How to get a flat and toned stomach

One of the main fitness goals for both men and women is to get a flat stomach. But unfortunately this goal is often never realised fully. To help us understand this we have to look at the reasons we store fat around the stomach. Belly fat is a result of too much processed food in the daily diet, inactivity & our body's hormonal response. For example, high levels of the hormone cortisol (which is elevated by stress, overtraining and lack of sleep) affects our response to insulin and encourages fat storage around the middle. So how can you get a rippling 6 pack safely & efficiently? It all begins with nutrition. First of all, if we look at the abdominal muscle group we will see that each of us has abs, and that it is the natural shape of the muscle which gives the appearance of a 'six pack', however in order to make these muscles prominent we must melt away the overlying subcanteous fat layer, & thicken the muscle. In order to do this you need to clean up your diet by reducing or eliminate processed foods, grains and wheat (it is thought 6-7% of the population are intolerant to gluten), as these can cause inflammation of the stomach & promote fat storage. Also drinking plenty of water to flush out any nasty toxins – another cause of fat storage. Processed foods can cause bloating, and too much salt in the diet can cause water retention which will affect the appearance of the midsection. Increase your protein levels by eating plenty of chicken, meat, fish, pulses, eggs and protein shakes. So what to eat? Try a nutritional shake for breakfast add some fruit for added vitamins and minerals and this contributes to your '5 a day'. For lunch chicken and salad and for dinner fish or meat with plenty of vegetables and a little bit of carbohydrates such as rice, pasta or potatoes. Have a couple of healthy snacks such as a protein bar or a piece of fruit to eat between meals in order to maintain a high metabolism and stop your body falling into 'starvation mode.' Although nutrition is about 80% of the battle you still need to exercise to achieve those results. What type of exercise is best? Exercising at a high intensity with compound movements, and bouts of high intensity cardio are a quick way to melt away excess fat. Be sure to get adequate rest & good quality sleep in order to reduce your cortisol levels. Try yoga or Pilates to help strengthen the core muscles and improve posture. Ideal ab exercises include woodchops, hanging leg raises, Russian twists, reverse curls, V-sits, medicine ball throws and plank. Once you clean up your diet and perform some of these exercises you will soon start to see a difference. Try writing a food diary to monitor progress - often people don't realise what they eat throughout the week until they see it written down on paper. Preparing food in advance is also a key way to stay on track. Try cooking extra when preparing a meal and freeze it for later this saves both time, money and stops you from grabbing something convenient yet unhealthy which will scupper your goals. Try following these tips and watch your abs emerge from that body fat.

The Importance of Nutrition to get the Best Results

As pointed out on the BBC program the other night, 'The Men that made us Thin,' exercise alone can't help us lose weight as doing moderate exercise will only make a small dent in our overall daily energy expenditure. The importance of nutrition is often overlooked in the pursuit of losing weight or improving ones health, which is a bit mad considering 80% of weight loss is achieved through healthy nutrition. So you can see if you don't get the nutrition right you will be setting yourself up to fail. In order to succeed and reach your fitness goals you must seriously look at what you put in your mouth on a daily basis and see if you are selling yourself short. So how can you get your nutrition on track in order to get the best results? An easy option whould be a Herbalife Formula 1 shake. This is the number 1 meal-replacement shake in the world, underpinned by science that shows in clinical studies that daily use of a meal-replacement shake along with moderate exercise has been proven effective for managing weight. This great drink comes in 6 tasty favours including strawberry, chocolate, cookies and cream and tropical fruit. Each shake is calorie controlled at just 220 Kcal and is a healthy meal in a glass as all the nutrients that you would find in a well-balanced meal such as protein, carbohydrates, essential vitamins and minerals are present. Being a G.P. Referal instructor and personal trainer I speak to a lot of people and find a large percentage either skip meals due to lack of time or appetite or have a high calorie and saturated fat meal which is often lacking the essential nutrients the body needs to be healthy. I knew there had to be a solution out there and that's why I become an independent distributer for Herbalife. They have loads of other fantastic products that can enhance your well being such as Formula 1 express bars, protein bars, multi-vitamins and 'Liftoff', a low calorie energy drink that you can have anytime and anywhere which is only 10Kcal per serving and has 100% of your vitamin C, which helps to alleviate tiredness and 100% of your B group vitamins for normal energy metabolism. If that's not enough it even contains 75g of cafferine, to help increase alertness and improve concentration. This is a great alternative to all those high calorie energy drinks that are on the market these days. Whether you are an elite athlete, recreational gym user or office worker that needs a pick me up during the 3 o'clock slump, Herbalife has a product for you. Why not check out my website that has a link to the Herbalife website, which shows their full product range. If you like what you see than please contact me for further details.

Hydration & Exercise

Around 60-70% of our body is made of water, so it's fair to say that water is vital for survival. Drinking 8-10 glasses of water each day is recommended, but during exercise or when in hot environments, we need to drink more, because we sweat more. But is water enough? Or do we need sports drinks to stay properly hydrated? Sports drinks will keep you well hydrated and give you energy if you're participating in high intensity exercise for 90 minutes or more. However, if you're not exercising to this level, plain water will be enough to re-hydrate you. Studies have shown as little as one percent dehydration can cause major changes in body temperature, while two percent dehydration will drop your performance levels significantly! So to operate efficiently it's vital to keep your fluid levels up. Other drinks that contain high amounts of carbohydrates (such as Lucozade and Red Bull and soft drinks) stop water being absorbed quickly and therefore can delay hydration, so are not suitable before exercise. So if you're doing a high intensity workout that is more than 90 minutes in duration than choose a sports drink. But, if you're not working out to this intensity and you're trying to lose/control your weight than water is best as otherwise you may find yourself putting on weight because of the extra carbohydrate content. If you don't like the taste of plain water, add a little cordial to give some flavor or a slice of lemon, orange or a sprig of mint. Hydration tips for exercise Make sure you're well hydrated before you exercise — start drinking approximately two hours before Keep your fluids topped up during exercise Always remember to re-hydrate after exercise.

Get a body like a celeb do kickboxing

Want a body like Angelina Jolie, Carmen Electra, Eva Mendes or guns and abs like Van Damme? Than learning kickboxing is the answer. All these celebs honed their toned bodies by practicing the martial art known as kickboxing. Kickboxing burns body fat, tones and strengthens muscle and increases stamina. Its a total body blaster working arms, chest, back, abs, legs and butts. Also its a great stress buster, where you can release that energy and channel it into something good. In a typical training session you can burn between 600 and 888 calories an hour. This will depend on intensity levels and weight of the person taking part but as you can see you can burn a serious amount of calories in a short space of time. Kickboxing also improves balance, co-ordination, flexibility and can build confidence and self-esteem. So get the body that you want and punch and kick your way to fitness.

Train like an Olympian and live longer

According to a study published by the British Medical Journal, researchers compared the life expectancy of 15,174 Olympic athletes, who won medals between 1896 and 2010, with that of the general population and found that they lived 2.8 years longer. The authors suggested possible explanations included genetics, physical activity, a healthy lifestyle and wealth and status that comes from international sporting success. However an accompanying editorial suggests that those who do at least 150 minutes per week of moderate to vigorous intensity activity can gain similar survival advantages over the inactive general population. The authors concluded, "although the evidence points to a small survival effect of being an Olympian, careful reflection suggests that similar health benefits and longevity could be achieved by all of us through regular physical activity. We could and should all award ourselves that personal gold medal."

Why a Low Calorie Diet Doesn't Work

For many years the old mantra of calories in and energy out has been used in the media and some areas of the fitness industry to explain that if you consume the average amount of calories (males 2500/females 2000) needed for the body to perform its daily functions than you will not put on any weight. If you use up more energy than you consume, you will therefore lose weight and if you consume too many calories the body needs than it will store any excess as fat. This is a commonly held belief across the general public and the scientific world and has been upheld for many years. However if you look more closely at the data and the studies that have been done in recent years you will see that it's not as simple as calories in and energy out. France consumes a higher than average amount of calories as well as the highest consumers of fat at 42% of daily intake but have the second lowest obesity rate in all of Europe! Whereas some countries such as Serbia and Montenegro have low calorie intakes but much higher obesity levels. So what is going on? Research is now suggesting that it may be a combination of a variety of influences such as genetics, hormones and the environment. It was observed that some animals and humans appear to have an increased susceptibility to gaining weight compared to others. Studies showed that weight gain in obesity prone mice is higher than wild mice fed the same high fat diet. Obesity prone mice seem to prefer high fat diets. Subjects with a predisposed tendency to become obese seem to have an impaired ability to increase the speed of burning fat and carbohydrates in response to a high fat diet. Women with a family history of obesity had a stronger risk of gaining weight when exposed to a high fat diet than those who had none. There are many hormones in the body that can influence what we eat, how much we eat and how often. Ghrelin is released to stimulate hunger when the body needs more energy. The interesting thing about this is it has an inverse relationship with BMI. So in thin people it drives them to consume more and in overweight and obese people who have lost weight, the levels increase as well to encourage the body to return to its original weight. This is why weight loss can be hard to maintain in the obese population. In obese humans the central nervous system just like lean muscle (see last blog for details) can become insulin resistant and signals do not reach the brain to tell it the stomach is full and therefore too much is consumed resulting in an increase in body weight. A study in 2002 (Pirozzo) proved that although a calorie and fat restricted diet worked for the first 6 months over a longer period of time, 12 and 18 months, weight began to slowly creep back on. Other studies have shown the average maintained weight loss, 3-5 years after starting a low calorie diet was only 3KG. The average regain in weight at the 3-5 year follow up represented 76-85% of the initial weight lost (Grodstein et al, 1996 and Anderson et al, 2001). So as you can see it's a combination of factors that can cause obesity rather than simply the amount of calories you are consuming. It seems that one factor will not cause weight gain but a series of events will, such as a person who has a tendency for weight gain consuming processed foods that are high in fat and carbohydrates on a regular basis and is not active. If you're overweight or obese it's better to try to consume natural foods which are high in proteins and fats, such as meat, fish, chicken and dairy products that will keep you fuller for longer and exercise regularly rather than relay on a low calorie and fat diet.

Whose The Real Enemy Fats or Carbohydrates?

For as long as I can remember we have been told that fats are bad for us and should be reduced and the majority of our dietary intake should be from complex carbohydrates, such as potatoes, pasta, rice and bread. Government guild lines inform us that half of our intake should come from these carbohydrates and 35% from fats, of which no more than 10% should come from saturated fat. The final 10-15% needs to come from protein sources, in order to have a balanced diet. These guild lines are fine if you are a healthy weight, however there is an increasing amount of scientific evidence to prove that if you are obese (BMI of 30 or more), than this advice will only make matters worse. As carbohydrates are consumed they are broken down into glycogen, the body's preferred energy source. The body will then produce insulin to help transport the glycogen into the muscles for use or storage. However over time there maybe too much glycogen and insulin in the body and the muscles can become more resistant. Although lean muscle becomes resistant, fatty tissue is much slower in becoming resistant and so the excess glycogen is pushed easily into this tissue and is stored as fat. Other macronutrients such as protein and fats do not cause such a high insulin response and as there is a reduced amount of glucose in the system, the body is encouraged to burn energy from its fat stores rather than the glycogen. Foods that have naturally occurring fats in them such as meats, chicken, oily fish, nuts and dairy products, tend to have a higher amount of protein in them too and together they will make you feel fuller quicker and for longer. Foods which are processed will be high in saturated fat, such as pies, sausage rolls, crisps, cakes, french fries and pizzas and these tend to have a low amount of protein but a high amount of carbohydrates. This will cause too much insulin to be produced and further lean muscle resistance and increased fat storage. These foods will also not keep you fuller for longer and therefore will encourage you to eat more later on. So if your BMI is about 27 or more and you are struggling with getting your weight down then try lowering your carbohydrates intake by having 1-2 carbohydrates free meals a day to encourage your body to burn energy from your fat cells instead. Combine this with exercise, which also helps decrease muscle resistance and you may be surprised by the results. Have a go and let me know how you get on as I would love to hear from you. Good luck.