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Getting a flat stomach

Wanting to hit the beach, both looking and feeling good? Having a flat stomach is definitely something that plenty of folks would like to have and unfortunately some don’t feel comfortable taking their shirt off when at the beach. I know because I used to be like that. But after working out and eating right I’m glad to say I feel so much more comfortable these days. Now let’s get onto how I did it and how it could work for you too!

Firstly the most important thing I did was I completely overhauled what I was eating. Up until then I was eating lots of junk food, take out, drinking lots of soda, you get the picture. I was very unhealthy and over time the weight began to pile on. I never really noticed it as I’ve always had a skinny body, but over time I became what I learnt was called skinny fat.

So I made the change and first began to eat better. I began to eat lots of protein, specifically chicken breasts, cooked prawns and protein shakes. I also lowered the amount of carbs I was eating but still had a good amount of them in order to give me the energy to help with my workouts.

I cut out most sugary drinks and alcohol. I only allowed myself one can of soda a week, a treat at weekends if I went out with friends.

The next thing I did was start working out. A friend lent me their copy of P90X which I used to great effect. The workouts were fun, challenging and I kept with it for the 90 days.

Which brings me to my next point about toning and flattening your stomach. It didn’t happen overnight for me, or for anyone. It takes time. For the first 30 days I saw minimal results, but rather than getting discouraged I stuck with it, knowing that if I just trusted the process that I’d get what I wanted.  Don’t expect to see results in 1 week then give up because you don’t have a flat stomach.

Remember chances are you didn’t add all your fat in one week so it’ll naturally take a while in order to change your body back. The good news is that it’s much easier to maintain a body than it is to change it, so when you’ve hit your goal, as long as you monitor your diet and follow a good exercise regimen, you can indulge a bit more often without too many negative effects.

The main thing is to be consistent with your diet and your workouts. Show up every day, like Tony Horton says: Do your best and forget the rest.  Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither will your body.

After the 30 days I started to slowly see results and at the end of the program I not only had a flat stomach, but I also had visible abs! Remember, when you start a workout program the first month or so your body is still getting used to the new challenges you’re putting upon it. Once that time has passed and your body begins to adapt and learn how to burn fat and build muscle more efficiently then you’ll be on your way to becoming a fat burning machine!

So in short: you need a plan. Structure yourself a good, balanced diet and workout routing. Or if you’d prefer a done for you plan with proven success, purchase a good program and follow along with it. Now go get it!

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What to eat to lose weight fast?

There’s no getting around it, when you want to lose weight you need to be eating the right foods. It doesn’t matter what else you are doing or how hard you are working, if your diet isn’t good you won’t see progress.

Let’s start with the basics; you need to be burning more calories than you’re taking in. In addition to the calories you’ll be burning if you’re exercising, you also want to structure your diet so that you’re operating at a deficit there too. To lose a 1 pound of fat a week you want to be at a deficit of 500 calories per day. You can calculate how many calories you’ll need to lose weight with many calculators online. Calorie wise, for men try to shoot for 1800 calories a day, and women should go for around 1500 per day. These are just estimates and your needs may very well vary depending on your height, weight, activity levels etc.

Next let’s talk what you should be eating. There’s three main food groups : proteins, carbohydrates and fats. To drop a lot of fat quickly you want to be lowering the amount of carbs and increasing the amount of protein you’re eating. When it comes to your food and how many calories from each food group you should aim for 50% from protein, 30% from carbs and 20% from fats.

Good sources of high amounts of protein are chicken breasts, lean meats such as sirloin steak, turkey, tofu, lentils like chick peas and kidney beans. (Though keep in mind some lentils have higher amounts of carbs than others) A benefit of a high protein diet is that the body has to work harder to process protein as opposed to the other food groups so you’ll actually be burning off extra calories by just digesting it.

Next up are carbohydrates.

These are the main source of where your body gets energy from. By lowering the amount of carbs you consume and strategically timing when you eat them, you can encourage your body to look to using your fat stores instead. In order to further encourage what carbs you do consume to be used as energy rather than stored as fat, what you can do is eat your carbs within an hour after working out. After you exercise your insulin spikes and your glycogen levels are down, by consuming quick carbs you are more likely to use them for energy rather than just adding them to fat stores.  Good sources of healthy carbs can be wholewheat bread, pasta, quinoa, vegetables and some lentils (which also have the added benefit of protein). It is better to eat brown carbs vs white if you’re looking to lose weight, white carbs carry more starch when compared to brown carbs.

Last but not least fats. There are good,healthy fats and there are bad fats. The fats to avoid are saturated fats, the kind you’ll get from greasy, fried and fast food. Good sources of healthy fat are nuts, olive oil, and peanut butter to name a few. A handful of nuts can be a good snack as well as a good boost of healthy fats when you’re feeling a bit peckish.

Now that we’ve talked about the 3 major food groups, good sources and how to structure them when coming up with your diet, let’s talk about what not be eating and drinking.

Obviously you will want to avoid eating lots of takeout and fast food. These foods are not only high in fat but are also very carb heavy and are most likely to be stored as fat. Even a meal or two like these a week is enough to set you back or slow you down in your efforts. If you must indulge limit it to once a week, preferably a day before you have resistance training.

Next tip is not to drink your calories. This is a surefire way to slow down your weight loss since these calories add up a lot faster than you think. This is especially true if you were to have multiple drinks a day, whether its alcoholic drinks or sodas, neither are a good ally when you want to shrink your waistline. Try and opt for water in most cases, sparkling water if you’d like something with a bit of zest in it, this will not only keep your calorie counts down, but also help flush out all the waste and toxins in your body and keep it running smoothly.  Once again if you absolutely have to indulge then try and limit it to a couple of drinks per week, and try to make them low calorie ones such as vodka or a diet soda.

This also brings us to when you’re out socializing. Try your best not to be swayed and cheat on your diet, especially if you’re prone to going out regularly. Most restaurants have plenty of healthy choices and are also fine with substituting things within the dishes if you have different needs. For example you could replace fries with steamed vegetables, or the bread of a burger with lettuce to make a lettuce wrap. (Much tastier than it sounds!)

All of these things are totally do able, you just need to keep at it, ensure you are doing everything you can, both in and out of the gym and you will succeed! Now get after it!

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How to Get Thinner Thighs?

Thighs can be a problem area for lots of women. For men the primary place they store fat is on their belly and hips, for women it’s hips and thighs.  Let’s first understand that it’s totally normal and healthy to have some fat in your thighs. But if you’re looking to tone them up there are plenty of things you can do in pursuit of that goal.

To tone up your legs you first want to ensure you’re getting adequate workouts in. Having a good balance of cardio, weight work, and some yoga and bodyweight exercises is a good step in order to tightening up all the problem areas of your body.

Also understand that it’s not possible to spot reduce fat: which means it’s not possible to directly target losing fat in once specific are and nowhere else. Fat comes off in sheets so it may take time for it to affect your desired spot, but by working out the area, for example your thighs, you can add in a bit more effect so it happens more there. It’s important to note that you shouldn’t be working your legs too hard every day, that’s a sure way to end up overtraining and potentially injuring yourself.

Target your legs with exercises such as lunges, squats, hamstring curls and knee ups are all good options. In addition to this you want to be sure you’re eating healthy, with a calorie deficit in order to get your body to start dropping fat. To help you drop fat it’s best to adopt a low carb, high protein diet. There’s no need to go full keto if you don’t want to but by lowering the amount of carbs you take in your body will be forced to look more towards its fat reserves for energy. Good things to include in your diet are whole foods such as fruits, vegetables (keep in mind how many carbs you’re consuming in these), lean meats, tuna, chicken breast, tofu If you’re vegetarian. You also want to be drinking plenty of water as this can only help you drop the fat. All of this is even more pronounced if you’re teaming a good diet with a workout plan.

It’s important you don’t neglect the other areas of your body while you workout, as that will only add extra strain to your legs if you only focused on them.

Activities like running are a good Segway towards losing weight and toning up your legs. Additionally running frequently is a good stress reliever so you’ll be getting the better of two worlds!

You also want to be sure you’re accurately tracking the effect your workouts and diet are having on your thighs, and for this the best way would be to measure them once a week to see the differences. You’ll be able to see them toning up and the measurements slowly creep down with adequate work and a balanced diet. By doing this you’ll have a full idea of how your work is paying off and the effect it’s having on trimming down your thighs!

Remember like with any plan it hinges on consistency , effort and patience. Keep working and you’ll get to where you want to be, but don’t expect to see results after one week of work. Trust the process and take it day by day and you will succeed!

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Working out but not losing weight?

You’ve been working hard at the gym, you’ve been hitting all your macros, getting all that protein in and feeling good. You step on the scale, hopeful and excited and you see the same number staring back at you again. Frustrated, you eat even less and push yourself harder during workouts. Sure the scale starts to lower a bit but it’s miserable and you soon give up.

One of the most frustrating things when you put in so much effort both in the gym and in the kitchen is when you’re not rewarded for your hard work. We’ve all been there, it happens. It’s important not to see it as failure, more a chance to tweak your strategy.

Firstly let’s look at some of the possible reasons that the scale is refusing to move.

1. You’re taking in more calories than you think. If you’re counting your calories, you may need to double check that you’re taking in what your lists says. This could mean being more scrupulous about measuring and weighing your food before you eat it. Double check your calculations, if you’re going by the calories written on a website or article, when it comes to how much your food is, you may need to alter your sources as they may be giving you the wrong information. Using a site like myfitnesspal or caloriecounter is a good idea as they have a huge range of information that can be tailored to your individual food habits.

If you haven’t been counting your calories, then now is a definite time to change that. If you don’t know what you’re taking in and how much, how can you expect to be losing weight? You may not even be at a caloric deficit! So start counting your calories from now on and you’ll have a better idea of what’s going into your body.

2. You’re building muscle at the same time while losing fat. This is actually a very good thing! Muscle weighs more than fat, so even if you’ve been working hard and seen the scale stay still or even go up, it may be that your body is building muscle in place of fat. There are more accurate and better ways to track your body compositon, which we’ll get into later, but don’t get too discouraged if the scale goes up. If your workout plan involves any kind of resistance training then it’s very likely you’ve been building muscle while dropping fat. As mentioned this is a good thing and will only help you in the long run to burn more fat!

3. You haven’t been pushing yourself in your workouts. Ask yourself honestly, when you workout do you really give it your all? Or do you just go through the motions watching the clock until your workout is over? If you’re not doing the work in the gym and expecting the weight to just drop because you showed up, that simply won’t cut it. Only you know if you’re really pushing yourself and giving an honest effort in your workout routines. If you’ve been taking it easy and half assing your workouts then it’s quite possible that you’ll only see minimal improvements for minimal effort. Remember, when it comes to working out, you only get out what you put into it.

4. You’ve been slacking on your diet. Now this is different than if you were miscounting or not counting your calories but making healthy food choices. If you’ve been snacking on junk food, or treating yourself to a couple of donuts after every workout then it’s no wonder the scale isn’t moving. Now there’s nothing wrong with treating yourself, but if you’re serious about losing weight you’ll do it in a controlled fashion rather than just eating whenever. Try to shoot for one or two cheat meals a week maximum. Otherwise it’s going to be hard to drop any significant weight.

Now let’s look at some other ways to measure your progress that are more motivating and also less deceptive than the scale.

Before we do that, let’s talk about why weighing yourself isn’t the most accurate way to track how you’re doing. The main reason weighing yourself isn’t as accurate is that it doesn’t track your body composition. That is to say, it doesn’t track your body fat percentage, or your muscle mass. So you may have actually lost fat but some of it has now turned to muscle. So if someone had lost 3 pounds of fat and gained 2 pounds of muscle (just for examples sake), they’d only see a loss of 1 pound, when the real information is quite different.

Now onto the other ways you can track progress.

1.Pictures. Taking pictures once a week can be a good way to track your progress as you see your body change week after week. There may not be much initial change in the first couple of weeks but over time you’ll begin to notice changes. Quick tip, take photos at the same time each time. Best time for that would be in the morning after you’ve woken up and haven’t eaten or drank anything.

2. Go by how your clothes fit. This is probably the first thing you’ll be able to notice changes in. Perhaps you have to draw your belt a notch tighter, or notice how a top or dress fits a little looser than normal.  Keep an eye on how you feel and look in the clothes you regularly wear, you may be surprised in the changes.

3. Take measurements of your body. Taking measurements is another great way to track your progress. You’ll be able to see how your body is changing, especially in problem areas such as your hips, waist, chest etc You can also measure other places to track muscle growth such as biceps, thighs, and forearms.

4. Body fat calipers. This is a great way when it comes to figuring out how much fat you’re dropping. These calipers can be purchased pretty cheaply online or from a local store. With these you can track your body fat percentage week by week to see if it’s going down. If it’s getting lower you know you’re losing fat, regardless of what the scale says!

Hope this was helpful! Best of luck!

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How to get a 6 pack

Getting rock hard abs is an ambition so many of us have. We see it on tv, in Hollywood movies, in the sport stars we follow, everywhere we look we’re shown the image of the hero with washboard abs. But how do we achieve the same thing? Let’s talk about how to get that elusive 6 pack, what not to do and how to see results in the fastest amount of time.

Firstly, here’s what’s not to do. If you spend countless hours in the gym working your abs, doing so many sit ups you can’t even  sit up afterwards, you’re actually no closer than before you started those gym sessions. While doing ab work can help strengthen your abs, when it comes to actually getting them to show up, it’s all about a little thing called body fat percentage. Also, when it comes to training abs, treat them like any other body part and work them  normally, you wouldn’t work your back every day would you? Same thing when it comes to your abs, they need to rest too.

Anyway, back onto body fat percentage. Your body fat percentage is how much fat you’re carrying on your body. The lower body fat percentage you have, the higher chances are your abs will be visible. For men it’s usually around 10% they’ll be showing clearly, for women around 14% or so.

In order to get down to that level of body fat, you’ll need to be dropping fat and building some muscle. What you’ll want to be doing is a combination of Hiit (High Intensity Interval Training) and resistance training. (Lifting Weights) In a 6 day split you could do 2 days of cardio with 4 days of weight training, not in that order!

You want to be cutting down the levels of fat on your body, while preserving what muscle mass you have, that’s why we don’t want to be doing purely cardio. If we were to do that your body fat would decrease, but so would your muscle mass meaning you’d be more likely to end up with a flat stomach as opposed to having chiseled abs.

Next we’re onto the most important aspect: DIET. Like the saying goes, abs are made in the kitchen. It doesn’t matter how much you workout, you can’t out work a bad diet. If you’re eating junk or even just eating at a caloric surplus (taking in more calories than you’re burning), you’re just going to gain weight and move further away from your goal.

Aim for a high protein diet with lots of good, whole foods such as chicken breasts, fish, some lean meat, vegetables, fruit, and good sources of fat such as nuts, peanut butter and olive oil. You’ll also want to be ditching alcohol and soda as drinking your calories is a sure way to start adding inches to your waist, which will only hide your abs under even more fat.

Quick note on alcohol; if you want to avoid a beer belly and are serious about your quest for a six pack, you’ll avoid drinking or limit your drinking to a couple a week maximum as it will only slow you down. Drinking your calories is not only a waste, but also one of the easiest ways to add extra weight without even realizing as drink doesn’t fill you up in the same way food does.

When it comes to working out your abs, you can certainly work hard on them to make them stronger for when they are visible. Train them once or twice a week, with adequate recovery in between. You can also incorporate plenty of core work in your regular routines to help strengthen the area further. Exercises like squats and deadlifts are good options as they force your core to remain active during the movement.

How to make my 6 an 8 pack?

This is another question that comes up a lot too and unfortunately there’s no 100% certain way to do this. How your abs look will largely depend on you and your genetics. While you can strengthen what you’re working with, the actual symmetry and how they’re formed is pretty much set as they are. Some people are able to develop an 8 pack, and others aren’t; it’s just how it is. Don’t be discouraged though, a 6 pack is not a bad consolation at all if you were keen an on 8 pack!

Like with any exercise regimen, the key is to stay consistent and work hard towards your goals. With this one it can’t be stressed enough that it is your diet that will make or break your results. Don’t work hard in the gym just to waste it cheating on your diets! Make it happen!

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Rules you should know for the best abdominal muscle workout for men

Getting that perfect six-pack abdominal is fantasizes come to life for men. It is generally seen amongst men that although they are healthy, they would not be thought about fully fit if they still have a sticking out stubborn belly line. Health-conscious individuals are continuously looking for the most effective ab workout for men to keep a lean and also trim figure. There are no quick-fix methods to remove this stubborn abdominal fat. You surely require to work hard in the direction of it. Check this out to know standard rules that you need to understand about the very best abdominal muscle workout for men.

1) Persistence and resolution are important variables for any kind of weight loss program. Today physical look and fitness have ended up being extremely essential and also for that, you actually need to strive on your abs as men normally have a tendency to overdo weight around. Some men have genetics or some hereditary issue of piling weight in the abdomen location.

2) Excess body fat can trigger serious illness like diabetes, excessive weight, blood pressure, edema, etc.

3) Best abdominal muscle workout for men is cardiovascular exercise like running jogging etc. which can be done on the treadmill and also on the elliptical or in a real setting. These cardiovascular workouts like spinning, biking, riding, running etc. rise body metabolism and with better metabolic process fats are charred faster. Some of the stomach exercises like crises; sit-ups etc. certainly aid in eliminating excess fat. You need to work out for 30 to 40 mins for a minimum of 5 days a week to lose fat around your abdominal area.

4) For the effectiveness of the most effective abdominal workout for men you need to deal with your diet plan in addition to proper workout. The belly fat is very stubborn as well as you actually require to strive on it to lose it. You should avoid all sort of junk food including fried and also high refined foods. Rather, boost the consumption of vegetables and fruits in the diet as well as beverage a lot of water to keep your system moisturized. Stay clear of immediate and also semi-cooked microwave food. Instead, eat freshly cooked food as well as prevent sodas.

5) An additional crucial variable that you require to take into consideration for the efficiency of the system is that you need to never ever starve yourself or maintain long intervals of food. In fact, starvation triggers weakness and also reduces metabolic rate.

6) You should eat regularly but consume healthily and also eat fresh fruit, veggies, juices, breast meat etc. that are reduced in calories. By developing a calorie deficiency in the body incorporated with exercising you will certainly lose your belly fat.

7) The most effective abdominal muscle workout for men is cardio, jogging and abdominal area workouts and also these when clubbed with correct weight training you can create the perfect six/ 8 pack abdominal muscles which a lot fancied by people throughout the globe. The abdominal muscles workout can be really exhausting and need a lot of commitment but once you see results you will get a motivation to function more difficult.