Why Crunches Never Create 6 Pack Abs?

Almost everyone has tried some gadget of abdominal fitness routine in hope of decreasing the size of their midsection. They restless souls blast away at countless crunches only to find themselves not accomplishing their mission of the 6 pack abs.

So the next step is give up or hire a fitness professional to help.

Most People come to us and say I want to work on THIS, pointing to their mid-section with a disgusting look on their face. They want six pack abs or a flat stomach. A question that commonly follows is "How many crunches will it take to get rid of This?" The truth is spot reduction or (losing body fat in a specific area) has been proven to a small degree. Most so called personal trainers will tell you other wise because they don't read current scientific literature. We do have some secrets to help our clients lose body fat in a certain are but, crunches, sit ups and abdominal exercises are not the answer. In fact they will never help you lose body fat.

The reason why we incorporate core exercises is to increase functionality and protection while you lift weights. That is the only reason! Don't get me wrong, it is important to exercise abdominals but they will not make you look better. Here is the take home message-you already have abs you just have to lose body fat to see them or get the more toned look.

If you are really serious about losing fat around the midsection its all about diet. Here are some tips to help with this.

1. Keep a food diary and evaluate what you are eating.

2. Don't count calories! look at proportion sizes. Note that the higher numbers are for men/ Every meat should be less than 4-6 oz lean meat, carbohydrate no more than 1 cup-1/2 cup, and go all out with veggies.

3. Most people eat "double carbs" 2 carbohydrate portions in one meal. Like a sandwich and potato chips. You can do the chips and have the bread on the sandwich. So your goal each meal is to stay under 30 grams of Carbs. If you can do that you will be a lot better off and closer to your 6 pack.

4. Small meals every 3 hours is key.

5. Moderation. Eat till your satisfied not full. Also you should never let yourself get hungry either. Stay Satisfied throughout the day.

Although abdominal exercises are important for core strength if your really want the 6 pack abs pit less focus on exercises for abs and more focus on preparing meals.

How To Lose Weight Fast With Exercise - 3 Exercises Even You Can Do

Learning how to lose weight fast with exercise seems like a daunting task to some people. Others find it easy, but for the majority of people that aren't physically active, the idea of having to move around swiftly just doesn't sound too appealing at all. Consider the following 3 exercises that anyone can do, and it can jump start healthy living right away.

First and foremost get a ball of some kind. For the following option, a soccer ball works best. When learning how to lose weight fast with exercise, it pays to be a kid again. Take the soccer ball to a park and just slowly jog with it and kick it forward. The reason for this is because it will force you to move forward and lightly jog. Many novices get bored with jogging at first, but if you can create a small game, you can start up exercise faster than fast. If others see you, you might as well join in a pick up game of soccer.

The second tip to learning how to lose weight fast is to walk around your neighborhood. If you live in a good overall area, take walks after dinner, in the morning when you wake up, and just about any time you'd like. This doesn't have to be daunting; it just requires a little bit of a push. Leave your home for a good 15 minutes and get a brisk walk in. You'll realize that your mood heightens and you feel better overall afterwards.

The last tip in regards to how to lose weight fast with exercise is to do simple routines. Routines can start with as little as 5 push-ups, 5 sit-ups and 5 jumping jacks. This is the bare minimum of movements that you can do to start your work out plans. If you can do more than that number, go for it. Try to do them daily until you can do double digits with no problem, and then try to aim for triple digits. The more you can do the more weight you'll lose and the better you'll feel about yourself.

The three tips above are just an example of what a person can do to motivate themselves away from the entertainment options that bind much of the nation. You don't have to be a member of a gym to find ways to move your body. There are a plethora of options, and it all begins with walking away from the entertainment center.

Laugh Yourself To Good Health

In the movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Bob Haskin's character asks the voluptuous Jessica Rabbit, whose voice was Kathleen Turner's, why she is with the silly rabbit. Her reply is classic, "He makes me laugh."

You can laugh yourself to health.

It turns out that all that positive thinking is good for us. Much of the self help material since the 1940's has focused on positive thinking, not worrying, letting it go, meditation, living in the moment, and the more recent over-marketed "mindfulness". All have their origins in Buddhism (4000 years old) and the 20th century's Norman Vincent Peale. Peale, you may remember, is famous for his Power of Positive Thinking book and brand.

The reason all this talk therapy stuff works to make us live longer and healthier may just now be seen in some interesting research on laughter. Apparently, laughing causes our vascular system to relax and dilate. Stress, fear, and anxiety cause our vascular system to constrict. Vasoconstriction puts an extra load on the heart. Laughing and smiling, ease the demands on the heart making blood flow more easily.

The more constricted the arteries, the more difficult it is to live long without damage done by heart attacks and strokes. Our fat-laden diet adds to this, of course, as do other factors including genetics. Still, no matter what your arteries are like, their functions are improved by laughing.

This interesting research was done at the University of Maryland School of Medicine by lead researcher, Michael Miller, and his crew. Blood flow reduced in subjects when they watched the opening scene of "Saving Private Ryan". I, for one, had my heart completely stop for that beginning.

Those same subjects' blood flow increased when shown clips from the comedy "Something About Mary". I don't know how they statistically filtered out the blood rush caused by Cameron Diaz in that movie. I think she had every male heart beating a little faster, but that's another study.

Whenever I was in a doctor's waiting room as a child I always found The Reader's Digest, which was a big deal in publishing at the time. The only thing I read were the jokes. Some of the best were in a regular feature called, interestingly enough, "Laughter is the Best Medicine". The Maryland researchers showed us the reason it works, but it has long been known that health is improved by laughter.

"Laughter reduces pain, increases job performance, connects people emotionally, and improves the flow of oxygen to the heart and brain." That quote is from Psychology Today in 2005!

While we need to have more than one emotion to have a full life, laughing can increase with a little work. A lot is attitude. Another part is what life experiences we are exposed to. Trauma obviously makes it harder to laugh and have a positive view of life. Genetics have also been shown to influence who's happy and who's not.

We can, however, no matter what hand we are dealt, alter our outcomes by practicing humor and finding ways to laugh.

Get healthy. Think funny thoughts!

Why Diets Don't Work!

We live in a day and age where being physically fit is a goal for most. Most people associate self worth with appearance, and in turn look to fitness models, bodybuilders, and the like as being the picture of perfection in health and fitness. Some people even take drastic measures when it comes to weight-loss, gaining muscle, or trying to lose body fat. We now have weight watchers, atkins, protein diets, and the list goes on and on. The real truth is that, DIETS ARE NOT HEALTHY!

Let's take for instance a low carb diet. Sure you may lose weight, but at what cost? Low carb diets simply flush your body of water, muscle, and a little bit of fat. So with this sort of diet, you lose all together. You lose water, (which can be detrimental if bodily fluids become unbalanced) you lose muscle, ( which is absolutely terrible because the less muscle you have the slower you metabolism becomes) and a little bit of fat (which is a good thing). The high protein diet is not to great either.

Many bodybuilder would have people to believe that the more protein you eat is the more muscle you gain. THIS VIEW IS TOTALLY INCORRECT IN EVERY WAY! In fact when an individual does a high protein diet, and lowers the carbs, and healthy fats below daily percentages (which varies according to each individual) the body has a way of using protein as energy, as oppose to it doing its job to repair the microscopic tears in the muscle fibers (that's only one of its functions, its also involved in hair, nails, and is part of every cell in the human body). This is just a few of the many so-called diets.

The TRUTH is that the only way to lose weight, and be in good health is to eat a completely healthy diet, which consist of eating from the six classes of nutrients (carbs, protein, fats, water, vitamins, and minerals). That's it folks...lol. Now that's the flat out truth. The things is that your nutrients have to be balanced. The basic percentage for a healthy person trying to maintain a healthy lifestyle would be 55-65% carbs (healthy carbs like whole grain pasta, whole grain rice, lentils, whole grain breads that are high in fiber, and the like) 10-15% protein, and 15-30 % HEALTHY FATS (walnuts, almonds, cashews, olive oil, and grapeseed oil), but no more than 30%.

For a person trying to lose weight I would recommend cutting back the carbs to about 45-50% of the daily calories, because carbs are really the only source that the body uses as energy. Most people cry out that you must do low carbs to tap into stored body. This is untrue, and this misunderstanding comes from not really knowing why fat is stored in the body. Fat is stored for survival purposes mainly, and that's why its almost 99.9% impossible to burn pure body fat without doing some form of interval training (you must work to your peak of intensity, and the have small interval breaks.)

That's how you tap into the stored body fat, and if you dont have enough carbs( muscle and liver glycogen) you'll never be able to reach a level of intensity where oxygen is flowing, and this is extremely important because without oxygen flowing you cant tap into the fat. Its just that simple. That explains why you can walk for three hours everyday and lose no fat, but you will burn calories stripping off water and muscle. So the truth is that you must eat balanced meals, and exercise properly to achieve a healthy, and beautiful physique.