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Burn the Fat Feed the Muscle

October 8, 2008 by Dheny  
Filed under Product Review

The author is a freelance writer, a natural body builder and a coach; Tom Venuto is a definitely a jack of many trades. This guy’s article is often featured on various health and fitness magazines that are hungrily being consumed by his followers. What makes Tom’s book a success and what differentiates it from the rest?

Burn the Fat Feed the Muscle is a book that offers various tools that can aid a person in tweaking an individual’s diet in order to achieve optimum levels of fat burning efficiency. The book teaches a person how to calculate the needed nutrients for their body type in order to reach their fat loss goal as well as calculating the exact lean body mass goal.  Like any other weight loss or diet plan, assessing ones body type as well as understanding what work and what does not work for your body is a must, otherwise all efforts will be futile.

BFFM or Burn the Fat Feed the Muscle, is a book aimed at an over all health, fitness and wellness standpoint. Tom Venuto made sure to emphasize the importance of over all fitness articulated with positive reinforcements that mentally stimulates a person to challenge themselves to do their best and be the best. In weight loss programs our real competitors aren’t the people lined up beside us jogging with much frenzy on their machines, instead we compete with ourselves. We battle to go beyond our personally set limitations, to reach new goals and then strive harder to beat that as well. The book provides excellent coaching skills for the body and the mind.

A very educational book that is written in a well rounded manner, the author asserts the importance of knowing how something works and how to make it work properly results to choices and decisions that are more thought of. The positive approach of the book is possibly one of the biggest reason that made it a sure hit. The writing style is fresh and is filled to the brim with information and ideals that are applicable beyond the realms of your fitness center. The body is a temple that needs not just to be worshipped but kept clean and maintained to achieve longevity.

The book gives an in depth information regarding goal setting, education on food nutrients, body typing, exercise and the formulas that teaches how to properly calculate exact rations and nutrient amounts that differ per individual. That perhaps is the key component in achieving a weight loss or fitness goal. As part of an additional bonus, the book includes”recipes” that are guaranteed to help blast out the fat, or foods that burn fat or foods that turn into fat are just some of the extra helpful reads provided.

Amusingly there are very few things that are new in this book; its contents are not exactly unbeknownst to man. Instead most are mere reaffirmations of concepts that are neglected or overlooked. Obviously as our body changes it is necessary to tweak external factors around it. Diet’s, exercise regimens and the like should be able to keep pace with the body’s constant changes and needs.

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Why walking will always be better then running

September 2, 2008 by Dheny  
Filed under Fitness

Think about it, there are hundreds of thousands of people who do a daily run or a daily jog and think that doing this is actually better then just walking, well actually their wrong and new scientific evidence shows that walking for one hour to two hours a day is actually better then running or jogging for the same amount of time. I know it seems unlikely but there are some finer points in exercise that means that this is actually true, now for the science lesson.
You probably already know that when you run or jog for a prolonged period of time you eventually get breathless and your body starts to generate lactic acid in order to carry on because the muscles are not being supplied with enough oxygen anymore. This build us is toxic to the muscles and eventually means that you have to stop and wait for the pain to subside. With jogging it tends to take longer then running but it happens non the less, this build up is actually a good thing in cases or building up resilience to lactic acid but you want to lose weight not build up resilience.
Walking beats both running and jogging because you burn calories slowly and over time without causing pain to the body. This slow burning of muscles is also beneficial in the way that it actually means that the fat in all parts of the body are slowly burn. Which is a lot more useful then burning calories and fat at a quicker rate that causes actually a lower amount of calorie burning? It seems unlikely but it is true and proven, walking burns more calories because of the slow burning process.
There are also the non fitness/exercised based reasons why walking is better;
It is easier on the body; this causes less muscle stain and therefore reduces the risk of injury from working out.
You get to take your time and take in what is around you, which is opposite to jogging where you only notice where you are going.
You can easily talk on the phone whilst walking, you can’t do that when your jogging, well you can but they hear you continuously panting and it just doesn’t sound right.
You walk everyday already and therefore it comes naturally to you so you don’t need to learn the correct breathing or the right speed of which to run in order to maintain a good step that doesn’t make you breathless.
And finally if you’re a women or just a man who likes to shop, it gives you a perfect excuse for doing it more, because you walk around the shops, try stuff on walk to other shops and so on and so forth.
So as you can see there are many benefits to walking that actually make it a safer and in fact better way to lose weight, maintain your body shape and tone your body.

Keep Up Your Energy Levels

September 2, 2008 by Dheny  
Filed under Fitness

When you want to get fit then it can be hard, especially with the drains of modern life. A lot of people now find it hard to keep their energy levels up enough to actually try and exercise and make healthy meals for themselves.
It could be the fact that you are not eating right that is the underlying cause. If you are on a diet this is a particularly important issue to look at as it is not worth feeling drained just to feel thin as you will not be able to take advantage of it. Diets that reduce carbs, such as the famous Atkins, are a big no-no for maintaining good energy levels. If you insist on dieting then use one that lets you eat carbs, such as The Zone Diet.
Eating slow releasing energy food such as nuts or trail mix will make sure that you keep your energy levels going throughout the day rather that getting worn out quickly. Try a handful of these at your desk or as a mid morning snack and have another with your lunch.
Ways to boost your energy that do not involve food are very varied. If you are keen o try alternative therapies then aromatherapy could be good for you. Try using peppermint, eucalyptus or rosemary essential oils to boost your energy levels and keep you focussed. This could be on a tissue or placed on a radiator so it fills the room; however you decide these are the 3 best energy boosting fragrances.
Power naps are an obvious but effective solution. If you have an afternoon break of 20 minutes, do not work in a strict environment or have your days free then take a 20 minute nap in the afternoon. If you cannot drift off then just try and clear your mind and relax. 20 minutes is the perfect amount of time to refresh you without making you unable to sleep at night.
A possible cause of having no energy is dehydration. Have a drink at least every 2 hours, especially on hot day or if you are exercising. Aim to drink about 8 glasses of water a day in total and try not to exceed this by too much as it could affect the essential salts in your body and water them down.
One of the oldest but easiest ways to boost energy is to go outside. A walk in the sunshine or simple exposure to it, even if only for a few minutes, can make you more alert and happier so you can go about your day with a smile. If it is overcast then still go out as rays can get through the clouds. If necessary though, a light box may help you stay alert.
Energy levels are vital to stay fit as having energy means you can live life to the full as well as doing things like exercising. Eat small regular meals, go out for walks and nap to make sure you are alert all day, or try any of the other tips here.

How to make and use a training routine

September 2, 2008 by Dheny  
Filed under Fitness

Firstly if you don’t know already a training routine is much like the revision time tables you use to do back in school, generally its set out in the same way. You first make a time table of a 7 day week and break it into 2 hour or one hour blocks, then fill in all of your scheduled activities, such as work. Then take away a good 6 hours minimum for sleep at night and you should end up with white spaces all around on your table, these are the times which you should use to do fitness. If you have more then one white space in a day then you can, if you want to, do two lots of exercise in the same day. You don’t have to fill in every white space with exercise; you should try and make a timed commitment to at least 3 one hour exercise sessions a week.
Now that you have the basis of your fitness routine you now need to think about what you are going to do in that time, this can range from a while list of things, such as; Bike riding, walking, jogging, weight lifting, yoga, tennis, football, hockey, ice skating and so on and so forth.
Pick just one thing you like to do or think you could enjoy doing and then break it down into its sub sections, for example, if you want to do weight training maybe you could spend 20 minutes working on your biceps and 20 minutes working on our legs then work on your triceps for the final 20 minutes, if you have chosen to work out for one hour periods.
Using this method to workout which ways are best for you to remain healthy and fit can be very self rewarding in other aspects. It gives you an overview of your weekly or bi weekly (if you chose to do a two week in advance table) of your life and what you actually do in that time, this enables you to better work out your time each day and find out ways in which you can increase free time for your self or the generate more time to devote to training and exercising to remain fit and healthy.
Obviously if you have children or other commitments that cannot be mapped out then this can cause issues with your plans but you can still try and factor in time with your children, grand kids or meeting of which you have little notice in.
A major benefit of planning out your days like this is that it gives you control which is scientifically proven by many studies thought the years to reduce stress which in turn protects you from a high number of stress related illnesses that can cause you serious injury or even death (in such cases as heart attacks and strokes which can leave you partly paralysed).
It takes 5 minutes to draw up a week plan and it can save you hours in lost time every day.

Bike riding V taking the car

August 26, 2008 by Dheny  
Filed under Fitness

Let us face it normally when you think of alternative travel you think of the bus instead of the car and maybe ever once in a while the idea of walking to work creeps into your mind but just as quickly seeps out.
Bike riding is slowly becoming the new car with the rising price in petrol and higher amounts of congestion on the road its high time that you actually start to seriously consider if the car is really worth the, money, stress and the loss of valuable fitness time.
Biking brings around many beneficial factors as well as the obvious financial ones. Biking is fast and therefore you do not have to worry about taking 8 times as long because you have decided to use your bike. You also get a free ride whenever you go down a hill so at that point you don’t even have to use your legs. Then there is the fitness side, even if you are on your average weight for your height and age it does not mean that you are actually fit. Fitness is defined in various ways but you can easily be thin and have fat develop around your internal organs which is life threatening.
Keeping fit should be your number one thought when you are deciding, what things to eat, what to do and when making plans. We all have dreams of what we want to do or where we want to go but at the end of the day if you don’t maintain a healthy and fit life it is highly unlikely you’ll actually live to do the things you want in the distant future.
Biking works on your leg muscles which are probably the most important muscles to work, this is because your leg muscles use up a high amount of energy when there being used, this in turn burns calories which then means that you weigh less and gain more muscle. Gaining more muscle is also beneficial as the process then becomes stronger reducing more fat and generating more muscle the next time. Obviously there are also downsides such as the tiredness feeling you get once your done and that’s because of the lactic acid build up in your muscles so you will quickly recover. If your nto a fan or hard biking then taking just a slow ride around your local area once a day or even 3 times a week can improve your general fitness and reduce fat and burn calories, helping you to maintain your ideal body shape.
So what are you waiting for, go buy a bike or get that one you have hidden at the back of your garden shed out and start biking! You can even start doing biking with friends make it into a little endurance test whoever can ride the longest or a race if you like for hard fast burst of workout that will develop your fast twitch muscles within your legs.