do the strength and resistance workouts. In short, your workouts won’t be optimal. But truth be told… your body looks at both the cardio and strength exercises the same… neither workouts will make you lose more fat.

But you will get better results with shorter workouts if you DON’T do those long, plodding and boring cardio. Instead of steady jogging or walking on the stairmasters… make it an interval cardio workout! So you get much more done in shorter time.

Making these two changes in your workouts will give your fat burning metabolism a big boost… build your strength up to create more muscles and best of all… you will lose more body fat!

Cardio training for fat loss is one of the best exercise regiment for people of all ages and capabilities. Thus, you should know how to do it the right way if you want to get permanent results and shape up for life.

For that, here are 5 tips for maximum fat loss cardio:

Make the decision

The first step is always the hardest step. Many people think starting a cardio fat loss regiment but never take the first step towards achieving the desired result. Unfortunately, thinking prevents doing. And the only way by which you can get results is by taking action and implementing effective fat loss strategies.

Set goals

After making the healthy decision, you need to commit to it by writing it on paper. The process of setting goals is a powerful tool that can propel you towards making your dream into a concrete reality. Goals usually provide clarity and motivation, hence they are what you need if you are seeking huge improvements but find it difficult to sustain your motivation.

Make cardio a habit

If you want a sustained cardio training regime, then you need to make it a habit into your daily life. We are creatures of habits and we are doomed to repeat 95% of our physical and mental patterns day after day. Fortunately, habits are made through practice and repetition.

Hence, you can make cardio workout as a habit by doing it on a consistent basis for a specified duration. And by the end of the fourth week of training, the cardio workout will ingrain itself progressively into your life and become a habit.

The cardio burning zone

Cardio training is effective for weight loss because it burns high amounts of calories in a short period of time. And for the most efficient workout, you need to train within your cardio burning zone for a sustained period of time for more than 20 minutes.

This training zone should be around 70 to 75% of your maximum heart rate. You may find it harder to keep pushing for a long time, but you can slow it down anytime you feel exhausted and take up the pace once you feel ready.

The energy defecit

Doing only cardio training for weight loss is not that effective, you need to back it up with the proper nutrition. This does not mean that you should restrict your eating and starve yourself as a way of trimming down. In fact the proper diet is the one that is full with valuable nutrients and can boost your energy levels, so you can find it easier to work out and lead a normal life without much trouble.

Anyone who is weight training in order to buildup their muscle mass should also consider the food they are eating. Though training with weights is very important, so too is the types of food you eat. If you combine both, muscle building foods, along with a good workout routine, you will see the results you are looking for much faster.

Building muscle requires a lot of protein, so you will want to eat more red meat, chicken, and fish. In addition to these foods, you should also eat more eggs, as they are an excellent source of protein. You may come across some diet advice that will tell you that if you eat eggs, it would be best to only eat the egg whites, but this may not be in your best interests. Much of the protein in eggs comes from the yoke, not only this, but the yoke is also a good source of vitamin A, D, and E. In addition to eggs, you should also try eating more wild salmon, which is a good source of omega 3 fatty acids, as well as protein.

Though eating enough protein is important when you are trying to build muscle, you cannot forget that total nutrition is also significant. The healthier you are, the better your body will function, which will make it easier to build muscle. When you are bodybuilding you will want to eat plenty of fruits and vegetables, which will provide you with the fiber, vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants that your body needs in order to stay healthy.

As unlikely as it may sound, you will also have to eat enough carbohydrates. Carbs provide the energy that your muscles draw from while you are working out so you should not be afraid of having carbohydrates in your diet. Though you do need carbs in your diet, it is important that you try to avoid foods that are overly processed, such as sugars and white flour. Instead eat more oats, whole grain cereals, etc. Eating a snacks after you workout that consist of good carbs is a great way to recover from vagarious or strenuous exercise.

If you want the kind of body that you have always dreamed of, and you want it fast, remember all that you really need to do is have a great workout routine, along with eating the right kinds of foods. Put these two things together and you’ll soon be on your way to the perfect, body.

If you are looking for a cardio training routine that doesn’t require you to run the first stride outside on the pavement or inside on the treadmill then you have got to include the burpee calisthenic into the equation. You see real cardio involves the blistering sweat, heart pounding, wind sucking result of intense work. The best form of cardio comes wrapped finely in the form of strength and endurance combined. By coupling both elements of both cardio and strength you stand to get a much more profound training result from your workouts.

Phenomenal Cardio Without Running!

You see in order to dial up the intensity and positive results of your workouts you have got to combine both elements of strength and cardiovascular conditioning. A great way to do this is by engaging in calisthenics. So what are calisthenics? Calisthenics are whole body exercises performed in a very rhythmic and systematic way in order to promote the development of muscular strength, endurance, mobility, flexibility, and cardiovascular fitness. The burpee is a type of whole body calisthenic.

Cardio training without running takes structure, creativity, and the willingness to work! Just because you are not running doesn’t mean your cardio workouts are going to be a “cake walk.” The burpee is the definition of intense body blasting cardio. In order to pull this off you will want to start out by standing with your feet at shoulder width distance apart in length. From here you are going to start out by crouching down to place your hands on the ground in front of your body. Next, you will want to kick your feet back behind you extending your body into an upright push up position. Thirdly, you will wan to perform a normal push up from this upright push up position. After the push up simply kick your feet back up underneath your body in order for you to stand up to complete the drill. All of this basically constitutes a single repetition of the burpee.

After performing 10 to 15 of these whole body movements in this way you will understand why the burpee is so effective in terms of helping you to develop a serious level of cardiovascular conditioning. If you were looking for a truly hard hitting method to get your cardio in without having to run then you just found it. Take the time to learn more by accessing more of my articles on the subject for free. Remember that most anyone can train hard, but only the best train smart!

Ever been at a loss as to what training to do? Ever thought “I’d really like someone to tell me what workout to do today”? Well then – the Deck of Cards Workout is for YOU!

This workout has been around a while and has been written about by the likes of Matt Furey and Ross Emanait and I’m pretty sure neither of them lay claim to having invented it but it’s such a good effective training system it’s worth promoting again.

The Deck of Cards Workout is deceptively simple…using a normal deck of playing cards allocate an exercise to each suit for example Hearts = squats, Diamonds = press ups, Spades = lunges, Clubs = bent-leg sit ups. Then, starting with the well shuffled deck face down, turn over the top card and do the prescribed number of reps for that exercise so if you turn over the 8 of spades you would perform 8 lunges (either in total or per leg – that’s up to you.) Then, with minimal rest turn over the next card and do that exercise and so on until each card has been turned over.

Jokers can be removed or left in to provide extra exercises – the Joker could be something like run 500 meters or do 20 burpees…whatever you feel like putting in. The idea is to complete the deck as fast as possible so it’s an excellent cardio and muscular conditioning workout. Personally I like to make sure the Joker is a real challenge to add some extra intensity to the workout but whilst a challenge is good, making the Joker so tough that you fail to complete the workout would be erroneous so use some common sense!

Regarding the picture cards, there are a couple of options…Jacks = 11, Queens = 12, Kings = 13 or all picture cards = 12 (or higher). The beauty of the Deck of Cards Workout is you set the parameters based on your current fitness level and progress is very easy to logically progress the workouts over time. For example, as time progresses and you get fitter, the ace can increase from 1 rep to 3 reps and later to 5 reps and so on which adds volume to your workout. Ideally, when you have designed and completed a deck of cards workout it’s a good idea to repeat it on a regular basis so you can monitor your improvements as you (hopefully) complete it in less time than before.

The Deck of Cards Workout lends it’s self particularly well to body weight or minimal equipment exercises which keeps the transitions fast and the pace of the workout high but it can work equally well using traditional weight training exercises. Below I have outlined some of my favourite Deck of Cards Workouts to get you started…feel free to use them as they are or mix elements from the different workouts into your own unique training session. If you come up with a particularly good one, why not post it below for others to use?

1)Black cards = push ups, Red cards = bodyweight squats

Jokers = run 500 meters

2)Hearts = Burpees, Diamonds = double unders (x 2), Spades = high pulls, Clubs = sit ups, Jokers = 60 second planks.

(For this workout, when performing double unders complete 2 reps for every number of Diamonds i.e. 4 of Diamonds = 8 double unders)

3)Hearts = skipping (x 10), Diamonds = body rows, Spades = kettlebell swings, Clubs = dips, Jokers = row 500 meters.

(For this workout when skipping perform 10 turns of the rope for every number of Hearts i.e. 7 of Hearts = 70 turns of the rope etc.)

4)Hearts = step ups, Diamonds = sandbag clean and push press, Spades = chin ups, Clubs = crunches

Jokers = 100 rope turns skipping

5)Hearts = barbell squats, Diamonds = barbell deadlifts, Spades = body rows, Clubs = bench press, Jokers = 60 seconds of twisting sit ups

(For this workout use around 60% of 1RM – it may be necessary to perform the reps rest/pause style i.e. if unable to perform all of the reps when a high card is revealed then do as many of the reps as possible, rest briefly and then continue with the set)

I strongly recommend writing in large letters the exercises you have allocated for each suit and sticking it somewhere visible for the duration of the workout. This will minimise any time wasted trying to remember what exercise you are supposed to be doing and avoid making mistakes.

As the cards come out in a random order, sometimes you’ll get a good run of dissimilar cards but from time to time you’ll think you must be playing poker and you’ll get runs of suits or lots of high cards in a row. Tough! That’s the beauty of this workout – you never quite know what you are going to get and that randomness is part of not just the fun but also the training effect. Runners call this kind of mixed training Fartlek which means speed play so just keep on keeping on – for every “bad” run there will be a good one.

There are endless variations for the deck of card workout and you are only limited by your imagination and as a change from the norm it’s a great but simple workout which really gets the job done!

Stop-the-press!

Feeling inspired after writing this piece so I did a Deck of Cards Workout for my own training today.

I warmed up by skipping for 5 minutes and doing a few dynamic stretches…

Ran 500 meters

Black cards = press ups

Red cards = bodyweight squats

(All picture cards done for 12 reps, other cards for face value)

Jokers = run 500 meters – my pack has 3 of ’em for some reason!

Ran 500 meters to finish

182 reps completed for press ups and squats plus 2,500 meters running

Total time from start to finish including the additional 500 meter runs = 26 mins 7 secs of FUN!