Winning Formula for Fat Loss

I hope your health and fitness journey is going well. You know there's so much information out there on how to tone up, lose weight, and build muscle; it can be a little confusing.


What I mean is, diet and exercise are the answer and while everyone knows that, most people fail because they don't have the winning formula of putting it all together.


So I made a little video to help clear the confusion.




... and as I always say, knowledge is nothing without application.

Re-watch the video if you have to, take a few notes and make sure you're doing it right (not some simplified watered down version that doesn't breed positive results).


Here's a couple links to some high intensity workouts that'll help you burn fat faster.
The Backyard Cardio Workout - follow this video to burn a ton of calories in under 10 minutes with no equipment needed!

also Burn more fat with these interval workouts.

Lose Weight with Winning Strategies

Last week one of my clients and I were having a conversation about nutrition and she told me, "you know Tony, I seem to be eating well throughout the day, but dinner is where, everything falls apart".

What I told her was, "This is a quick fix, you just need a winning strategy that becomes automatic".

Losing weight doesn't have to be hard. Actually once you have the right strategies in place it becomes quite easy.

I put together a quick video to show you just how easy it can be to implement and stick with the winning strategies you need for your success.

Check it out...




...and by the way the winning strategy I shared with my client was to make sure she plans her meals in advance for the upcoming week.

Here's how you can do the same. Pick a day you don't work (maybe Sunday) and go through the Healthy Fat Burning Recipe book she has and pick out dinner recipes for the entire week.

Then go shopping and make sure to get all the ingredients needed for these recipes. This can be taken a step further by taking 2 hours to cook all the meals for the week on your off day too.

Then put them in Tupperware and refrigerate or freeze them. Presto! All you're dinners are done for the week and dinner is no longer an issue. Winning strategy complete!

Planning in advance is the key. Without having the meals picked out or the ingredients at home it becomes all to easy to order some high calorie take-out food and sabotage you weight loss success.

You can get the same recipes book as she did. My partners over at Prograde Nutrition have created this 197 recipes Healthy and Delicious Fat Burning recipe book. I highly recommend it to make health weight loss much easier on you.

It's loaded with quick and easy recipes for breakfast, lunch and dinner. You can get it here for only $4.95: http://workoutquest.getprograde.com/prograderecipebook.html

Find Out How Many Calories You Burn With One Hour of Exercise

You already know that to lose or maintain weight, you have to watch what you eat. But you also need to keep active to help you burn extra calories. When you stay active, your body burns more energy, which translates into calories. The goal is to burn more calories than you consume so you can lose weight.

One pound of fat equals 3,500 calories. When you cut 500 calories from your diet each day, you lose about one pound a week. So when you exercise along with cutting calories, you can lose fat faster.

For healthy adults, the Department of Health and Human Services recommends at least two hours and 30 minutes a week of moderate aerobic activity like brisk walking or swimming or one hour and 15 minutes a week of vigorous aerobic activity, such as running — preferably spread throughout the week.

They also recommend strength training exercises at least twice a week.
When you’re trying to maintain your weight, include at least 30 minutes of physical activity in your daily routine. If you want to lose weight or meet specific fitness goals, you may need to increase your activity even more.

While I prefer Boot Camp circuit style training and high intensity interval training to burn lots of fat in a short period of time, any exercise you can get will burn additional calories. Most important choose an activity you like.

This chart* shows the estimated number of calories burned while doing various exercises for one hour. Specific calorie expenditures vary widely depending on the exercise, intensity level and your individual situation.

Activity (1 hour) Weight of person and calories burned
160 lbs. / 200 lbs. / 240 lbs.

Aerobics, high impact 511 / 637 / 763
Aerobics, low impact 365 / 455 / 545
Aerobics, water 292 / 364 / 436
Backpacking 511 / 637 763
Basketball game 584 / 728 / 872
Bicycling at 10 mph 292 / 364 / 436
Bowling 219 / 273 / 327
Canoeing 256 / 319 / 382
Dancing, ballroom 219 / 273 / 327
Football, touch, flag 584 / 728 / 872
Golfing, carrying clubs 329 / 410 / 491
Hiking 438 / 546 / 654
Ice skating 511 / 637 / 763
Jogging, 5 mph 584 / 728 / 872
Racquetball, casual 511 / 637 / 763
Rollerblading 913 / 1,138 / 1,363
Rope jumping 730 / 910 / 1,090
Rowing, stationary 511 / 637 / 763 Running, 8 mph 986 / 1,229 / 1,472
Skiing, cross-country 511 / 637 / 763
Skiing, downhill 365 / 455 / 545
Skiing, water 438 / 546 / 654
Softball or baseball 365 / 455 / 545
Stair treadmill 657 / 819 / 981
Swimming, laps 511 / 637 / 763
Tae kwon do 730 / 910 / 1,090
Tai chi 292 / 364 / 436
Tennis, singles 584 /728 / 872
Volleyball 292 / 364 / 436
Walking, 2 mph 183 / 228 / 273
Walking, 3.5 mph 277 / 346 / 414
Weightlifting free weight,
Nautilus or universal type
219 / 273 / 327

*Adapted from: Ainsworth BE, et al. Compendium of physical activities: An update of activity codes and MET intensities. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise.

Burn more fat with these interval workouts

The saying goes that slow and steady wins the race. Not so with fat burning. You need intervals to keep your body burning calories long after you’re finished with your workout.

When you do aerobic exercise, such as light jogging, your body burns oxygen. When you kick it up to a run, your body doesn’t have enough oxygen to burn and starts using anaerobic metabolism, which produces energy when oxygen is missing. That’s how you burn fat.

Intervals alternate high-intensity and low-intensity workouts all in one. You might sprint for one minute and walk the next minute. Intervals can work with any exercise, whether it’s running, cycling, swimming, on machines at the gym and even walking, just as long as you alternate speeds.

Another option is to vary your intensity in different combinations. You might do 30 seconds of high intensity and 30 seconds of low intensity. Then increase your intervals by 10 seconds until you reach one minute for each. Then bring it back down to 30-second intervals.


Here are three interval options that can help you speed up your fat burning and take you to the next level. Best of all, when these intervals start to get easy, you can either turn up the intensity or the time so your body continues to burn fat. Just make sure you spend as much time exerting as you do recovering. These are also great workouts to do when you can’t make it to boot camp.

Option A: Cardio Machine Intervals


You can do this workout on any machine at the gym, or running or walking.
1. 3 to 5 minutes warmup (light jog, low intensity, gradually increasing at the end of the warmup period)
2. 1 minute moderate or high intensity followed by 1 minute low intensity (repeat 6 to 8 times)
3. 3 to 5 minutes cool down (light jog, low intensity, gradually decreasing by the end of the cool-down period)

Option B: Stair Run


Do this version on a set of stairs or stadium bleachers. You’ll need 40 to 50 stairs to do this properly.
1. 3 to 5 minutes warmup (light jog, low intensity, gradually increasing at the end of the warmup period)
2. Run up the stairs and walk back down (repeat 6 to 8 times)
3. 3 to 5 minutes cool down (light jog, low intensity, gradually decreasing by the end of the cool down period)

Option C: The Commercial Break Workout
While you’re watching television, you can squeeze in some workouts. For each superset, do the first exercise for 20 seconds followed by 20 seconds of the second exercise and then 20 seconds of rest. Repeat as many times as possible up to three times for each superset.

Commercial break 1 – Superset 1
1A. Mountain Climbers
1B. Jumping Jacks
Commercial Break 2 – Superset 2
2A. Burpees
2B. Plank Hold
Commercial Break 3 –Superset 3
3A. Speed Squats
3B. Squat Hold

Mountain Climbers

Begin in a pushup position on your hands and toes. Bring your right knee in toward your chest, resting your foot on the floor. Jump up and switch feet in the air, bringing your left foot in and your right foot back. Continue alternating your feet as fast as you safely can.

Jumping Jacks

Begin by standing with your feet together and arms at your sides. Tighten your abdominal muscles to pull your pelvis forward and take the curve out of your lower back. Bend your knees and jump, moving your feet apart until they are wider than your shoulders. At the same time, raise your arms over your head. Your weight should be on the balls of your feet. Keep your knees bent while you jump again, bringing your feet together and your arms back to your sides.

Burpees

Begin standing, then squat down to a place your hands on the floor. Then kick your feet back to a pushup position. Immediately return your feet to the squat position. Then stand back up from the squat position.

Plank Hold

Lying face down on the floor, tuck your toes into the ground and place your elbows or hands on the ground to the side of your body. Keeping a tight stomach, raise your body up off the ground and hold this position. Don’t let your midsection sag.

Speed Squats

As quickly as you can, do a set of squats. Keep your back flat and press your hips back behind you as you sit as deep as possible. As you descend, keep the majority of your weight back on your heels while still applying pressure through the balls of your feet.

Wall Squat

With feet shoulder-width apart, lean against a wall and gently slide down into a sitting position. Keep your hands off the wall and your legs for maximum burn.

The Truth about HIIT, Slow Cardio and Fat Loss

If you want to burn a ton of calories in a short period of time you need to be doing High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT). HIIT is short bursts of high-intensity exercise followed by a brief rest period. HIIT speeds up your metabolism and forces your body to burn more fat in the following hours, something regular cardio doesn't do which results in faster fat loss.






When I was in high school I accidentally figured this out but didn’t fully understand it at the time. I played football in the fall, so every summer I would try to bulk up by lifting heavy weights and eating as much as I could. I would put on weight eating more food and lifting heavier weights but avoided cardio conditioning until six weeks before the season because I wanted to keep my weight up as high as I could. I figured when I started running I would start to lose weight, which was counterintuitive to my size goals, but I needed speed for the sport. I was naturally lean but didn’t have shredded muscles. When I started sprinting at near maximum speeds for 5 to 60 seconds per sprint, I began getting much leaner with these brief workouts. I started to notice my six-pack would pop out more even though I wasn’t adding additional abdominal exercises or doing anything different with my diet.



As you can see I never worked in the fat burning zone, yet I was able to attain a lean toned body with interval style training and heavy weight lifting. When you start exercising at a higher level you’ll start burning more total calories and your body will respond as mine did.

Another great example is the comparison of the muscle definition of a long distance runner and a sprinter. The long distance runner runs at a lower intensity and the sprinter runs at maximum speed for very short distances. Yes they both carry low body fat but who has more muscle definition? It’s the sprinter every time; and it’s attained by working at intensities much higher than the fat burning zone.

Here's the proof

In 2007 researchers looked the effects of long-term aerobic training for fat loss. The subjects were all sedentary men and women aged 40-75 years old. They all did moderate to vigorous aerobic activity for 60 minutes six days a week for 12 months.

The results were shocking. After 360 minutes of exercise for an entire year the average weight loss was 3.5lbs...after a year! That's only 0.3 pounds per month.

So if you think all those calories you add up every treadmill session is doing something for fat loss, think again.

Reference:
Obesity, June 2007. 15:1496-1512. Exercise Effect on Weight and Body Fat in Men and Women.

Yet another research study looked at the impact of fat loss on endurance training for 20 weeks versus interval training for 15 weeks.

What they found was the endurance training group burned 28,661 total calories and the interval training group burned 13,614 total calories (less than half), but the interval group showed a NINE TIMES greater fat loss than the endurance group.

Reference:
Metabolism, July 1994. 43, 814-818. Impact of exercise intensity on body fatness and skeletal muscle metabolism.

The moral of the story is simple if you want to burn fat start doing HIIT and stop looking at the calories the machine says you're burning because it doesn't take into consideration the extra calories burned after the workout you get from HIIT.

How to do HIIT

Option A: 40 yard sprint. Mark off 40 yards and after a brief warm up sprint hard from start to finish, walk back to the start for recovery and repeat six to eight times.

Option B: Stair run. Find a staircase or stadium bleachers with 40 to 50 stairs. Run up and walk down. Repeat six to eight times.

Option C: Cardio Strength Training. This is one of my favorites. Perform 8 rounds of kettlebell or dumbell swings. For each round do swings for 20 seconds and rest for 20seconds.


Each of the workouts beats the slow traditional cardio training for fat loss and take less than 20 minutes including your warm up and cool down.

How to Tell if You’re Losing Fat

It’s always a good idea to check your progress with any goal that you set. With exercise many people default to checking their weight on a scale. While the scale is a good tool, it can often be misleading. The scale isn’t always the best tool. Here’s why.

First of all, as of now I want you to promise me that you won’t obsess about your weight anymore. I’m serious, the goal should be fat loss not weight loss. There is a difference. You can do a starvation diet and lose weight; you will lose muscle and slow down your metabolism, and look like a smaller version of your current self with little muscle tone. Some people call this “skinny fat” you’re skinny but still flabby. Is that the kind of fat loss you want? I don’t think so?

What you want to do gain muscle which will boost your metabolism and make sure the weight you do lose comes from fat not muscle. If you the scale reads the same weight and you lose inches around your waist and thighs and your body fat is lower; you’ve lost fat but not weight. You’ll have more muscle tone as well. This is why it’s possible for your weight on a scale to remain the same and another reason I like to take body fat percentages and body measurements. This tells you a lot more than the scaled does.

Most women will be healthy fit and lean around 18-22% body fat, no matter what the scale reads. For men it’s around 12-16%.

Think of it this way: Imagine there was a magic fat loss machine – a little booth you could step into and come out looking exactly how you’ve always dreamed of looking: the exact pants size and with the muscle definition you wanted and the right body fat percentage, with abs too (if that’s what you’re aiming for) but there was one catch – this magic machine somehow increased your bone density by 100%? So while you looked great you weighed 50 pounds more. So if you were 150 before now you’re 200 but you look amazing. Would you be happy with that or would that number on the scale make you want other results? Now what if the opposite was true; the magic machine made you lose 20 pounds but you looked exactly the same. Understand how you look and feel and how much you weigh are not necessarily related.

From Rachel Cosgrove’s the Female Body Breakthrough

If you lose 10 pounds of fat and gain 10 pounds of muscle you will look like you’ve lost 20 pounds but your weight will be the same on the scale. Don’t focus on the scale, but how you feel and how your clothes fit.

Alternative tools to the scale the check your progress

Skinny jeans
Get a pair of jeans that are a few sizes too small that you want to be able to fit into. Try them on every couple of weeks to check your progress. Avoid doing this daily! At first you may not get them over your thighs, then you’ll get them over your thighs, but not your hips. After a couple more weeks they get all the way up but you won’t be able to button them, then you’ll be able to button them by sucking in your stomach. Finally they’ll fit comfortably. You won’t need a scale to tell you you’ve made progress!

Measurements
Every month pull out a measuring tape and measure around your chest, hips, waist, and thigh. If you’re losing inches from month to month, you won’t need to worry what the scale says because you are losing fat and gaining muscle.

Photos
Another way to check your progress is to take a photo of yourself. Guys can do this without shirt and wearing shorts and ladies and wear a swimsuit. From month to month you’ll see your progress as your waist shrinks and you lose the excess fat and start to see more muscle definition all over. No need to oil up and get a tan like the magazine ads though :)

Keep in mind weight loss is not always linear. While most people can lose 1-2lbs. a week on average through healthy eating and exercise some weeks you can lose 3lbs. and others you won’t lose any. That’s why it’s called an average. Again shift your focus away from weight and keep the focus on working hard every workout and eating right every meal everyday 90% of the time.

3 Easy Ways to Boost Your Metabolism

If you're like most people you don't have a lot of time to workout. Maybe you're looking to lose a few inches or pounds and what you're doing doesn't seem to be working. It's time to stop trading hours in the gym for a poor result. Let me explain how you can get a better return on your time investment in the gym.

If you want to burn more fat you need to work smarter not harder. Here's what I mean, the more you get your metabolism elevated, the more fat you'll end up burning. Here's three easy ways to boost your metabolism and burn more fat.


1. Increase the intensity of your workout

Don't worry too much about how many calories you burn during the exercise. After all what's more important is how many calories you burn overall, this also includes after the workout is done. Several studies have shown that shorter high intensity workouts keeps your metabolism fired up for hours after the workout is over, something you don't get with long slow cardio workouts.







As strength coach Alywn Cosgrove puts it, "Caring about how much fat is burned during exercise is equivalent to worrying about how much muscle is built during exercise."


During weight training you don't build any muscle, you actually break it down. The recovery process afterwords is where muscle is built. The workout only stimulates what happens after, which is what we are interested in. I just want the end result, which is the fastest way to fat loss.



2. Do Strength Training

Another study showed how strength training keeps the metabolism elevated way after the workout is over. The group did circuit training for 31 minutes using compound movements (exercises that work multiple muscles - not one at a time) and free weight exercises. The findings showed that for 38 hours after the workout was over they were still burning fat! Imagine that, if you worked out at 9 am on Monday you'd still be burning fat at 11pm on Tuesday night from that workout!



3. Eating more frequent meals

A Japanese research team looked at the effects of meal frequency on body composition over a two week period. They took two groups and gave them the same amount of total calories. The first group ate these calories split between two larger meals and the second split their calories into six smaller meals. They found the group who ate only twice per day lost significantly more lean body mass than the group who ate six meals per day.




Losing lean body mass slows your metabolism, so to keep it revved up try to eat something every 3 hours while keeping your total calories in check.

So to recap...
stop doing long slow cardio (unless you're an endurance athelete) and add high intensity work in it's place, do circuit style strength training with free weights, and eat something every three hours to burn more fat.

What everybody Ought to Know About Weight Loss

Weight Loss isn't just about dieting and working out. It's also about your support system.

Do you have people in your life that seem to suck the life right out of your dreams? They may be your friends, family members, or co-workers who are supposed to be supportive of you, but whenever you tell them you’re going to do something they get all negative about it.


You’ll hear them say things like, “You can’t do that” or “I tried that and it doesn’t work”.

Sometimes they’ll pressure you to eat doughnuts someone brought into the office when they know you’re trying to eat clean, “Come on, one doughnut won’t hurt”. I call these people energy vampires.





You need to stay away from them and get around positive people who will support you. It’s hard enough to stay disciplined to exercise and eat healthy as it is, you don’t need other people tearing you down to make it even harder. Their negative words can be poisonous to your success. Avoid them when you can.


You need people in your life that will tell you, “Yes, you can do it” and “great job for sticking with it”. They also understand when you pass on the junk food.



Ask yourself who is in your close group of friends? Are they supporters or vampires – sucking the life out of your dreams? You don’t have to stop being friends with vampires just spend less time around them. Often they do this not because they want to see you fail, but because your success makes them feel worse about themselves because they’re doing nothing to better their situation.



Leave me a comment down below about your experience with the vampires or supporters in your life.

Healthy Sustainable Fat Loss

Hey, I got another guest post from my good friend Carisse Crossland, CSCS whose a Personal Trainer and group fitness instructor in Las Vegas. She's listed some of her favorite tips to help you reach your lose weight and keep it off.


Hold yourself accountable.
Keep a daily journal of food, calories, and activity. People can offer vitamins, recipes, ergonenic aids (caffeine, etc.) but it all comes down to calories in and calories out.

For detailed information - www.mypyramid.gov





Choosing to eat healthy is exactly that, its a choice.
No one is forcing you to eat the cheeseburger. No one is forcing you to NOT make food for the day. We either decide to be healthy or not. Surround yourself with individuals living the way you want to live. Adapt small changes! These small changes will result in long term gains and snowball into a HEALTHIER lifestyle.


For more tips from Carisse sign up for her Motivational Monday e-mail by sending her an e-mail to CarisseCrossland@hotmail.com.


If you like this check out 9 Tips for Successful Weight Loss

Why Slow Cardio Sucks for Fat Loss

Hey I hope you’re doing great and still working hard at your goals as this year wraps up.

Last week I was talking to a new client about fat loss and toning up. She told me she was doing lots of cardio and now looking to start working with weights. Apparently, many people are still stuck doing long duration, low-intensity cardiovascular exercise.


I explained that metabolic resistance training is the fastest way to fat loss and the easiest way I could describe it was “cardio strength training”.

Here’s the deal: if you’re looking to achieve maximal benefit from the time you put into your workouts, long duration “slow-go” cardio is okay if you’re a distance athlete, but NOT the way to go, if you are looking to lose weight.
Here’s why:

1. Not enough calories burned — 45 minutes on the treadmill may burn 300 calories if you’re lucky, which is ONE TENTH of a pound of fat. Exercise ten hours a week and you might just lose a pound! Not good.
Which brings me to my next point:

2. Too much time invested — if you’re like most, you don’t have ten hours a week to put into working out each week. The good news is you only need a few hours tops for fat loss. I’ll get to that later.


3. Slow Cardio is just plain BORING — sitting on an exercise bike staring at the back of some sweating guy in front of you for 45-60 minutes everyday? I don’t think so.


4. No prolonged metabolic benefit — Did you know that with higher intensity exercise it is possible to continue to burn calories for up to 48 hours post workout? It’s true (see Burn Fat Fast). But you know what else is true? Long duration, low intensity cardio provides virtually NO prolonged elevation in metabolism. In fact, with slow-go cardio, metabolism returns to baseline almost IMMEDIATELY following the exercise session.

And finally:

5. Minimal fat loss — Fewer calories burned per minute and virtually no additional calories burned afterward = minimal, if any fat loss results. And what’s the point to doing cardio if not for the results.

So if long slow cardio isn’t the solution, what is?

Short duration, high-intensity exercise. Less time, faster results!


The beauty of “high intensity” is anyone can do it because it’s relative to you. I don’t care if you’re already in great shape or if you’re 50 lbs overweight, you can exercise with increased intensity.

It might be a sprint or a walk up hill but somehow you need to increase the intensity.

Stop doing what doesn’t work and embrace what does work.

If you want the end result, I urge you to add metabolic training to your training. For a sample program try the backyard strength workout.

The Biggest Loser Finale

So I'm watching the Biggest Loser finale the other night and wow did those people lose a ton of weight! I know what you're thinking if you saw the show - how did all those people lose in double digits in a single week and how did that guy lose 28 pounds in a single week.

They're in another world

You've gotta remember on the show they're living a different life than you or me. They don't have to work eight plus hours a day, go to school, take care of the kids, the dog, pay bills or do any of the things we have to do.

Plus they work out for hours a day under the supervision of two trainers that don't take excuses and push them to their limits and beyond. To top it off, they have nutritional and medical staff behind the scenes as well.


How to Lose 10 pounds in a week

Well they don't always lose 10 pounds a week, sometimes they don't lose anything - even with all those advantages. But the more you weigh, the more calories you can burn in a workout. After all walking a mile isn't all that tough when you weight 160, but imagine how much work you'd be doing if you weighed 400 pounds. More work = more calories burned.


The turning point

The contestants all came into the show with a burning desire to change, for some it was a matter of life or death if they didn't lose weight. Even so, at some point each and every contestant wanted to give up at one point or another and without a trainer they would have slowed way down or even quit completely.

You could see from the clips of the first few shows how the contestant were saying things like, "I can't do this", "I have to stop", and "this is too hard". Have you ever pushed that hard where you were telling yourself that? These people were working the butts off.

When you're not accustomed to working hard, you want to give up a lot. But then something changed. They got accustomed to hard work and started to believe they could step up to the challenge.

When you believe in yourself your language changes. They started saying things like, "I can do this" and "I will be the Biggest Loser". When you believe in yourself your language changes and your attitude changes and you can accomplish what you set out to do.


How you can succeed

*You gotta have a burning desire to change. Change doesn't happen by accident. Your health and fitness may not be a matter of life and death, but that's how serious you need to take it. Stop putting it on the back burner. I'm serious - stop it now. Make exercise and nutrition a priority in your life today.

*Change your thoughts. Until you truly believe in yourself you won't accomplish your goals. Stop hoping and wishing. Successful people don't hope and wish... they believe. Change your thoughts and change your life.

*Work hard; then work harder. I know you think you work hard on your own, but trust me, each and every last person I've trained always works harder when their pushed. When you want to give up - don't. Do you see how hard the contestants worked? They results they got weren't on accident.

Give more effort in your workouts and you'll get more in return. To truly push yourself, you need a trainer or at least a training partner; just make sure your partner spend most of the time pushing you, not talking your ear off :)

*Surround yourself with positive, like minded people. The more time you spend around negative people the harder it is to get where you need to go. Joining a boot camp or a running group are great ways to get around people with similar goals who are positive and will support you.

Stop hoping and wishing. It all comes down to believing in yourself and working hard.

Can You Lose Weight Simply By Not Eating, or Do You Have to Workout?

Q: This question has always been bugging me. If you don't eat, is working out really needed to lose weight?



A: You absolutely need to eat! Otherwise, your body will go into a "starvation mode" which slows down your metabolism and stores the food you eat to keep you alive. The problem here is you will lose a little weight, then it will come to a halt and your health will suffer. So it's not worth it.



You can still lose weight without exercising (it's called dieting) but you run into another problem - if you aren't exercising you will lose muscle which will slow down your metabolism and slow down your weight loss.



You can lose weight faster with exercise because your metabolism will speed up by buiding muscle. The added muscle will cause your body to burn more calories and you'll lose weight - so and instead of skin and bones, you'll end up with lean toned muscles.


So while you can lose weight without exercising; not eating is never recommended. You should exercise and eat right for best results. You can actually raise your metabolism even higher by eating small portions often throughout the day, just keep your total calories in check.


If you liked this make sure to check out Clean Eating 101

A New Spin on Interval Training for Weight Loss

It’s no secret diet and exercise are two essential ingredients to natural weight loss. The problem for many is they don’t have a plan to reach that goal? If you run a mile you’ll burn approximately 100 calories. The problem with running a mile is it’s like doing 1000 to 1500 reps of impact double your body weight. That’s a lot of stress on your joints.

If you weight 200 lbs you’re doing 200 lbs x 2 or 400 lbs each rep; and remember you’re doing 1000 to 1500 reps. That’s a lot of forces put on your joints which can put you at high risk for injury.

Switching to the bike can take the stress off but you’re still doing a ton of reps to burn a measly 100 calories.

If you’ve read a few of my blog posts you probably know I believe interval training beats traditional steady state cardio for fat loss. If you’ve tried it you probably agree too. Switching to intervals doesn’t necessarily mean using a bike or treadmill though. Try a circuit using dumbbells, kettle bells or even body weight to burn the calories and keep the stress off the joint.

For a quick and effective body interval workout try the Backyard Cardio Circuit.

Clean Eating 101

If you’re like most people, when you want to lose weight or tone up you already know what to do - diet and exercise. The problem for most is they don’t have the most effective plan to reach that goal. It’s not as complicated as you think.

It starts with the diet. The problem with traditional diets is they are hard! Whether it is counting calories, or always feeling hungry or never having the satisfaction of eating your favorite foods. Forget diets and focus on clean eating to not only lose weight and tone up, but also for maintenance.

Here’s a quick and easy way to eat clean:

1. Eat a big breakfast. This gives you energy when you need it and you have all day to move around and use those calories for energy rather than let them sit and convert to fat.

2. Eat small meals every 2-3 hours. This is as easy as eating breakfast, lunch and dinner, which a small snack between. This keeps the metabolism revved up and helps and prevents you from overeating at your next meal.

3. Eat a small late night meal before bed. You don’t need all those calories from a high sugar or high fat meal sitting all night to convert to fat. Stick with a small meal of lean protein and fruit or vegetables along with healthy fats.

4. Eat only Lean protein, Whole grains, Fruits and Vegetables and Healthy Fats.

5. Follow these instructions 90% of the time for best results.

While I don’t expect you to adopt each and every one of these five habits overnight you can focus on one right away. Once you master it, move on to the next. If you do this, you’ll cut automatically cut out the junk and never feel full. You’ll feel happy, full, have more energy and get in shape once and for all.

Weight loss and muscle building??

Q: I want to lose weight the natural way without supplements. First of all I am 5ft 9in and I weigh 240 and I want to lose weight and build muscle. I don't want big muscles but lean body muscle and I asked a trainer and they said I need to do more reps and less weight on the machines.

My question is what do you recommend? How many reps should I do? how much weight should I use? How long should I do this for? (like how many minutes) please help me.

A: While bodybuilders do high reps and low weight to lose the last bit of fat and keep the muscle they have this isn't your best option. You still need to build muscle first and you have way more fat to lose than they do.

For every pound of muscle you have your metabolism increases enough to burn an extra 50 calories a day. If you added just 5 pounds of muscle that is 91250 calories burned or about 26 pounds that's without diet or cardio!

You can see how important strength training is, but using heavier weights (something you can lift 6 to 12 reps is better for you) since you are not a bodybuilder and have more muscle to build and more fat to burn than the average bodybuilder. Use a weight you can do at least six times but no more than 12 times per set. Lift for 45 minutes three times per week.

For best results do squats, deadlifts, bench press, military press, barbell rows, and lat pulls to get the most bang for your buck because these work the largest muscles and build muscle quicker and burn way more fat.

For additional fat burning try cardio intervals such as the backyard cardio circuit after weight training or on other days.

7 Secrets to Successful Weight Loss

Because I want you to succeed in quest to lose weight, tone up and feel better, I’m going to share with you 7 secrets successful people use to reach their goals.

Does this sound like you?

Someday when I have the time, I’m going to start exercising.
Someday when I have the money, I’m going to eat healthy.
Someday when I’m in shape I’ll start going to the gym.
Someday, someday, someday…

It’s been said that,

It’s been said that, “Someday is the eighth day of week, the only day that never comes”.

Okay so, now that I have your attention here’s those success secrets; and actions you can take:


1. Successful people do what unsuccessful people are not willing to do. Go to the gym when you’re tired. Eat healthy meals when everyone else is eating junk.

2. They get the job done whether or not they feel like it. Take a jump rope and resistance band and workout on vacation.

3. They set goals, write them down and read them daily. If you haven’t done this…please do it today!





4. They never blame circumstances or other people. I don’t care if you do the shopping in your household; it’s your job to influence the person who does. Get healthy foods in to your house and in front of you one way or the other.

5. They start with a dream, turn the dream into a goal, and make a plan to reach the goal. Start with a dream and write it as a goal. If you need help with a plan e-mail me at tony at workoutquest dot com

6. They spend time with other people who have done what they want to do. If you want to lose weight, find someone who has done it and ask them what they did. If you don’t know anyone check this out Steven’s story then find a trainer who specializes in weight loss and hire them to help you. Don’t use the excuse that it’s too expensive either. Where talking about your health and your quality of life. Find some other area to cut back on if you need to.

7. They use momentum. The first week of exercise it hard, but it gets easier by week two, and it’s a habit by week four. Avoid starting and stopping and keep that momentum rolling. If you can’t do a full workout keep the momentum going by doing the No Excuse Workout.

Remember, application is the key. These secrets only work if you apply them.
I’d love to hear some of your favorite success tips in the comment section below.

Check Your Exercising Intensity

If you want to lose weight, you've gotta do the right things for weight loss. It seems like every time I'm in the gym I see people kind of half way working out. They'll be walking on the treadmill aimlessly or lifting the little pink dumbbells that are way too easy for them. Now I've got to give these people credit for even coming to the gym because they could be sitting at home with a remote in one hand and a Krispy Kreme in the other. I think they could do better though.

When you're in the gym why not get the best return on your time investment possible? Forget about all that fat burning zone stuff; there are several studies showing that low intensity aerobic work does almost nothing for fat loss. The harder you work the better results you can expect. Do you ever wonder if you're exercising hard enough to get the results you want?

Check out this video:



The next time you workout use the Rate of Perceived Exertion Scale below to gauge your intensity while exercising.

Level 1: Very, very, light (this is so light; you probably are sitting on the couch with a remote in hand)
Level 2: Very light, Can maintain this pace all day long
Level 3: Light, but breathing a bit harder
Level 4: Starting to sweat a little, can carry on a conversation effortlessly (this may be your warm up)
Level 5: Just above comfortable, sweating more and can still talk easily
Level 6: Can still talk, but slightly breathless
Level 7: Can still talk, but I don't really want to, sweating more
Level 8: harder, can only keep this pace for a short time period (great for interval training)
Level 9: Very hard, want to stop
Level 10: very, very hard. An all out effort that requires every bit of energy you have. (you can only do this a few seconds then you have to stop and catch your breath)

Here’s a quick interval program that if done right will have you sweating and feeling like you actually did something and give you a better ROI on time spent in the gym.

You can do this workout on any cardio machine. Each day use a different machine or do sprints in the pool or at the park. Choosing your favorite activities will increase adherence.

5 minute warm up – gradually build up from level 3 to 5
1 minute level 9
2 minutes level 6-7
Repeat 3 times (four sets total)
5 minute cool down – gradually from level 5 to 3
Total time 22 minutes

I'd love to hear your comments below.

9 Tips for Successful Weight Loss

This is a guest blog from Mike Owens who's a trainer specializing in rotational athletes such as tennis and golf in Las Vegas.

He's listed 9 quick and easy tips to help you succeed in your quest for fat loss.

3 Healthy Snacks
- Turkey burger wrap (lettuce, tomato, onion, turkey patty)
- 1 serving of almonds with medium banana
- Chicken/bacon salad: olives, lettuce, squash, cucumbers, broccoli, tomato, bell pepper, shredded (boneless/skinless) chicken breast, bacon pieces, salad dressing (red wine vinegar, extra virgin olive oil, pepper)

3 Exercise Tips of Fat Loss
- Get the heart rate up
- Do a little everyday...every little bit counts
- Vary your activities (hiking, biking, swimming, strength training) and keep it fun!

3 Nutrition Tips
- Plan meals in advance and cook them the night before
- Eat every few hours (breakfast being the most important meal)
- Record meals in a logbook every now and then to track your progress

Mike is a N.S.C.A. - Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist and YogaFit - Level One Yoga Instructor who holds a B.S. in Kinesiology from UNLV and will have a M.S. in Exercise Physiology (Spring of 2010) from UNLV.

*contact Mike Owens at mhowens85@hotmail.com for more tips*

Steven's Weight Loss Story

Small changes over time can add up to big success. When you're trying to lose weight remember slow and steady is the safe way to go and allows you to maintain it. A few behavior modifications can add up big time if you stick with it.

I brought you an inspiring story from a regular guy who lost over 50lbs. with diet and exercise (No fad diets or photoshop here). Just all natural results!

Read Steven's Story.

1. What was your starting weight? Ending weight?
Starting was 220lbs now I'm 167 lbs (at 5'10")

2. How long did it take you to lose the weight?

I lost 20 lbs in the first 6-8 months, then after I started doing lifting and toning exercises primarily (my cardio weight loss tapered off) I lost another 20 lbs in around the same time frame, maybe 7 months. So 13-15 months approximately.

3. How long have you kept it off?

About a year or so

4. When did you realize it was time to do something about your weight / health ( what was your a-ha moment)?

When my doctor looked at my triglycerides and cholesterol and said "(If you don't start changing your lifestyle and exercising, you WILL have heart disease when you hit your 40s (i'm 27)

5. What lifestyle changes did you make in your diet and exercise regime?
First thing I did was cut sugar soda's out of my diet COMPLETELY. I also started eating veggies for lunch, and yes, smaller portions as well. I also at first completely cut out candy and ice cream, but now I have a little from time to time to reward myself (if I deserve it! ;-P). Lately i've been walking alot, so I've been able to keep alot of it off. I also need to get back to lifting so I can bulk up more and get rid of the rest of the lil fattiness I have left.

6. How was your energy level before? After?

OH MY GOD... My energy level at the very least DOUBLED. I have so much energy now, and have frequently been able to go to clubs and dance all night, go for really long walks/hikes, etc. Also, (maybe TMI lol) but my sex life improved 4-fold! You'd be so surprised how much better it gets, especially with the confidence in your body in addition to the endurance you create with exercise and the extra vitamins and such you get from eating right. I also take 3-4 vitamins in the morning as well, and they help too.

7. What were the keys to your successful weight loss? Maintenance?

SELF-DEDICATION! Don't rely on ANYONE else to bring you there. The desire to change has to come from within, and keep coming from within, or you WILL falter.
Give up sugar sodas and most sugar drinks. You'd be surprised just how much that effects your weight. After switching to crystal light other alternatives (I actually gave up soda altogether, even diet, for a time so I wasn't tempted to get a sugared one) I actually lost about 5 lbs in just around 2 weeks.

Also eat lots and lots of Veggies. Use them to replace foods you normally eat. Also, eat chicken instead of beef and pork as a mainstay of your diet. Not having all the fat works wonders.

Congratulations Steven keep up the good work.

If you'd like your story told leave a comment below.

Backyard Cardio Workout

I hope you're doing great! I made a quick video for you that you can do anytime and anywhere! If you're short on time you can do this quick cardio workout to get your heart rate up fast; or add it to the end of your main workout for a cardio boost.

The best part about it is that you don't need any equipment and can finish it in under 10 minutes. Since it's a quick workout work as hard as you can from start to finish.

I hope you like the video.



Video Recap

Jumping Jacks
Hi Knee Jog in place
Burpees
Mountain Climbers

Do each exercise for 30 seconds each; repeat 3 times with little or no rest between exercises.

To make the workout more challenging do each exercise for 45 or 60 seconds each. You'll still be done it 9 to 12 minutes!

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