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Weight Loss Exercise

Firming Up a Flabby Tummy and Finding Those 6 Pack Abs




Do you have a decent body except for that middle roll of flab that just doesn’t seem to go away no matter how much you exercise or attempt to spot reduce that area? The truth is that the spare tire around your middle is fat ? and you’re not going to see the 6-pack abs buried beneath until you get rid of it.

The trick to reducing fat around your middle is to reduce your caloric intake and eat foods that are proven “fat burners” such as lean protein, salads and vegetables. Reduce your carbohydrate intake, especially in the evening hours when your body is slowing down. Adopt a low fat diet for your lifestyle to burn the unwanted fat and eventually reach the show-off abs you desire.

There is a difference between toning your abs and reducing the fat around your middle. Toning abdominal muscles can be achieved by exercising, but removing the fat must take place from the inside out. It won’t do you any good to try spot reduction exercises if you don’t get rid of the fat first.

There’s no such thing as an immediate “fix” for a flabby tummy. You can spend hundreds of dollars on pills and creams, but you’ll soon realize that the only way to 6-pack abs is to work at it.

While you’re concentrating on a low fat diet, you’ll want to tone and firm the abdominal muscles that lie beneath the fat with exercise. The key to exercising your abs is to do the exercises correctly. If you’re concentrating on tummy crunches to firm your abs and performing them incorrectly you’ll never see success.

So, before you exercise, learn how to do it properly. For example, if you’re doing crunches, learn the correct method of breathing as you’re exercising. A number of good online sites contain information about how to perform abdominal exercises.

Concentrate on resistance training when firming and toning your abs. Use a “fit ball” (sometimes called “exercise ball”) for support if you have problems with your lower back. And don’t overdo it. Three sessions a week is plenty when you’re exercising muscles that have lain dormant for awhile.

Cardio exercises (aerobic) designed to rev up your heart rate can help burn fat, so be sure to include them in your exercise regimen ? and include the ones that work both your upper and lower body. It’s best to do cardio exercises in the morning ? and always on an empty stomach.

Don’t be discouraged if you don’t see results as fast as you’d like. Remember, those 6-pack abs are buried somewhere beneath that fat roll. It’s your job to find them.
Good luck.

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Weight Loss Exercise

Sleep, Rest and Relaxation and health | sleep and rest



Sleep, rest and relaxation are a very important part of your daily ritual. I know that in the past I have gotten reved up with many projects and before long something has to be let go and it is usually the sleep that I need for a while. Don’t do it! As your sleep and rest start dropping you lose focus and can be lured into bad habits, sugar, coffee, and bad food. The worst thing about a lack of rest is that your body will not have a chance to heal from your earlier workouts, this can be very bad as you not only will feel sore longer but it will also suck your optimism for your new lifestyle.

How Much Sleep to Get

How much rest is enough? You probably already know this. I myself do not wake up with an alarm clock or clock radio anymore. I am fortunate to have a flexible start time and know that I will not sleep in past 8:00 in the morning. Try going to be earlier in the evening for a few nights and see when you wake up. In the fall and winter I always tape the TV shows that I watch so that I can get a chance to watch them when it is convenient to me not when it is convenient for the TV networks.

Another thing that pro bodybuilders do is have a nap in the afternoon, a nap can be great in cleansing your mind and letting you learn to relax better but you will probably find as I do that it si almost impossible to do except maybe on the weekends.

You can probably see from the tone of this information that I am delivering here that you must stop treating sleep and rest as something that takes away from something and instead learn to treat it as your own personal time, something a little more sacred than just something unavoidable that has to be done.

The Effects of Sleep

According to leading sleep researchers, there are techniques to combat common sleep problems:

  • Keep a regular sleep/wake schedule
  • Don’t drink or eat caffeine four to six hours before bed and minimize daytime use
  • Don’t smoke, especially near bedtime or if you awake in the night
  • Avoid alcohol and heavy meals before sleep
  • Get regular exercise
  • Minimize noise, light and excessive hot and cold temperatures where you sleep
  • Develop a regular bed time and go to bed at the same time each night
  • Try and wake up without an alarm clock
  • Attempt to go to bed earlier every night for certain period; this will ensure that you’re getting enough sleep

According to sleep researchers, a night’s sleep is divided into five continually shifting stages, defined by types of brain waves that reflect either lighter or deeper sleep. Toward morning, there is an increase in rapid eye movement, or REM sleep, when the muscles are relaxed and dreaming occurs, and recent memories may be consolidated in the brain.

No Hitting the Snooze Button

The experts say that hitting a snooze alarm over and over again to wake up is not the best way to feel rested. ‘The restorative value of rest is diminished, especially when the increments are short,’ said psychologist Edward Stepanski, PhD who has studied sleep fragmentation at the Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. This on and off again effect of dozing and waking causes shifts in the brain-wave patterns. Sleep-deprived snooze-button addicts are likely to shorten their quota of REM sleep, impairing their mental functioning during the day. (New York Times, October 12, 2004)

Certain therapies, like cognitive behavioral therapy teach people how to recognize and change patterns of thought and behavior to solve their problems. Recently this type of therapy has been shown to be very effective in getting people to fall asleep and conquer insomnia.

According to a study published in the October 2004 issue of The Archives of Internal Medicine, cognitive behavior therapy is more effec


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Weight Loss Exercise

Dr Phil lawsuit



OK, I thought I had mentioned Dr Phil before here but it appears that I did not. I have always thought that Dr Phil means well in his show, on his CDs and with his weight loss books but he does get very irritating.

I just saw that there is some kind of a lawsuit being filed against him and I thought it was another one of those crappy “I don’t like you so I’ll sue” type suits but it appears there is more to it

Dr Phil’s Supplements: Class Action Lawsuit?

It seems that Dr Phils program included taking a ton of pills a day to improve your weight loss. I am really against any pills and have to be proved otherwise whenever something new comes out.

The one thing that I am in favor of and take a fair amount of is Vitamins. I feel that in taking vitamins you are just replacing the nutrients that you can not get from food thanks to the bad way in which our meat and vegetables are produced and processed. I have never been in favor of taking excess vitamins to create some kind of thermogenic effect.

In looking at diets and trying to decide which diet is right for you the only important parts are the food and types of food you take in and the exercise that you do. Any extra pills in a diet are something that you would not want to incorporate into your lifestyle forever so you would not want to rely on them in your initial weight loss phase of any diet.


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