Body Composition Change Is Key To Weight Loss

Change your body's composition to more muscle and less fat to keep weight loss off for good. That's easier said than done but you must keep that as your main goal when trying to lose weight. It also takes longer to change your body's composition, so be patient. Its worth the wait. Quick weight loss gimmicks will never work for you.

What if the bathroom scale only showed you your body fat percentage and not your weight? That wouldn't be a bad thing. A woman or man with 10-15% body fat is never a bad thing. Body composition (less fat, more lean mass) is the key to permanent weight loss.

If you lose 20 pounds in 10 days using severe calorie restriction with no exercise (you probably won't have the energy to exercise), just about all of that weight loss will be lost muscle mass! You need to increase your lean mass to permanently speed up your metabolism! You need to build a lean body that will give you good health and one that will last through the years of your life. If you rush the fitness process, it won't work!

Fortunately, muscle mass can be maintained/increased (and body fat decreased) throughout your life through weight training and cardio exercise. Weight training also helps to keep your bones strong (preventing osteoporosis).

When was the last time you had your body fat percentage checked? Make a habit of doing this once a month. Or, you could get a scale that will tell you your weight and body fat percentage. Then, you will know your real progress.

If you need to know how to lose weight the right way, get My Fitness Hut's 7-Day Weight Loss And Fat Loss e-Course! The e-Course is FREE!

"Exercise is not my life.....exercise makes my life better!"

Check out my other great blogs:

Her Fitness Hut Blog Her Fitness Hut is featured on EmpowHER, a great health issues website for women! Her Fitness Hut has also been named in the Top 50 Personal Training Blogs by Physical Therapy Assistant Schools!

Sports Fitness Hut Blog has been recognized by Stanford University Wellsphere as the #1 Sports Fitness Blog and NursingDegree.net as one of the Best 100 Health and Nutrition Blogs for Athletes! The blog has also been named as one of the "50 Best Sports Medicine Blogs by Masters In Healthcare! It is an honor to be recognized by those in the health and academic fields! Afterall, health is number one for everybody---including athletes!

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Use Sprints To Burn Fat Faster

Sprints help you burn fat faster! Sprinting is one of the best ways to get your total body lean and toned. It is one of the least used exercises done by general exercisers. And, you don't have to be fast, just run as fast as you can! To avoid injuries, always sprint on surfaces like grass or sand and never run on hard surfaces like concrete or asphalt.



Sprints will lean and tone your body like never before if combined with full body strength training.

You see, sprinting activates your bulkier, shapely fast twitch muscle fibers. These fast twitch muscle fibers lie dormant when you do slow-paced cardio sessions (hint). Sprinting will really burn the fat on your butt, hips, thighs, hamstrings and lower legs. Fat will also be burned on your upper body.

It is important to properly warmup before doing sprinting intervals. A proper warmup is a dynamic warmup such as doing 5-10 minutes of jogging, walking lunges, half-speed sprints and three-quarters speed sprints. Do static stretches after your workout to bring your muscles back to normal length.

To sprint efficiently and avoid injuries, you need to master correct running mechanics. Most people that I see at gyms need to work on running mechanics. Running the right way really does make running easier (and vice-versa)!

A 20-minute sprint interval workout is very simple---and tough! Do it this way:

--Run a 50 to 60 yard sprint
--Walk back to start line
--Run a 50 to 60 yard sprint

Do this rotation for 20-minutes and you are done (exhausted)! Do this type of workout no more than 2 times a week. This will allow your body to recover from this intense form of exercise.

A sprint interval workout will also give you superior heart-health.

Do more sprints and watch your body sculpt like never before!

Get FREE Training and Nutrition Insider Secrets for a Lean-Body with Six Pack Abs! This ebook, created by Certified Nutrition Specialist & Certified Personal Trainer, Mike Geary, details over 27 specific metabolism-boosting secrets that you can use to strip off your stubborn body fat faster and easier and get your six-pack abs! Contains unique workout methods and nutritional strategies to slash body fat and take your body to a whole new level of leanness. Get Your FREE Book Now!

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Cold Drinks Improve Sports Performance

Drinking cold fluids lowers body temperature. More than 70 percent of the calories that you use to convert food to energy are lost as heat. So the more intensely you exercise, the more heat you produce. A rise in body temperature slows you down because the heart has to work harder to pump extra blood from your hot muscles to your skin to dissipate the heat. Seven studies show that cold beverages lower body temperature and improve performance by an average of 10 percent (International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism, April 2010).
How much water do you need?

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Tone Butt and Hamstrings With Leg Curls

Leg curls are great for toning your lower butt and hamstrings. Leg curls also help you avoid hamstring and knee injuries.





Hamstring injuries can have a long recovery period. Its best to avoid hamstring injuries. And, weak hamstrings can lead to other serious injuries. For example, females tend to have weaker hamstrings because they use their quadriceps muscles more while walking and running. This means females use their strong quadriceps muscles and do not adequately activate their weak hamstrings. The two opposing muscle groups would not be balanced in this situation.

The hamstring muscle group acts to protect the anterior cruciate knee ligament (ACL) and the opposing quadricep muscle group places stress on the ACL. So, if you are quadricep dominant, you are placing excessive stress (and many times serious injury) on the knee ACL.

If you don't have a leg curl machine available, just do your leg curls with the medicine ball.

If you need to know how to lose weight the right way, get My Fitness Hut's 7-Day Weight Loss And Fat Loss e-Course! The e-Course is FREE!

"Exercise is not my life.....exercise makes my life better!"

Check out my other great blogs:

Her Fitness Hut Blog Her Fitness Hut is featured on EmpowHER, a great health issues website for women! Her Fitness Hut has also been named in the Top 50 Personal Training Blogs by Physical Therapy Assistant Schools!

Sports Fitness Hut Blog has been recognized by Stanford University Wellsphere as the #1 Sports Fitness Blog and NursingDegree.net as one of the Best 100 Health and Nutrition Blogs for Athletes! The blog has also been named as one of the "50 Best Sports Medicine Blogs by Masters In Healthcare! It is an honor to be recognized by those in the health and academic fields! Afterall, health is number one for everybody---including athletes!

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Weight Loss With Fat Loss

If you want weight loss with fat loss, your workouts need to be intense enough to build muscle and burn fat. And, you need to be patient as your body changes its composition to lean and toned. That would stop you from ever trying a quick weight loss program designed to give you short-term weight loss but long-term failure. You will change your eating habits to help reach better long-term goals of health with a great looking body.



Here are some other tips to achieve weight loss with fat loss:

Work harder for a shorter period of time and you'll burn more fat and calories during and after your workout! An intense 30-40 minute workout will work just fine.

Do as many compound strength exercises (with weights or bodyweight) standing up as possible. These types of exercises work major muscle groups and many times are full-body strength exercises. Squats, deadlift, lunges, standing bentover rows, squat-to curl-to press and bench press are great examples. Full-body core exercises like planks and side planks work well also. Spend less time posing on "mirror exercises" like bicep curls, calf raises and tricep extensions.

Here is a good fat-burning workout:

Do each exercise one after the other with little or no rest between exercises. Rest 2-3 minutes between circuits. Do the circuit 3 times.

1. Bulgarian Split Squats, 15 repetitions each leg
2. Ball Plank, 15 repetitions, 5 second hold
3. Pushups on Medicine Ball, 20 repetitions
4. Step Ups with Knee Lift (knee high platform), 10 repetitions each leg
5. Pullups, 10 repetitions
6. Walking Lunges, 10 repetitions each leg
7. Standing dumbbell shoulder press, 10 repetitions
8. Repeat circuit 2 more times.

This type of workout will help you build muscle, burn fat and lose weight.

If you need to know how to lose weight the right way, get My Fitness Hut's 7-Day Weight Loss And Fat Loss e-Course! The e-Course is FREE!

"Exercise is not my life.....exercise makes my life better!"

Check out my other great blogs:

Her Fitness Hut Blog Her Fitness Hut is featured on EmpowHER, a great health issues website for women! Her Fitness Hut has also been named in the Top 50 Personal Training Blogs by Physical Therapy Assistant Schools!

Sports Fitness Hut Blog has been recognized by Stanford University Wellsphere as the #1 Sports Fitness Blog and NursingDegree.net as one of the Best 100 Health and Nutrition Blogs for Athletes! The blog has also been named as one of the "50 Best Sports Medicine Blogs by Masters In Healthcare! It is an honor to be recognized by those in the health and academic fields! Afterall, health is number one for everybody---including athletes!

Read more »

Gut Fat or Butt Fat? Which Is Worse?

Okay, I know you don't want gut fat or butt fat! And, you don't want too much body fat. The fact remains that too many people are carrying around too much gut fat, butt fat and overall body fat. All locations of fat tend to show up on your body if you're overweight or obese.



According to the International Journal of Obesity (and many other sources), butt fat is healthier than belly fat. Their research shows that gut fat increases risks of heart attack, stroke, diabetes and premature death.

Women tend to carry too much fat on the butt, hips and thighs while men tend to carry too much gut fat. The research showed that women with more butt fat/thigh fat than gut fat have better blood sugar levels, blood fat control and slower fat turnover (prevents inflammation and promotes metabolic health).

So, my challenge to you is to start burning more body fat to make your body healthier. This will give you the best chance to live a longer, healthier life. And, you will have a better self image.

There are no secrets as to how to lean and tone your body.

1. First and foremost, don't ever try a quick weight loss fad diet! If you do, you are setting yourself up to gain more weight than you lose (interpreted yo-yo dieting)!

2. Second, adopt the mindset of starting and maintaining healthy eating patterns and exercising regularly. This might sound boring but it will work to lean and tone your body in the longterm.

3. You won't burn your gut fat by doing 1000 ab curl ups. You will burn your gut fat by eating less foods like sugars, processed foods and saturated fats and eating more foods like fresh fruits, vegetables and lean meats.

4. You will burn more total body fat faster by doing high intensity workouts such as full body circuit weight training, jump training and fast-paced cardio sessions (such as sprint intervals). You don't have to workout this intensely all the time (3-4 days a week is plenty). Workout at a slower pace on the other days. Eat right most of the time.

5. The time to start burning fat and losing weight is now! If you've been inactive, start walking today and build up to a regular exercise routine. Its very simple. Just make the commitment.

Get FREE Training and Nutrition Insider Secrets for a Lean-Body with Six Pack Abs! This ebook, created by Certified Nutrition Specialist & Certified Personal Trainer, Mike Geary, details over 27 specific metabolism-boosting secrets that you can use to strip off your stubborn body fat faster and easier and get your six-pack abs! Contains unique workout methods and nutritional strategies to slash body fat and take your body to a whole new level of leanness. Get Your FREE Book Now!

Read more »

Vegan Or Vegetarian Diet? Which Is Better?

So, what's the difference between a vegan or vegetarian diet? You may not have thought about this if you have no interest in being a vegan or vegetarian. Or, you may be thinking about changing your eating habits. Vegan or vegetarian diets are healthy options. Let's look at both types of nutritional diets:

Vegan Diet

Veganism is the strictest form of vegetarianism. Vegans don't eat animal products or animal by-products. Vegans eat healthy foods but they need to take supplements such as calcium, iron, protein and vitamin B12 because these nutrients are sometimes missing in their diet.

A vegan diet contains less fat than vegetarian diets so this would be a plus if you are trying to burn fat and lose weight. Vegan diets will generally provide you with more energy than a less strict vegetarian diet.

Vegetarian Diet

There are four other less strict forms of vegetarianism:

1. Semi-vegetarians eat eggs, chicken, diary products and fish. They do not eat any other types of animal meat.

2. Ovo-lacto vegetarians don't eat poultry, meat, seafood or fish. They will eat eggs and drink milk. Most vegetarians fall into this group of eaters.

3. Ovo vegetarians are similar to vegans except they will eat eggs.

4. Lacto vegetarians are similar to vegans except they will drink milk.

If you are a vegetarian, you are probably reaping the health benefits of a great diet. According to Susan Havala Hobbs (author of Being Vegetarian For Dummies), research has proven that vegetarians have lower rates of coronary artery disease, some forms of cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity. Vegetarians are also less likely to have kidney disease and intestinal problems like diverticulosis.

Food choices for vegetarians have expanded at grocery stores and restaurants. Vegetarian diets are no longer considered "bland". Like any diet, you must make sure you are getting enough nutrients.

I would recommend everyone take a multivitamin, unless your diet is perfect.

Do you need to learn how to lose weight the right way? Get My Fitness Hut's 7-Day Weight Loss And Fat Loss e-Course! The e-Course is FREE!

"Exercise is not my life.....exercise makes my life better!"

Check out my other great blogs:

Her Fitness Hut Blog Her Fitness Hut is featured on EmpowHER, a great health issues website for women! Her Fitness Hut has also been named in the Top 50 Personal Training Blogs by Physical Therapy Assistant Schools!

Sports Fitness Hut Blog has been recognized by Stanford University Wellsphere as the #1 Sports Fitness Blog and NursingDegree.net as one of the Best 100 Health and Nutrition Blogs for Athletes! The blog has also been named as one of the "50 Best Sports Medicine Blogs by Masters In Healthcare! It is an honor to be recognized by those in the health and academic fields! Afterall, health is number one for everybody---including athletes!

Read more »