Swimming to slim

Swimming is great all over exercise but may not be the best for slimming. Researchers at the Unoversity of Florida had subjects exercise on a static bike under water for 45 minutes, first in water at 20 degrees C, then after a 45 minute rest, in water at 33 degrees C.

After each session they spent time in a room full of food without being told their calorie intake would be monitored.

After exercising in the cold water the subjects ate 44% more calories than after the warm water exercise and 41% more than after just resting.

So it would seem that body temperature affects your post-exercise appetite. Swim by all means but get into some warmer exercise before finishing your workout.

Heavier weights to build muscle

Thanks for the comment Kimberley (see How To Get Rid Of Flabby Arms Jan 24). Yes you are absolutely correct. Heavy weights do need to be used if you want to build muscle.

Toning that underarm flab, like any part of the body, requires two things: an overall approach to reducing excess body fat rather than a spot reducing approach - which won't work of course.

The second thing is the right exercise to strengthen and build those underarm muscles. Light weights are great to start with so you don't get sore or strain muscles that aren't used to work. But it is essential to gradually increase the weight so that those muscles are working progressively harder and growing stronger.

Also ladies don't worry about getting big musclely arms. They are a lot of hard work.

Doing lots of these exercises with really light weights may help a little to start with but you'll mainly be working those red slow twitch endurance muscle fibres. These are the ones endurance athletes work most and they generally don't have huge muscle size.

So the heavier weights are better for working the fast twitch fibres which become bigger over time. They fatigue more quickly, that's why you won't be doing as many repetitions with the heavier weights.

And it's also a good idea to work the whole body, not just the triceps group, otherwise your training regime and your musculature will be out of balance.

Using mind to build muscle

I've always believed in the power of visualization and now breakthrough research in the field of exercise physiology has yielded stunning revelations about the way we get fit. The big surprise, though, is not what we "have" to do, but what we might "not" have to do.

Our thoughts can literally redefine the size, shape and strength of our bodies.
Read this interesting article by Jonathan Fields (Source: JonathanFields.com) on how imaginary workouts can build strength and fuel weight loss.

http://www.mindpowernews.com/ImaginaryWorkout.htm

How To Get Rid Of Flabby Arms

You won't want to hear this but the first priority is to reduce the body fat overall.

Now, in order for that flabby area under your arm to become tone, you'll need to build the triceps muscles in the back of the arm. There are several good exercises you can do to build up that area.

Some of the more common and better exercises you can do for the back of the arms are * Weighted dips * Close grip bench presses * Close grip push ups * Lying barbell French presses * Overhead cable extensions * Cable press downs * Reverse cable press downs

Combining these exercises with a good all round fat reduction program of diet factors and high intensity interval training will see those flabby arms tone up nicely. And the bonus will be...

So will the rest of your body.

Fat Attack Massage Oils

I love having a massage don't you? They are excellent after workouts. Apart from the health benefits of improved blood circulation and lymph drainage and so on... they just feeeel soooo good.

Now I have heard tell that massage can even help break up fat. I'm still on the fence on this one but here is a massage oil that's supposed to break up fat. Maybe you'd like to try it out.

Combine:

30 drops of essential oils blend
2 tablespoons of almond oil
10 drops of carrot oil

Blend the almond and carrot oil together before blending in the essential oils. Rub it on your stomach, hips and thighs in a circular motion ( or better still get someone else to rub it on!).

Let me know if it works.

Answer to Chris

It's been suggested that eating whey protein right before a workout might have a beneficial effect.

Whey protein is certainly the superior protein powder. Whey proteins are highly digestible. They have an even better amino acid profile than egg whites, so whey protein has the highest biological value of any protein. It’s absorbed, used and retained better. This makes it more tissue sparing, making it a benefit to people as they diet, age, train or have illnesses or disease.

It’s high in BCAAs which are the aminos most oxidized during exercise and it may even decrease soreness in muscles and assist in recovery from athletic activity because of its quadra-peptides which have pain killing qualities. It may also contribute to bone cell growth, potentially strengthening all the bones in the body.
Whey protein also boosts the body’s ability to fight infection. Intense training lowers immune system response but whey boosts immune response. It helps build up the body’s own antioxidants by raising the levels of glutathione, an essential, water-soluble antioxidant that protects cells and neutralizes toxins.

It inhibits the growth of iron-dependent bacteria, scavenges free iron, can block the growth of pathogenic bacteria and yeast, can stimulate the beneficial intestinal micro flora and has antibacterial properties.

Now in this day and age we are so busy that it’s difficult for most people to eat the recommended six meals a day. This is where protein powders are a great help. It is much easier to have a breakfast a lunch and a dinner and three protein shakes in between.

But the best time to have it is probably in the 90 minute window after your workout as that is when your body needs the extra protein to repair and build up the muscle tissue after the workout breakdown. If you’re going to have anything before the workout it needs to be carbohydrate high rather than protein high, in order to fuel the workout.

The other good time to have it is before bed so your body has building nutrients to work with while you sleep. After all a late night snack of carbs isn’t needed unless you are going to be exercising in your sleep.

Eating before workouts

You need energy to work out right?

The energy you get from working out comes from glycogen, a substance that is stored in the body in muscles and the liver.

It's not a good idea to eat a big, filling meal then workout. After a big feed your body wants to direct blood and energy to the digestion system, not the muscles so you won't feel much like exercising mentally and your body won't either.

If you're really hungry before working out, have a piece of fruit, a glass of juice, or even a baked potato. But if you work out for an hour or less anything you eat right before a workout really doesn't have enough time to get into the form of glycogen. The workout's over by the time the fuel's coming available.

The most important time to eat is after a workout, when the muscles are depleted of fuel and hungriest for nourishment and replenishment.

Fat & Muscle not the same

Despite all the good information that's around about losing weight, I still hear of people trying to trim their waistline by doing abdominal exercises.

The focus is on thinning the waistline. That's fair enough but success means using a wider approach than just exercising the abs.

You need a basic understanding of what it is you are trying to trim down. We're talking here about the difference between fat and muscle.

Fat around your waistline is excess calories and is primarily stored in layers on top of your muscle tissue. It is a completely different substance and cannot possibly turn into muscle. Muscle is made up of fibers that contract or shorten to produce movement. They in turn can never turn to fat.

Exercising that area will strengthen the muscle tissue that is all around that area contributing to good core strength. Exercising that area alone won't do much to get rid of the flabby spare tyre. I'll tell you tomorrow what will.

Breathe From the Diaphragm

Have you ever watched a baby breathe? You'll notice that their belly expands with each breath. This is how humans are supposed to breathe, from the diaphragm. The baby's diaphragm is creating a suction that pulls oxygen into the lungs.

Yet even though we breathe non-stop every day all day, most people have forgotten how to breathe properly.

As we get older, many of us unconsciously switch from natural deep diaphragm breathing to shallow chest breathing.

To experience diaphragmatic breathing, place your hand on your waist. Take a deep breath and expand your belly; your hand should move outward as you inhale and inward as you exhale. If you practice this, you will find that it gets easier and easier to take deep, full breaths from your diaphragm.

Breathe deeply

You can live without sunlight for years, without food for weeks, without water for days, but without oxygen, you will die in a matter of minutes.

There’s no doubt oxygen is life. Your body runs on oxygen. The more oxygen you put into your lungs, the more energy you will have. To have a healthy body that is full of energy, one of the things you can do is develop the habit of deep breathing.

Most people only breathe into the upper part of their lungs. Notice how you breathe. You will probably find each breath is fairly shallow.

So make a conscious effort to breathe more deeply and you'll get:
* More energy
* Less stress
* Stronger immune system
* Better mood
* Improved quality of your blood
* Better elimination of toxins
* Rejuvenated glands
* Better posture

Go on, take a big deep breath now.

Do you need a reason?

Why do people exercise?

The obvious answer is for better health.

But you can exercise to become a better exerciser - just to improve at something.

Or you can exercise to become a better mother, a better father, doctor, teacher, or a better friend - because it makes you feel better in yourself so you can feel better toward others and be more able to 'play' with them.

Or you can exercise just to become BETTER.

Now that’s an accomplishment to be proud of.

Understand your energy cycle

Want to know one way to keep yourself motivated on your exercise program?

What’s that??

You aren’t on one!!!!

Crikey you’d better get onto one quick smart!

Anyway where was I?

Oh yeah - staying interested in your exercise program can be aided by a little bit of awareness of your body.

There are peaks during our days. Even during the week. Become aware of when your energy is highest. Try to complete your workout around those times when you feel stronger and more likely to feel good about yourself.

Simple eh? Okay? Go for it!

Just show up

Feeling lethargic?

Just get into something that's a bit active. Even if it's only getting up off the couch to start with. Move. Go to the gym, a class, or the park.

Once you're there, it's hard to say no. The more you hang out on the couch the harder it is to get up from. Maybe fresh air and sunshine has something to do with it.

98% of life is showing up.

Body composition

When it comes to counting the calories you ingest in order to lose weight there are a number of things to consider.

The first is body composition. Basing calorie intake purely on body weight is wrong. Your body composition, lean muscle tissue to fat ratio, is far more important.

The more lean muscle tissue you have the more energy (i.e. calories a.k.a. food intake) you use up just to maintain that tissue.

I believe the bodybuilding lifestyle is ideal for attaining ideal weight and health. Resistance training will actually build muscle (provided you get sufficient protein and nutrients) so that your body burns more calories even while resting.

So if you’ve got some scales you also need a set of body calipers to get an assessment of your body fat percentage. These can be very expensive but you can get a very simple set for about $20 which are pretty good. They are the Accu-Measure body fat calipers. Simple to use on yourself and with easy to understand instructions.

Fat cells – Your body’s fuel tank

Your fat cells are like little balloons. As they fill up with fat they expand accordingly (along with your waistline). Since the body is focused primarily on survival and storing as much away as possible in case of famine later on, if it fills up all its fat cells it just creates a few more. (It’s like it fills up the storeroom it’s born with so then it creates new storerooms to store the extra food).

Interestingly, once created, these fat cells are never destroyed. You can empty them but they are still there, ever ready to be filled up again whenever you have excess blood sugar. This excess energy in the blood stream will be stored in these fat cells.

So these fat cells become the body’s reserve of energy. A reserve is just that – held in reserve and used last after all other fuel sources have been used up.

In other words body fat is the last thing your body wants to use for energy, especially if your blood sugar levels fluctuate constantly because of poor eating habits.

And look at the foods we eat today... a lot of sugary, high fat, high GI refined carbohydrates. At least there’s a lot of foods like that clamoring for our attention in the advertising world and on the supermarket shelves.

This is an important point because your body has a kind of intelligence whereby it registers long periods without food and irregular eating patterns as a potential threat to survival. It doesn’t know when the next feed will be so the instability and uncertainty of the food supply is countered by it storing fat whenever it can.

So if you give it too much by overeating, it stores it as fat.

Conversely, if you don’t give it enough it goes into survival mode, slows your metabolism and stores fat as easily as possible.

If you create both those situations by infrequently eating and then having large meals sporadically the problem is compounded as the body interprets the situation as needing even greater fat storage. Talk about being between a rock and a hard place eh!

With the body predisposed to storing fat and conserving it, it’s no wonder obesity is on the increase. When we couple this body design feature with the facts that lifestyles are so sedentary and the food supply is diminished in quality as well as plentiful compared to only a few generations ago, it’s not likely to change either.

Unless of course you are aware of how and why your body gets fat, which you do now. Knowing this puts you in a position of power so you can maximize your energy, minimize your fat storage and avoid the weight loss battle altogether. Good luck with it.

Why your body stores fat

Studies around the world are clearly showing that obesity rates continue to climb despite the weight–loss industry being worth billions of dollars. With all the aids to weight loss why is it that people continue to get fatter?

It’s pretty obvious there are powerful commercial forces at work to keep people fat. There’s big money to be made if more and more people want to lose weight.

More on that later but physiologically, the answer lies in how the body was designed to survive.

The body is all about survival. In a psychological sense the subconscious creates beliefs that are formed, initially at least, for safety and psychological survival.

Such a mechanism could be in place when an abused child grows up obese as a way of protecting herself from the advances of men, or as a way of proving that she has control, for instance. There could be many possible events and beliefs that provide the reasons behind the obesity. They may not even be significant. It could be started from a careless remark that was interpreted in a way that made the person feel threatened in some way.

In a physiological sense though the body maximizes its chances of survival by ensuring it has maximum energy reserves available to meet its needs. Those needs, of course vary according to the level of activity being engaged in.

Now most people tend to fall into habit patterns of eating on a regular schedule and generally eating until they are feeling full. They do this without thought to what activities they will be engaging in next. So any food intake (calories) in excess of what the body needs at that moment or the next couple of hours will be stored away for later.

And how will it be stored? As fat.

To the body, it’s like hoarding up supplies for a rainy day.

More on this tomorrow.

Intervals

When it comes to exercise I know most people are not to keen on cardio exercise. That’s the type that get your heart rate up. Cardio workouts are important because they can, if done correctly, increase your metabolism for 4-24 hours or more after the exercise!

This means you are not as likely to store excess calories as body fat because they are more likely to be burnt up because of your elevated metabolism. Plus, you are also more likely to burn off some excess body fat that you already have.

It’s not good enough to just go for a brisk walk every day however. The best form of cardio exercise workouts are short, hard cardio workouts. The best for increasing your metabolism are intervals.
, body
An example interval workout that can be done with just about any activity, walking, bicycling, swimming, stair climbing, etc., might go like this:

Warm up at easy pace 2-5 minutes then perform 30 seconds of hard work (almost as hard as possible). Then ease off and perform 1 minute of moderate work (recovery time and catch your breath).

Repeat this process 6-10 times. Cool down at an easy pace for 2-5 minutes. While it is intense, you sweat and breathe hard, it goes by pretty quickly and you feel great afterwards. Try it 2-3 times a week.

Are you stable?

Stable blood sugar is a major the key to fat loss.

Stabilizing your blood sugar is by far the most important factor when
it comes to burning away excess body fat and keeping it off!

To effectively stabilize your blood sugar you must feed your body frequently; like every 2-3 hours. Now I don't mean pig out whenever you like on whatever you like! The Main thing is to give your body only what it needs at the time to meet your energy requirements for the next few hours.

Your body burns calories 24 hours a day, so, why would you only feed it once or twice a day? A steady trickle of nutrients into your body is way more efficient than going without food till you feel really hungry then having a big meal which leaves you feeling full. Give your body the fuel it needs and no more… food such as vegetables, fruits, nuts, berries, whole grains, and lean proteins (chicken, fish, lean beef, eggs, etc.). Always have some protein with your meal.