How To Avoid Weight Gain Over The Holidays

Let’s face it, during Christmas and New Year are when most people gain some extra pounds!  With all the parties, delicious treats and meals with friends and family it’s almost impossible not to gain weight.  But there are some things you can do to keep the weight gain to a minimum.  So here’s 6 tips you can use to help avoid weight gain over the holidays.

1. Eat a healthy meal before going to a holiday party or meal.  This will help you from over indulging in those high fat, calorie loaded low nutrition holiday foods.  Now you will want to still be sociable so be sure to eat some food, but just keep it to an acceptable minimum.

2. Alcohol consumption is another area you should keep to a minimum, as it too is loaded with calories.   Try to keep your consumption to just one drink, and  you will be okay.  This not only will prevent you from getting a DWI, which you should always avoid, but will help you from stimulating your appetite and indulging in more treats than you normally would.

3. It’s not uncommon to receive gifts of food during the holiday season.  Though these foods are usually loaded with calories, receiving these gifts can be a good thing.  They allow you to share in the season spirit of giving. You can take them to work and share them with your co-workers, provide them for your guest at your own holiday party, or donate them to a local charity for those less fortunate.

4. Try to get outside and get some exercise.  Go for a walk, build a snowman, go sledding, or go caroling with some friends.  A great way to get some exercise is to go to your local mall and walk a few laps before the stores open.  Then when your done you can do your holiday shopping and beat the crowds!

5. Arrive at larger parties late, this will take the pressure off of over indulging in food and drink, as the party is already in progress.  Especially if you already ate a healthy meal, like in the first tip..

6. Keep things in perspective.  That is be aware and pace yourself  Approach holiday parties as a chance to talk and dance with friends, instead of a drink and food fest.

There you go, try these tips and you will avoid weight gain over the holidays!

Cheers!

How To Get Rid Of Stomach Fat

Fat has a habit of collecting around the abdomen. So, unless you are a master of concealment then it is usually fairly obvious and displeasing to the eye (at least from the “owner’s” perspective anyway). With that in mind, it’s no surprise  that so many people want to get rid of stomach fat. Let’s take a closer look at the many ways to lose the belly and distinguish those that work from those that are, frankly, useless.

The Science Behind Fat Loss

Before we can even begin to look at ways to specifically get rid of stomach fat, we need to understand how fat loss works. Otherwise we risk wasting our time and money on activities that do not work.

Fat cannot be “spot reduced”. What I mean to say is that you cannot target an area of the body (like the stomach) and then work on it exclusively to try and reduce fat there. So when you see those electronic “ab-crunching” devices you should stay well away because they are a complete scam.

Fat is gained all over the body at once (some parts will “poke out” earlier or later than others) and the same is true in reverse. So the only way to get rid of your stomach fat is to have a strategy of losing fat all over the body – if your stomach disappears first then great, but in all likelihood it will disappear at the same time as you lose fat over your face, arms and legs too.

Best Way To Lose Fat – Your Diet

The best way to lose fat is through your diet. Exercise is optional and I’ll come onto that later.

Right now, you’re probably consuming too much calories each day. Some people hardly eat, but it is what you eat! Your body might need between 2,000 and 2,500 calories but you are probably going over it by at least 200 calories. To lose fat you need to eat less than your body needs every day.

Dieticians suggest that you eat 500 less calories than you need on a daily basis. Calorie counting definitely helps – if only to give you an appreciation for what your body needs, and to avoid those “danger foods” that contain many hidden calories. Portion control is also a good strategy and prevents you from eating too much food at each meal where the last ten mouthfuls or so are just going straight to fat because your body is no longer hungry.

How To Accelerate Your Fat Loss – Exercise (Optional)

Many weight loss gurus tell you that exercise is essential for weight loss. Actually, it’s optional. Diet alone is enough for you to lose fat and you have enough to worry about trying to conform to a diet anyway. If you add exercise on top then it can often be too much to cope with for many.

What exercise will do for you is to accelerate your fat losses. Instead of waiting six months to lose your target amount of weight then it might take four months instead. This is possible because it increases the amount of energy that your body needs every day and effectively increases the calorific deficit you were already following on your diet. Therefore you lose more weight in the same amount of time.

One point I really want to emphasize is, if you really want to get rid of stomach fat, the only solution is to target “fat” on the whole and then you will lose that belly! Good luck.

Have You Reached A Muscle Gain Plateau? For Those People Interested In Gaining Muscle

A muscle gain plateau is something that many bodybuilders experience not long after making really good progress with their muscle gains. It’s basically when your muscle gains start to decrease and then stop altogether, despite the fact that you appear to be doing everything correctly. Sometimes, your muscles will even shrink. This is only for those people interested in body building!

What is actually happening is that your body has gotten used to your workout and will no longer react in the same way anymore.

Luckily, there are some ways to break through the muscle gain plateau and get back on the road of steady gains.

Free Weights Versus Machines

The plateau is more common if you use machines than if you use free weights. Free weights have a whole range of other advantages anyway but because they work other important secondary muscle groups (aside from those you are targeting) then this can help you break through the plateau.

Mix Up Your Workout

As mentioned earlier, your body gets used to the workouts that you give it. This is just one example of the body adapting. The same thing happens with cardio and many other things in life.

What you need to do is shock the system and give it a different workout to the one it was expecting. An easy way of doing this is to simply do your existing routine but in reverse.

Inadequate Rest

Many times a plateau is created simply through overtraining. All that may be needed is a little bit of rest. Try taking one or two weeks off and not doing any muscle building at all.

Not only is this beneficial for recovery but it will also shock your body too, a similar effect to mixing up your workout.

Leg Training

If you’re neglecting your legs then it’s a great way to break the plateau. Many people ignore them but find that when they work them out (or work them out harder than before) that they can break the plateau.

Nobody knows the exact reason for it. Some people will theorise that it has something to do with the legs being the largest muscles in the body and that they can therefore deliver the biggest shock to the system. Whatever the reason, it works!

Correct Diet

Are you paying close attention to your diet? Are you eating the correct quality and proportions of protein, carbs and fats? Many people neglect this and are amazed that they can make good muscle gains, only to be disappointed when they quickly reach a plateau.

Supplements

Some people find that creatine, glutamine and other supplements are beneficial for breaking through a muscle gain plateau. I advise trying all of the above things first before resorting to supplements.

The Quickest Way To Lose Weight Is Through ..

You are probably wondering what is the quickest way to lose weight? If you switch the television on then you’ll see no end of weight loss gurus each touting their own favourite way for you to lose the pounds fast. The reality is that there are only really a handful of different ways to lose weight quickly. Let’s take a closer look at how you can combine your diet and exercise to obtain the greatest weight loss possible.

Extreme Calorie Restriction

Most dietitians say that it is safe to have a calorific deficit of around 500 calories per day. Roughly speaking this means that a man should consume 2,000 calories per day (instead of 2,500) and a woman 1,500 calories (instead of 2,000). This should give a safe level of weight loss of around a pound per week.

But it is possible to lose much more simply by doubling the deficit to 1,000 calories. In this way you can lose two pounds per week. Whether this is safe or not is open to argument. Many people have successfully done this with no problems at all despite others advising against it. Personally speaking I would advise it only for limited periods.

High Intensity Interval Training

It has been known for years that cardiovascular exercise is great for burning fat. But in recent years scientists have been able to prove what they had long been guessing anyway – that interval training i.e. non-constant speed cardio, is a far better fat burner than just running at the same speed on a treadmill for 30 minutes, for example.

The reason that this type of exercise burns more fat and energy is because it keeps the body guessing. If you are playing basketball then most of the time you don’t know what is going to happen so your body doesn’t have a chance! Given the chance, your body will adapt to whatever it is doing in order to conserve the most energy – don’t forget that long ago food (energy) was scarce and had to be conserved and this remains the situation today in many parts of the world. So you can see that this is a survival mechanism.

Most sports require reacting to various events with your body and are a great way to burn fat. But by far the best type of interval exercise is HIIT (high intensity interval training). This involves running for 20 seconds and then sprinting for 20 seconds and alternating for a period of around 10 to 15 minutes.

You will burn far more energy than if you had run at a constant speed for 30 minutes and what’s more, your metabolism will also be raised for the rest of the day.

The Quickest Way To Lose Weight

Clearly, a combination of extreme calorie restriction and HIIT is the fastest way that anyone can lose weight. However, it is clearly not sustainable and I don’t recommend doing this for longer than one week or else you may risk your health.