5 Ways to Get Lean and Fit Faster

It's no secret that getting in great shape takes time and effort. After all, if every quick fix, late-night infomercial claim were true, we'd all have perfect bodies. The good news is you can take steps to speed up your results. One proven strategy: Change your routine every six or so weeks. Your muscles adapt to the same workout day after day (think back to your first bootcamp class and how much easier it got as you became stronger). Challenge your body by adding a new angle, mixing up the order of your exercises, or simply adding a twist to recruit different muscles.

Here are five more expert tips to upgrade your workout .

1. Dynamic warm ups: Warm-ups don't have to be boring. While jogging on the treadmill may work for your legs, it does little to prepare your upper-body muscles. Try replacing your tired warm-up with a dynamic version.

"Dynamic, full-body warm-ups take your body through a variety of movements, allowing you to increase circulation to the muscles you'll be using in your main workout," says Polly de Mille, RN, RCEP, CSCS, exercise physiologist at Women's Sports Medicine Center a the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York. Try this move before your next workout for a total-body warm-up.

Medicine Ball Woodchop: Stand with feet slightly wider than shoulder-width apart and hold onto a light to medium medicine ball (5 to 6 lbs). Push your hips back and drop into a squat as you bring the ball down to touch your left foot, shin, or knee (depending on your flexibility). Rise up out of the squat as you simultaneously rotate and raise the ball up and across your opposite side, as if throwing it over your opposite shoulder. Do 2 sets of 10 lifts to each side, alternating sides after each set.  

2. One-legged moves: One-legged moves demand more neuromuscular (nervous system and muscle) coordination in order to stabilize both the ankle and knee as well as the femur (thigh bone) and pelvis , says Irv Rubenstein, PhD, exercise physiologist, and founder of S.T.E.P.S., a Nashville, TN fitness facility. "Additionally, the single leg has to lift not just the same upper-body weight but it also has to carry the other limb's weight, which proves greater strength benefits overall."
Developing single-leg stability is a powerful tool in preventing injury, particularly in sports such as running, de Mille says. "In running you're essentially jumping from one leg to another. Shaky single-leg stability leads to loss of alignment every time you land-a perfect setup for injury."
For your next workout, try standing on one leg for half of every set of upper-body moves; switch to the other leg for the other half, or try to incorporate unilateral moves like one-legged squats into your routine.

3. Off-center moves: Off-center moves involve an unequal weight distribution that requires your body's core muscles to "kick in." Many everyday activities involve off-balance maneuvers&mdashlcarrying a heavy suitcase or purse, swinging a tennis racket, or carrying a child or a bag of groceries in one arm.
Simple ways to incorporate off-center moves include performing a squat while pushing a fitness ball against the wall with one arm; or hold a kettlebell in one hand while performing a squat or lunge .
"Practicing off-center moves in a focused, controlled manner helps develop the core stability necessary to maintain good alignment when performing these movements in real life," de Mille says.

Add twists and turns to your abs routine. Click to read more.

4. Add twists and turns: More than 85 percent of the muscles encircling your core are oriented either diagonally or horizontally and have rotation as one of their functions," de Mille says. "Yet most people focus on one vertical muscle-the rectus abdominis, the 'six pack' muscle."
Rotational moves work your core, says Tamilee Webb, MA, fitness trainer known for the Buns of Steel video series. "For example, try rotating your torso while holding a medicine ball during a front lunge, which requires more stability than a lunge without the ball or the rotation," Webb says. These movements also mimic real-life activities like stepping and then rotating/twisting to put groceries in the car.

5. Raise the incline: No, we're not referring to the treadmill. By raising the position of the bench while performing chest presses, you add variety, which in itself may elicit strength gains , de Mille says. "Your body adapts to the stress you apply to it, so variety is key to gaining overall functional fitness."
Performing exercises on a flat surface, incline, decline, or unstable surface like on a stability ball can all offer slightly different loads to the muscle. "Whenever you change the incline to do an exercise , you're changing the intensity and the muscle groups that will perform the exercise," Webb says. For example, the flat bench focuses on the anterior deltoid (front of your shoulder) and pectorals (chest), but doing the same exercise on an incline requires more deltoids (shoulders). Try raising the incline for your next set of chest presses , or perform them on a fitness ball.

Ref:  http://sg.news.yahoo.com/5-ways-to-get-lean-and-fit-faster.html

The 3 day tummy trimming diet plan

Us women have always battled the old waistline, but new findings show we're all creeping over the healthy mark and need to get those tummies in check for the good of our health.

The average waist size for women in the UK is 4.9cm larger than recommended as healthy, the new research has found.

The survey of 54,000 women carried out by Britain’s largest healthcare charity Nuffield Health shows that the vast majority of women assessed had a waist size in the ‘high health risk’ category.
Not only does this not look great in your bikini, but carrying weight around your middle significantly increases the risk of breast cancer, infertility, not to mention heart and liver disease and type 2 diabetes. Cripes!

So, what’s the key to a trimmer tummy?

Nutritional Therapist, Alison Stork from Nuffield Health recommends a diet that delivers a full range of important vitamins and minerals, which will help keep you full and regulate fat storage.

Try Alison’s three day tummy trimming plan to kick start that waist weight loss:

Day 1
Breakfast
Porridge with a tablespoon of crushed, mixed seeds (pumpkin, linseed, sunflower)
Lunch
Vegetable and Lentil Soup
Dinner
Grilled Salmon with salad and new potatoes
Snacks
Plain yoghurt with fresh fruit

Day 2
Breakfast
Boiled Egg with a slice of wholemeal toast
Lunch
Jacket sweet potato with hummus and mixed salad
Dinner
Stir fry chicken & vegetables with brown rice
Snacks
Fresh Fruit and a small handful of unroasted, unsalted nuts

Day 3
Breakfast
Fresh fruit with plain yoghurt and a dessertspoon of mixed nuts & Seeds
Lunch
Sardines on toasted rye or wholegrain bread with grilled tomato and a sprinkle of herbs & green salad
Dinner
Lentil Dahl with mixed steamed vegetables
Snacks
Oatcake with cottage cheese
We're on it! Slimmer tummies here we come…

Ref:  http://sg.news.yahoo.com/3-day-tummy-trimming-diet-plan-203000492.html

How to Create Your Weight Loss Plan

One of the top reasons why people fail when they try to lose weight is because they gradually lose the motivation and momentum to do so. A weight loss plan can help prevent this. Weight loss plans are health plans that help you to lose weight. They should contain useful information such as goal setting, progress tracking and meal and work out planning.

1. Goal Setting

(photo: Alan Cleaver)

It is important to know what your goal is, which means the ideal amount of weight you want to lose. Many people have a goal but are clueless of how to start achieving that goal. Therefore, your weight loss plan should consist of small goals that will eventually help you achieve your ultimate goal. These little small goals are realistic and usually attainable within a short period of time. Hence, this keeps you motivated as your ultimate goal will not seem unrealistic with these little goals.

2. Progress Tracking
Setting smaller goals will also help you track the progress you have made in your weight loss journey. This helps you stay motivated, and you will be less likely to give up.

One of the ways to track your progress is by keeping a journal. Writing a journal allows you to reflect on your progress and record down the amount of food you have eaten. You will be less likely to get bored of your diet regimes as you are constantly reflecting and thinking about what you can add or remove from your plan. Journals can also motivate you since you are able to see how much progress you have made over time. Research shows that keeping a food journal can help you lose more weight and keep it off.

3. Meal and work out planning
After setting your goals, you should concentrate on achieving your goals.

For meal planning, you can make weekly shopping lists or lists of foods that you want to eat each week. Coming up with meal plans allows you to calculate your intake of calories, carbohydrates, proteins and fat. This helps ensure you will be confident about the foods you choose to eat, and it can also prevent you from falling back into your old eating habits.

The importance of an active lifestyle

(photo: sean dreilinger)

Apart from having a healthy diet, another essential component to losing weight is an active lifestyle. We all know that we have to exercise, but sometimes we just cannot find the time to do it. If this is the case for you, try making a work out plan.

Schedule a particular time slot of your day for exercising. If that seems too rigid, you can also schedule a certain duration of exercising per day. For example, if you plan to exercise one hour per day, you have to exercise for at least one hour per day, no matter what. It can be at any time, so you could even split it up into four 15-minute increments. Fifteen minutes at once seems much less daunting than a full hour.

If you know beforehand that you have a busy workday ahead and will return home late, you can perhaps wake up an hour earlier than usual on that particular day to exercise. Doing this will take you one step closer to your ideal weight.

Sticking to your weight loss plan
A weight loss plan allows you to have a clear idea of what your goal is and how to go about achieving it. Overall, once you’ve made a plan, you should stick with it, but don’t be afraid to do a little extra if you have the opportunity to.

If you cannot reach your goals in the amount of time you have given yourself, do not fret. Keep in mind that a little amount of progress is better than no progress at all. Furthermore, a plan also allows you to know if you are making the amount of progress you are aiming for. If you are not, figure out what went wrong. Is it the food that you’ve been eating? Is it the amount of exercise? Did you set goals that are too extreme? You might also want to consult a nutritionist for advice.

Have you created your own weight loss plan? What are the factors that you considered when trying to come up with your weight loss plan?

Edited by Registered Dietitian Arielle Kamps, M.S., R.D, L.D. Via HealthMatters.sg, a Singapore Health and Fitness blog that aims to help you lose weight, keep fit, and live healthy. Click here to get our free guide “Eat Your Way to Health – Secrets of a Healthy Diet”.

Ref: http://sg.news.yahoo.com/create-weight-loss-plan-081729718.html

3 truths about your body

Truth 1: Everything Is A U-Shaped Or Bell-Shaped Curve

In your body, almost everything that you think of is on a curve. Toxins and man-made food aside (clearly bad!), everything else is a continuum of good-to-bad-to-good, or bad-to-good-to-bad.

For example, body fat. An obese person has almost certainly got higher risk of all kinds of disease and health conditions. As he gets leaner, if done safely, he gets healthier. But if he gets too lean (at something like less than 5%  bodyfat for most men, or under 10% for most women) he can develop problems.

You need fat for cell walls and energy storage, and to absorb and store fat soluble vitamins. You also tend to have sleeping issues if body fat is too low, and there can be problems with sex hormone production, immune system weakness, and a loss of menses in ladies.

The body uses fat for cell structure and energy storage and to create a protective cushioning around organs. Without fat your body cannot absorb the fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K.

Another example is exercise. Certainly a lack of exercise is a problem, but too much (quite a rare problem) can cause injury, excessive inflammation, increased stress hormone production and sleeping irregularity.

The same thing occurs with nutrients. Vitamin C for example. Too little, and you get scurvy, lowered anti-oxidant function and decreased immune system function. Too much, and you can get diarrhea, abdominal cramps, and increased risk of kidney stones.

Because everyone is genetically different and has different environment and stresses, the amount that gets you to the peak of your curve, will be different from the amount needed by others to get them to their peak.

Truth 2: Long Term Solutions, Long Term Results

Because of the "quick fix" society we live in, there is a desire, whether conscious or sub-conscious to get a result instantly. This is hardly ever the case, unless you are taking a pharmaceutical drug. But in that case you are getting a quick solution at the expense of passing the problem to another part of your body.

For example, a person may want to drop 20kg (44lbs) of fat right now, but unless he does liposuction or is on a high dose of stimulants, appetite suppressants and fat absorption blockers, this is not going to happen.

And if he does use those methods, once he stops, the weight will come back quickly as well because his body is so "shocked" by the sudden caloric restriction and weight loss that it will, as a survival mechanism, hold on to every ounce of food that he eats in the future. Quick to fix, quick to fail again.

But if he uses whole foods, good sources of nutrients, and lifestyle changes, his fat loss will not be as instant, but it will be sustainable and long term. Slow to fix, unlikely to fail.

The same holds true for other physical qualities as well.

For example, when exercising. The hardest physical attribute to change is strength. It takes years of consistent, challenging, and well designed training to maximize your strength potential. That is why you see relatively "old" people competing in the world's strongest man competition where men aged 35 and up are quite a common sight.

However, people who gain strength by long-term, consistent training tend to keep it for a long time as well. Old time strongmen are often strong well into their senior years. This fact is also visible in our long term, experienced clients. When they stop gym training for a while due to a business trip or a holiday, they come back to their previous strength levels very quickly. The longer they have been training before the break, the faster they regain their strength. Slow to develop, slow to lose.

On the other hand, one of the easiest physical qualities to improve is cardiovascular endurance. This can be vastly improved in a few weeks, as many runners will attest to. But drops rapidly as well when it is not trained. Fast to develop, fast to lose.

Truth 3: No Magical Single Solutions

Once again, if you want to do things for the long term, in a healthy, natural way, it is almost impossible to get a magical, single solution to your problem. Your body is so interconnected that there is rarely a magic bullet solution to a problem.

Let's take the 20kg (44lb) overweight man as an example again. Is there a single food for him to eat to get rid of all that weight? Is there a single supplement? Is there a single food not to eat? Is there one magic exercise for him to do? Is there one magic late night TV infomercial device that will work?

No there is not. In most cases, it is impossible to get 100% or even 50% better with one single form of intervention. Here is a more accurate reflection of how the body works. The percentages can vary from person to person but the principle doesn't change.

• He stops eating refined carbohydrates — perhaps fat burning speed increases 25%
• He increases protein intake to optimal levels — increase 10%
• He does resistance training to boost metabolism — increase 7%
• He takes nutrients like omega3s, which help his cells function better as fat burning machines — increase 5%
• He sleeps better to have more fat burning hormones released at night — increase 3%
• He improves his digestion by removing allergenic foods — increase 3%
• He manages stress better by removing toxins — increase 3%
• He manages stress better by removing toxic interpersonal relationships — increase 3%
• He becomes more relaxed by choosing to be a more grateful and positive person — increase 3%
• He changes his water source to one that is more alkaline and filtered — increase 2%
• And so on…

In this way he gets massive results. But not by making one massive change — which does not exist - but rather by multiple smaller ones.

I hope understanding these truths can help you achieve your long term health goals and keep them long term as well!

For the best fitness boot camp program and personal training in Singapore visit www.genesisgym.com.sg or the Genesis Gym facebook page.

Ref:  http://sg.news.yahoo.com/blogs/fit-to-post-health/3-truths-body-122928560.html