Showing posts with label fat burning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fat burning. Show all posts

Wednesday, 1 November 2017

Lose Weight Before Christmas Time!

With Christmas only a few weeks away, it is still not too late to lose those unwanted pounds and get fit for the festive season.
Before you start on an effective fat burning regime, you need to first get into the right state of mind and put your entire focus on your goal for the next few weeks.
And what is more - I am going to do it with you! I had surgery to pin my foot together after an accident, so put on a few pounds while I was out of action - so it's time for me to get back on the bike - literally!
Step 1
Set you fat burning goal.
How much weight do you REALISTICALLY want to shed before Christmas?
I am setting my target at one stone - roughly 2 pounds a week. My motivation will be how I will look and feel by the time Christmas arrives, and the fact that the timescale is short. You have to choose what will work for you

Step 2
Decide on your fat burning exercise programme. There are hundreds that you can choose from, so let me make it easy. Fat burning is best achieved through a combination of careful eating (note - not Dieting!) and an effective fat burning exercise programme. Head over to the website at the end of the article for a free video showing you how to do this:
Step 3
Having chosen an effective fat burning exercise process, now you need to make the right food choices. Aim to take at least 1200 calories a day, but you may need more depending on your size and metabolism. It has been proven that 1200 a day will assist the loss of about 2 pounds a week, without stressing your body or making you feel hungry.
So, what should you be eating?
  • Let's start by what you should avoid over the next few weeks. Steer clear of fat - obvious but necessary. So you will need to bin the chips, fried food and anything else with a high fat content.

  • Look for lean meat and fish to provide you with the protein that you will need. Grilled chicken is also a great source of protein and like many of these types of lean food, will help you to feel fuller for longer and provide you with the fat burning fuel for your exercise regime

  • Make sure you get your 5 a day - fruit and veg. If you feel the need to snack, use fruit as a healthy alternative to stuff like cake, biscuits and crisps.

  • Stay hydrated. Often, when you feel hungry, you are in fact thirsty, so drink as much water as you need to stay fully hydrated. One delicious way to get the correct amount is to mix one part cranberry juice with four parts water. This tastes great and has the added benefit of boosting your fat burning potential.

  • Look for more sources of fibre. This will help to maintain a healthy bowel, but fibre is another great food for making you feel fuller for longer. It is also calorie free so make sure you get a good fix of fibre at the start of the day - porridge flavored with cinnamon is a great way to start the day


Step 4
Monitor your progress. Keep a record of how you are getting on - otherwise how are you going to know!



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Saturday, 10 December 2016

10 Reasons To Drink Coffee Every Day



Our consumption of coffee has been steadily growing over the last few decades and is showing no signs of slowing down. High Street coffee chains are finding ever more innovative ways to keep our interest, and therefore, to keep drinking coffee more than ever before.
Countless articles have been written about the health benefits (or otherwise) of drinking coffee, so we thought we'd pull all this information together and see whether there really are good reasons to drink coffee on a daily basis.
It's been shown that an amazing 54% of Americans drink coffee every day, usually as a way of kick-starting their day at breakfast times, and some countries (particularly in Scandinavia and Southern Europe) have even higher numbers than this. So here are our top 10 reasons for being a regular coffee drinker.




1. Coffee Could Lower The Chance of Developing Skin Cancer
A study conducted by Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School followed 112,897 men and women over a 20-year period and their findings appear to indicate that women who drink three or more cups of coffee each day are less likely to develop skin cancer than women who drink no coffee at all. The study didn't mention any statistics for men though!
2. Consumption of Coffee May Lower Suicide Levels
A study conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health discovered that drinking between two and four cups of coffee each day reduces the incidents of suicide among both men and women by nearly 50 percent. One of the reasons put forward to explain this is that coffee has been shown to act as an antidepressant by aiding in the production of the body's neurotransmitters such as noradrenaline and serotonin. A number of other studies appear to concur with these findings.

3. The Aroma of Coffee Can Reduce Stress
A group of researchers at Seoul University in South Korea looked at the brains of laboratory rats who were displaying signs of stress caused by deprivation and found that the rats exposed to the aroma of coffee displayed changes in the levels of brain proteins linked to stress. The study only covered stress caused by lack of sleep rather than more general stress, though other studies have shown similar finding when looking at other specific causes of stress in humans.
4. Coffee Could Reduce The Symptoms of Parkinson's Disease
It was reported in ScienceDaily that drinking coffee may help people with Parkinson's disease control their movement. The study author, Ronald Postuma MD said that studies have shown people who regularly drink appear to be at a lower risk of developing Parkinson's disease. However, an additional study also found that caffeine can also assist movement symptoms for people who already have Parkinson's.
5. Coffee Makes People Happy
Another study, this time carried out by the National Institute of Health concluded that people drinking a minimum of four cups of coffee each day were 10 percent less likely to show signs of depression than those who drink no coffee at all. This has been put down to the levels of antioxidants present in coffee rather than a caffeine high (cocaine consumption can also give a caffeine high but actually increases the chances of depression).
6. Coffee Can Increase Your Brainpower
Really? Well think about it, you normally go for a cup of coffee when you're short of sleep or need to stay alert. That jolt not only helps to keep you from falling asleep, it really does mentally sharpen you up and improve your reactions. CNN reported that drinking coffee can allow the brain to function more efficiently. No matter what measure is used - reaction times, observation, attention span, logic, reasoning skills - all show an improvement after consuming coffee. So if you're in need of something to keep you alert on a long journey, it really is true that there's little that can beat a good cup of coffee.
7. Coffee Keeps Your Liver Healthy (Especially If You Drink Alcohol)
A huge study involving over 120,000 people published in 2006 concluded that people drinking at least one cup of coffee daily were up to 20 percent less likely to develop cirrhosis of the liver - a serious disease caused by the excessive drinking of alcohol that can result in liver failure or the development of cancer. The head author of the study, Arthur Klatsky, reported that the consumption of coffee has a protective effect on the liver, particularly against alcoholic cirrhosis, and the higher the daily coffee consumption, the lower the risk appears to be of developing fatal cirrhosis of the liver.
Further studies carried out elsewhere have concluded that drinking coffee can assist in preventing people from developing NAFLD (non-alcoholic fatty liver disease). An international team of scientists discovered that drinking at least four cups of coffee a day can be beneficial in preventing the development of NAFLD.
8. Coffee Can Improve Your Sporting Performance.
An article in New York Times reported that "Scientists and athletes alike have known for years that a cup of coffee prior to a workout jolts athletic performance, especially in endurance sports like distance running and cycling." The caffeine present in coffee can increase the levels of fatty acids in the bloodstream, which in turn allows athletes' muscles to absorb and burn fats for fuel, and therefore saving small reserves of carbohydrates for later on in the exercise. This is particularly useful for endurance athletes such as marathon runners and long distance cyclists.







9. Coffee Can Lower The Risk of Type 2 Diabetes.
As we mentioned in one of our coffee articles a few weeks ago, coffee reduces the risk of Type 2 diabetes. A study carried out by researchers at the American Chemical Society concluded that cases of type 2 diabetes are around 50 percent lower among people drinking a minimum of four cups of coffee a day. Subsequently, the risk drops by a further 7 percent for every additional daily cup of coffee consumed, though of course there are other health implications in doing this.
10. Coffee Can Keep Your Brain Healthy.
Studies carried out by the University of South Florida concluded that both men and women over 65 years of age with higher blood levels of caffeine developed Alzheimer's disease between two and four years later than those with lower levels of caffeine in their blood. They pointed out that coffee consumption cannot be shown to completely protect people from Alzheimer's, but that moderate coffee consumption can appreciably reduce the risk of Alzheimer's or at least delay its onset.
We hope this article has been of interest, if you have anything to add to this, please let us know and we will include it in a future article.


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Tuesday, 6 December 2016

Did You Know You Already Have A Six Pack?



Did you know you already have a six pack?
You already have a six pack.. You just can't see it!
Your abs are a group of muscles called the rectus abdominus, which are the six muscles that cover the stomach.
Apparently, we're all born with a six pack and it already exists. Believe it or not, you have a flat stomach right now. It's just that you can't see it because it's covered and concealed under the few or many layers of fat on your body. If you really want to see the lean stomach and expose those deep cuts, you've got to burn off the fat sitting on top of it.
Now you might think that 1,000 crunches a day is the key to burning that fat off. Well, it's NOT! There's NO such thing as spot reduction! You can't crunch off the fat covering your abs. So while crunches will certainly train your abs muscles, they will do nothing to the fat sitting on top of those muscles.

The question now is... just how you burn that fat and how to uncover your six pack?
Are you ready for this? Here it goes:
By Lowering your body fat percentage!
Voila! This is all to it. Simply losing some body fat is the super secret key.
And how do you burn body fat?
You create a caloric deficit by eating less calories and burning more calories. This is the only way to strip the fat from your abs by gradually burning it off from your entire body through cardio, diet, and weight-training.
The human body gains and loses fat in a pattern that is predetermined by our genetics and can't be changed. And it is commonly seen that the fat covering the abs is usually the last to go and the first to come back, which makes getting/keeping abs all the more difficult.
Therefore stay persistent with creating a calorie deficit through a clean diet, resistance training, and cardio regimen and lower your body fat percentage. Once you are lean enough you will see your abs pop out. Directly training the abs a little will make them stronger, better developed and add more definition to the ab muscles (just like what happens to every other muscle group when you train it).

Abs require a lifestyle shift and immense discipline - it's definitely not a quick fix.
Actually speaking, instead of saying we want to get a six pack, we should say we want to uncover a six pack. Because really, that's what needs to happen!

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Wednesday, 23 November 2016

Should You Consider Sex for Weight Loss?





People often wonder what the most fun way is to lose weight. Well, how about sex? This may surprise you, but like any other physical activity, sex drives your heart rate up, and this burns a bunch of calories. In fact, a lot of health experts have seriously started to recommend sex for weight loss to people who happen to be in healthy relationships. So, if you can find the time to turn up the heat with your partner a few times a week, there is a lot that you stand to gain!
The Calories it Burns...
If you are into statistics, you may know that weight loss requires that you burn more calories than you consume. You may also be aware of the number of calories that different exercises burn on an average. As far as sex goes, a romp between the sheets burns between 150 to 250 calories per half hour. This is about the same as what you would burn during a brisk walk.
This is not all, however. A half an hour long clothes-on make-out session burns 240 to 300 calories. The anticipation is what really gets your heart rate going, and that explains why it is even more vigorous exercise than sex itself. For maximum weight loss benefit (and fun!), try to make your make-out sessions as fun, titillating, sensual and unpredictable as possible. There is no limit to what you could do, depending on your interests. A kinky game, a striptease for your partner, romantic dancing or even a lot of kissing and frolicking would all work great. The idea is to get playful and erotic.
If you are still doubtful about the idea of sex for weight loss, consider that an average of 3-4 sessions of sex a week could potentially help you lose up to 6 pounds in the next four months. Add in a healthy diet and another form of exercise as well, and you will be well and truly on your way to better health and a leaner physique.
Why Sex Works in the Long-run
Health experts point out another good reason why people should consider sex as a serious weight loss opportunity: it doesn't get boring. With any other form of cardiovascular exercise, monotony is bound to set in at some point. However, people often continue to enjoy sex through their lives. To keep your interest levels really high, you should always look to experiment and change things around. Try different positions and different kinds of foreplay.
More Sex = Less Stress
With sex, weight loss is not all you stand to gain though. Sex also keeps your overall mood bright and your stress levels in check. This is because sex is known to release endorphins in your body, which are also known as your mind's feel good hormones. Several studies have found that people with healthy sex lives are happier, less frustrated and have a better overall sense of wellbeing than those who rarely engage in sex.
With lower stress levels, you are also likely to be a lot more successful in your weight loss efforts. People often eat sugar-rich comfort foods to overcome stress and make themselves feel better. In a happier state of mind you will crave less foods of such kind.
To sum it up, if you are considering sex for weight loss, you are definitely on the right track! However, keep in mind that like any other activity, sex will only help you lose weight when it is a part of an overall weight loss regime.


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