Month: August 2015

Is it really possible to use snacking to lose ? Who says snacking is bad? It becomes bad only when you eat cookies, cakes and biscuits as snacks! On the other hand, when you eat healthy snacks, they can help you lose as much as healthy fruits and vegetables. How, you may ask? Well, you might already be aware of the fact that the less you eat, the faster you lose .

Now, when you snack frequently, you are less likely to gorge on fast and junk foods, because you won’t feel hungry too often! Eventually, you will gain the slim and attractive body that you have always desired!

Snacking to lose

Snacking to lose

I know it is very tempting to just buy a packet of chips from your local store. But those chips are only going to make you fatter so you should AVOID them.

The best option is to cook your own snacks. I know you are busy and it may not be always feasible, but remember that when you are trying to lose you should make up some time for it

Another option of course is to plan your snacks. Snaking to lose involves eating the right kinds of snacks at the right times to make sure that you keep your metabolism moving. What you really want to do is to eat low calorie snacks like fruits and vegetables and eat them spaced out by a couple hours. Let your body digest and then put something into your stomach again.

Avoid temptations

When you are working at an office, where all your colleagues seem to be happy munching on pastries or drinking soda, you may feel bad about your own snacks. But remember that pastries and soda are only going to make your colleagues gain ; they probably don’t know about it, or just don’t care! Don’t emulate their unhealthy lifestyle habits and try to stick to your own meal plans.

There is no shortage of healthy snacks

If you think that cookies, pastries and chips are the only snacks available in the market, you are absolutely wrong! There are many healthy snacks available out there that you might not be aware of, or that you might have forgotten totally. Examples of such healthy snacks are yogurt, sunflower seeds, apple sauce, popcorn with low salt and butter, pudding, raw vegetables such as carrots, beets and cucumber etc.

For sure though no dried fruit. Fruit that is fresh is fine but if your have dried cranberries, or raisins then you are asking for trouble. These foods are in fact high in calories because all the water is out of them.

Don’t believe anyone who tells you that you cannot fight hunger with the help of snacks! The snacks that I have just mentioned to you will keep you full for a long time. Plus they are healthy too, in that they contain a low amount of calorie. Make it a habit to have healthy snacks regularly and often for your snacking to lose plan, and you cannot help but lose quickly.

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I have been pretty clear that I am just working most of my body in a single workout lately but there is of course another way which is the 2 day split workout. The split workout.

With a split schedule you can do the same amount of work in one day but get twice the number of sets per workout.

As you start lifting more and more and your body gets accustomed to the workouts you may start to get tired of and start not getting the results that you were getting before.

If you are at that point than breaking up your workout may be just what you need to get to the next level.

Here is the classic 2 day split workout:

• Day 1 – Chest, Shoulders, Triceps, Hamstrings
• Day 2 – Back, Biceps, Quads, Calves

The reason that you are doing the workouts this way is so that you do not overtax secondary muscles. If you are doing bench press for your chest for example then you will get assistance from your front shoulder muscles and triceps.

These muscle would not have a chance to recover between workouts if they are getting pushed every workout. In exactly the same way if you are doing lat pulldowns you are working your biceps and back of your shoulders.

2 day Split Workout

If you want to do more sets per muscle group it is impossible unless you break your body up. As it is now I will do a total of 1 set of warmup and two sets of hard sets per muscle group.

Working the above system means that you will do two exercises instead of one and even though you should still do two warmup sets (one for each exercise) you will now be getting four heavy sets in instead for each muscle group and this is more enough for most of us mere mortals.

Of course the drawback to this kind of workout is that it then takes twice the number of workouts to get your whole body trained.

So doing this kind of system may mean doing four workouts a week instead of just two. For many people once they have reached this level though the idea of four workouts a week does not seem too much of a stretch.

When to move to a 2 day split workout

Two day split workout

So how do you know if it is time to move to this classic 2 day split workout?

Well mostly it has to do with how you feel after your workout and the next day.

• Do you feel like you have gotten the most out of your workout?
• Do you feel like you are recovering the next day?
• Do you have more energy than you feel you should after working out?

The problem with the whole body in one workout system is that after a while your body has gotten too used to the stress on the muscles and stops getting stronger and you stop making muscle gains.

These workouts each day will be at least as hard as your one day workout was but your muscles should be absolutely spent. The nice thing is that these workouts are going to push your muscles fully so that you will start making really nice gains in muscle size and strength again.

When you are ready it may be a great time to switch to a 2 day split workout.

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Over the years I have seen a lot of flimsy ideas of how to get a set of six pack abs. The most common scams are special machines that will do it and sometimes some kind of drink. I remember at one point Slim Fast seemed to be showing chubby people suddenly spawning a set of six pack abs.

Anyway I wanted to put this notion to rest that there is some magic to getting a six pack. Sure there is some genetics involved in sculpting perfect abs but the two most important factors are diet and exercise.

What? Did you think there was a shortcut?

Six Pack Abs Diet

The diet part is fairly simple; you need to drop any extra fat. You have probably heard this before but there is no such thing as spot reduction when you are losing weight. You will lose weight proportionately, generally, as you lose weight.

What you may find is that you have a large stomach and if that is the case of course you will lose that fat faster than you lose the fat on your legs but that is just because that is where the fat deposits will be easiest for your body to use.

As you probably know from reading other posts of mine I subscribe to the idea that people eat too many carbohydrates generally but I still do not support the Atkins diet generally but more of a Paleo style diet with no breads, rice, or even potatoes, all your carbs should come from fruits and vegetables.

I believe that you must increase your protein to at least 20% of your diet, keep fats at about 20% of the calories of your diet and then have carbs as the other 60% of the calories of your diet. If you still have trouble losing weight and fat you may be a bit sensitive to carbohydrates and you can up the protein a little.

Six Pack Abs Exercise

As for exercise, to get a set of six pack abs you will have to do two things; get in an hour of cardio a day to increase your metabolism and start really dropping the fat and secondly make sure that you do your abdominal exercises at the start of your workouts.

For cardio exercise it does not really matter what kind of cardio exercise you get but it is always best to vary your exercise so that you do not overtrain any one muscle group. I never see people speak of this in regards to cardio training but I have found in the past with my bicycling that when I am riding a lot my legs get sore but the rest of my body recovers fine.

So maybe try to alternate some kind of biking, swimming, hiking, running, brisk walking and even using a rowing machine if you have a chance. Do cardio almost every day, five or six days a week is good, seven days a week is pushing it a little too much in my eyes.

Next is the abdominal exercises themselves. There are three places to target for your abdominals, the obliques, which are on your sides, your upper abdominals and your lower abdominals. Doing abdominal exercises is something that some people believe you should do every day but I really believe you are doing well if you just do them every second day or three days a week.

Six Pack Abs – Oblique Exercises

For your obliques you can do twists. Simply sit on a bench with you body straight up and down and put some kind of a light bar or broomstick across your shoulders and then do twists twist from one side to the other as far as you can go for two sets of 100 reps.

The key is to not use much at all as gaining muscle on your obliques will widen your midsection which is not something most people want to do.

Six Pack Abs – Upper Ab Exercises

To work your upper abdominals you want to do some kind of sit ups or crunches.

I am more a fan of crunches as they are easier on your neck and mower back. Lie on your back with your legs up on the seat of a chair so that your legs are at a 90 degree angle to your body and then just lift your shoulders a few inches of the ground and then let them down again.

This should put stress on your abs and you should feel it pretty intensely after just a few reps. be sure to do this exercise slowly and for at least three sets of 30 reps.

Six Pack Abs – Lower Ab Exercises

To work your lower abdominals you need to do something that raises your legs in the air as opposed to lifting your upper body into the air.

The exercise that I prefer for this is a kind of reverse crunch that I do not have a name for. I lie flat on my back and hold something behind my head to keep my upper body stable and then I just bring my knees up towards my chest and back down to the ground again.

If you get really strong this way you can try just lifting your legs straight out and up but sadly I am not that strong.

Transverse Abdominis Exercises

Your Transverse Abdominis muscles are a set of muscles that sits underneath your core and wraps its way right around your body. This muscle is affected most I find by doing planks and side planks.

Working your Transverse Abdominis is a finishing exercise as ince you finish doing these planks and side planks you will have nothing left in your to do anymore working out. Your entire core will be spent

Get Six Pack Abs Now

If you follow this plan you will see results very quickly and depending on how much fat you have to lose you can see rock hard abs fairly quickly. The other great thing about strengthening your abs besides looking better is the fact that strengthening your core makes you stronger overall and help out with your balance and even your stamina.

Still need more help? There is a great book out called The Truth About Six Pack Abs. The book is an ebook and is only available on the internet. If you would like more information click the link and check out the Six Pack Abs book now.

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