Get Fit, Stay Fit, Today

Despite the $50 billion spent on weight loss each year in the US alone, there is no magic diet, no diet pill, or exercise routine that is guaranteed to make you lose weight. Most diets fail and people are becoming more overweight and more frustrated by the minute as obesity rates have triple since the 1960′s.

Only 2-6 percent of all attempts at losing weight are successful. And ever worse, the average person ultimately gains 5 pounds over and above his/her starting weight for every diet he or she goes on. We clearly know this now – dieting does not work.

Armed with the latest advancements of the modern world, the global society is fighting an all out war against an epidemic of overweight and obesity and losing big time. We have never had more diets and diet plans, more ‘experts’, more technology, diet pills, surgery, fitness clubs and websites devoted to weight loss and dieting.

Yet even when weight loss seems to work (temporarily) when the bathroom scales go down, looking “thinner” in the mirror is invariably the result of losing mainly healthy fat burning muscle tissue, not excess body fat as expected..

Inside their body’s people’s health, energy and vitality is going down the drain. With all that dieting and deprivation, those on restrictive diet programs are effectively getting weaker and sicker by the day. Sooner or later they sense and feel this and their frustration and despair grows.

We need to revise, radically and rapidly our current view of current methods of fat loss. We need to enlist the latest insights from ongoing metabolic research and a host of other science fields as new information is coming to hand.

Instead of just watching our weight increasing out of control we need to get really smart about the most effective ways to burn off excess body fat automatically and continually. This can be achieved by enlisting the natural metabolic “engine” of energy production as an ally not an afterthought.

This knowledge is the key to creating a healthy, efficient metabolism that burns fat instead of storing it and is the solution to the problem of being overweight.

We must use a better more effective way to deal to excess body fat so that it is lasting and permanent and to do this we must work with our body, not against it. We are genetically designed to move, to use our bodies vigorously and often. This is how our bodies flourish and stay healthy and lean. If you do not do proper strength building and maintaining exercise, begin to do so. If you already exercise, do more.

At stake here is your level of muscle tone. Your muscle tissue is the prime site for fat burning and energy production. If you allow your muscles to weaken – with age, inactivity or disuse – your metabolic rate declines. It is really this simple; you can and must, turn this around for your long term health

There are two important metabolic switches that govern whether your burn fat or store fat and need to be permanently activated and are completely within your control. They are:

1. Proper physical activity that engages your muscles frequently such as strength training exercise. No low intensity activity such as walking, jogging or cycling can do this. Along with your strength training program do at least one interval training session each week to further boost metabolism.

2. Small frequent meals (4-6) throughout the day with a focus on key fat burning generating nutrients such as 20-30 grams of high quality protein and 300-400 calories at each of these meals. These meals need to be eaten every 2-3 hours for maximum metabolism boosting effect.

This is how simple it really is. If you truly want a healthy, strong, lean, shapely, energetic body this is what it takes to achieve it. Nothing else, no dieting, no diet pills, no doctor, no surgery and most certainly a no exercise lifestyle can or will ever give you,.

Forget everything you have been mislead to believe about weight (fat) loss and old fashioned ineffective exercise programs that don’t deliver and start again with the new 21st Century methods that really do work.

10) No, you won’t end up looking like some Hollywood star.
We only get one body and we are stuck with it even it we don’t like it. But you can always make it look great. Concentrate on making a healthy strong and fit you instead of wishing you looked like someone else. You don’t have to be perfect to be attractive and a strong, fit body as well as the self-confidence it brings can make any person attractive.

9) It is better to be toned and weigh more than to be soft and flabby and weigh less.
The sleek firm bodies we admire have a high ratio of toned muscle tissue and a low percentage of body fat. You will be a much smaller person and will be stronger and have more energy. So, don’t look to the scales to give your a magical number, but look at your total body composition instead.

You need to do the right exercise.
Forget long, slow, repetitive old fashioned activities like walking, jogging or cycling. They are great as part of an active lifestyle but will not give you a strong, lean and firm body. You need to be doing a proper exercise program that contains mostly strength training exercise along with a small amount of interval training. That is the 21st Century way to achieve your fitness and weight loss goals.

7) You won’t get any bigger or bulkier.
If you are larger than you would like now and start exercising and eating better it is unlikely that you will get larger. If you are carrying any excess body fat this will make you larger than any toned muscle will… ever. Toned muscle is your friend and will help you burn off that bulky fat.

6) You will need to put some effort into it.
If you want to become strong and fit you have to work at it. You have to plan it, you have to schedule it, and, most importantly, you actually have to do it. There can be no excuses.

5) You need to eat in the right way.
If you want a strong fit body, you need to nourish it. Your eating must support your exercise program and give you enough energy to do it properly otherwise it will not work. Small meals around 4-6 of them spread throughout the day each one containing 20-30 grams of protein is the ticket to a slim and trim body.

4) You can’t lose excess weight overnight.
You didn’t gain it overnight and you are certainly not going to lose it overnight. If you are serious about making successful and permanent changes seek the help of a fitness professional to help you make them. If you try and wing it alone it is unlikely that you will succeed. You need to be monitored properly, your program updated often and your eating plan tweaked….constantly.

3) You can’t spot reduce a body part.
Genetics will decide where the fat will come off so doing 1000 crunches will not reduce your belly fat. Your body does not burn the fat from the body part that you are moving. To reduce fat from one particular area you must reduce your entire body fat percentage. So, don’t overdo it on any exercise for one specific body part and look to getting your whole body in shape.

2) There are no quick fixes.
There is no quick and easy fix – none. No pill, no potion, no miracle diet or exercise program that will ever give you that. Don’t be sucked in by another scam again. Spend some time and learn the basics about the importance of keeping your metabolism cranking with proper food and exercise so you can lose the fat and get toned up as well. This will be your long term solution and is the only one that works.

1) Accept that fitness is a lifelong commitment
Once you have achieved your goals you cannot just stop because you will simply end up exactly like you were before. And if you were unhappy with it then you will be unhappy with it now. Fitness and eating right is a lifelong commitment. By making it so you will reap the rewards of a long and healthy life, filled with energy, strength and vitality.

What if you were to discover some new ways that will steadily awaken your natural hidden fat burning machinery to slim you down and tone you up far easier that you ever thought possible? A weight loss system that becomes so automatic, that you cannot fail to get results?

You just might be thinking that it sounds too good to be true. And, you could not be blamed for thinking this way after all, literally hundreds of weight loss/diet programs of one sort or another are available. You probably have tried some of them, and more than likely they probably did not produce the results you would have liked them to.

For decades so called ‘experts’ have told us that if we are overweight we should go on a diet to lose the excess fat. But we now know that food restriction is the very worst thing you can do if you wish to lose weight.

Our bodies are programmed to hold onto fat not lose it. This dates back to the time of our ancestors who frequently spent days or weeks without adequate food when hunting was poor or in winter when food was scarce. So the body got used to storing fat for these lean times to save itself from starving.

Go on a diet – any diet – and it won’t be long before your body starts to fight you for every ounce of your body fat as it wants to keep you alive. You want to lose it, it wants to keep it and it will win every time.

To win this battle against your body you have to get strategic and trick your body into thinking you aren’t dieting when you actually are. The main objective is to block the body from going into ‘starvation mode’ and keep fat burning at its highest point, day after day, week after week.

We do this with a two pronged approach – First eat 5-6 small meals every 2-3 hours throughout the day. Each of these meals should contain 20-30 grams of protein and the balance made up of raw or cooked vegetables and a small amount of complex carbohydrate like rice, pasta or sweet potato. These meals should be around 300-400 calories each so you will be eating a bottom level of 1800 calories.

The other important part of the strategy is to perform a proper exercise program that contains at least 60% strength training exercise. This will rebuild lost muscle tissue to keep your metabolism (your body’s engine) running hot. This will allow your body to burn off the excess fat every minute of the day even when you are resting or sleeping.

No other activity will give you this metabolism boost, so forget about long, slow, boring out dated activity that we used to believe would make us lose weight like walking, jogging or cycling This type of activity is as ineffective as dieting for obtaining a strong, lean, healthy, fit body.

We have discovered better ways now to achieve our fitness and weight loss goals and one of them is interval training. Short bursts of all out activity for 10-15 seconds following by 30 seconds to one minute of slower activity. For example 10 seconds of sprinting followed by one minute of walking. Repeat these ‘intervals’ 6-12 times once or twice a week for the ultimate fat blasting, anti aging, feel good activity.

The combination of your proper exercise program and your small meal eating plan works with your body not against it as the old ways did. Instead of destroying your metabolism as dieting did the new ways protect it so weight stays lost.

We must acknowledge that we have inherited a master system, a complete blueprint for optimal activity and nutrition and we are designed to be strong, lean, energetic and fit. If we respect and work with this system we can make steady, consistent progress to our fitness goals.

Some $30 billion dollars is spent on weight loss each year as people desperately search and mistakenly believe ‘the answer’ to looking and feeling good is losing weight. This may be a popular belief but it is totally false as the majority of the big weight loss spenders are losing their money, not their weight.

The majority of people who try to lose weight use very unhealthy methods that have devastating effects on the metabolism (the body’s engine). In fact, 98% of those people who do manage to lose some weight soon gain it back and end up with a damaged metabolism which makes future weight loss efforts near impossible.

There is a simple concept to lose weight and look good. It happens when you do the right thing and take responsibility for your health and improve it first and foremost. You cannot lose weight to improve your health – you must improve your health and have a healthy metabolism in order to lose weight.

Don’t keep doing what you are doing if it is not working. Here are 17 hot tips that will work better than anything you can purchase:

1. Have a strength training exercise program firmly in place.

2. Perform 1-2 interval training sessions each week.

3. Hire a fitness professional to teach you how to exercise intensely enough to really make a difference to your metabolism.

4. Do not do any long, slow, steady state activity (walking, jogging, cycling etc). These are recreational activities that are fine as part of an active lifestyle but can never replace a proper exercise program

5. Separate interval training and strength training days.

6. Eat 5-7 times each day.

7. Have at least 20 grams of protein at each meal.

8. Make up the balance of your meals with lots of cooked and raw vegetables.

9. Eat whole natural unprocessed foods.

10. Space your small meals out every 2-3 hours throughout the day.

11. Eat within an hour of waking.

12. Plan your meals, shop and prepare them in advance and take them with you wherever you go so you are not tempted to eat something that will not help you reach your goals.

13. Plan your workouts in advance and schedule them on your planner or calendar.

14. Treat these workout times as important appointments and keep your promises to

15. List 10-20 benefits that you will gain from becoming stronger, fitter and slimmer and make them your health/fitness/weight loss goals. These goals will then become much more personal and meaningful.

16. Go over these benefits as often as you need to. This may be daily, weekly or monthly.

17. You can’t manage your health until you can manage your self which involves managing your time, your energy, your workouts, and your eating plan.

Follow these 17 hot tips and consider yourself successful as this approach to fitness and fat loss will give you an advantage over 95% of the diets and weight loss programs available. Yes you will lose fat but you will also improve your overall health which in turn will improve the quality of your life.

Improving our health with participation in a proper exercise program shouldn’t just be something you do when the weather is warm and summer is approaching. It should be part of a much bigger picture of your life journey where your strength and fitness is so important it is ‘something you become’ not just ‘something you do’ whenever you have an urge to do something physical.

If you are always struggling to “get” fit it becomes a mountain that you never seem to reach the top of and always seems to be just out of reach. Making the leap from “doing fitness” to “being fit” is what is all about and where the true benefits are.

In your heart (and most likely your head) you know it is not about a miracle exercise or magical food, or even a hot new piece of exercise equipment – it is about you.

It is simply YOU who holds all the power and the magic to shape and improve your life. And the special key that unlocks your full potential – your most brilliant life – is your strength.

We are talking here about fitness that goes beneath our outer layer – fitness that includes your health/medical profile, your moods, your energy, your wellness, your longevity and the vitality of your spirit. Fitness is not just about how you look on the outside – no, it is much broader and deeper than that. Many factors go into this ‘infinite meanings of fitness’ scenario – but one of the most influential, is one’s own place in their journey to a better quality of life.

By continuing to work on increasing your physical strength through a strength training program you will be also be increasing your inner strength which comes from the inside radiating into and benefiting every area of your life.

We each have circumstances, experiences and life situations – that influence who we are, how we think and the actions we take (or do not take). At any given point in our life we have the ability to go inside ourselves to take more control of ‘who we are and what we choose to do’. Just like any other journey in life, pursuing strength and fitness means encountering roadblocks, hazards and challenges. Sometimes we breeze through these obstacles and sometimes we have to dig deep to ensure we continue to push past them.

Because negative signs of the aging process creep up on us slowly, we often take our health for granted while we are well. We pay scant attention to the end results of our negative lifestyle habits. Sometimes we need a health scare to jolt us into action but if we are showing signs of an illness or disease it may well be too late. Ill health can smolder away deep inside for years or even decades before it shows itself. By then it may well a strangle hold on your life.

We have to understand that good health does not just happen; it is something that must be maintained on a daily basis and this does require a certain dedication to physical fitness and healthy eating not just sometimes but every day.

One of the easiest ways to stay young is to stop the loss of muscle tissue that starts in our mid 20′s and continues throughout life. Once you stop using your muscle strength you start to lose it. And this muscle loss is just the beginning. Inactivity sets off a cascade of weakening from the top of your head to the bottom of your toes. It affects the brain, muscles and bones, major organs, sleep, your mental health, your ability to use glucose and much more.

But the really good news is your can stop all of this happening or even reverse it if it has already begun with a proper exercise program that contains strength training exercise. This muscle building and maintaining activity is the stimulus that gets most organs in the body to work at their best.

It is never too late to get started, and today would be a good day to begin. Stop your struggle with fitness, give in and you will wish you had started years ago when you begin to enjoy the many benefits that your new found strength will give to you.

If your weight loss progress has slowed to a stand still take a look at some of the most important reasons why this may be happening.

1. You are not doing a proper exercise program – The new way to lose weight is to increase your metabolism (your body’s engine) to burn off unwanted body rather than trying to starve it off. The only type of exercise that will do this is strength training exercise. When your muscles are toned they will burn more calories every minute of the day and night which will help you get results.

2. You are relying on old fashioned cardio activity – Long, slow, steady state activity like walking, jogging cycling is not intense enough to raise the metabolism permanently. In the 1980′s we were only concerned with what happened during an exercise session. Research now tells us that we need to be much more concerned with what happens after the exercise session is over for long term body fat loss. Strength training will speed up your metabolism for long term fat loss.

3. You are on a restrictive diet and are not exercising – You must combine a good diet with proper exercise. A diet alone may help you lose weight short term, but eventually you will gain it back (and then some). Exercise helps tone your muscle tissue and raises your metabolic rate. By raising your metabolism, you can increase your weight loss.

4. You are not eating enough calories – Under-eating is one of the big obstacles in the fight to lose weight. Many people believe if you decrease your calories you will lose weight. Your body requires a minimum amount of calories to function properly and if you go below this level you will send your body in ‘diet shock.’ This lowers the metabolic rate in an effort to avoid starvation. Fat loss stops and energy levels plummet. You need to eat a minimum of 1800 calories if you are a woman and 2400 if you are a man. These calories are best split up into 4-6 small meals eaten every 2-3 hours.

5. You are exercising without a proper balanced diet – It you are not eating properly there is no way you will have enough energy to do justice to your exercise program. You will just be going through the motions. You need to support your exercise program with your eating plan for best results. Each of your small meals should contain around 20 grams of protein and the balance made up of raw and cooked vegetables.

6. You don’t have a properly structured exercise program – Doing a couple of exercises here and there without a proper plan or schedule will not produce good results. Have a fitness professional set up your program and not only teach you exercise technique but also the level of intensity (degree of effort) needed for real results. Monitoring your progress along the way by your fitness instructor is also a good idea.

7. You never change your exercise routine – You must change your routine often to keep the results coming. You must perform a variety of strength training exercises and be looking to progress in them. That means you need to continually increase your strength levels if you wish to stimulate your body to make the changes you desire.

If you are serious about improving your body, you are serious about improving your health so take a look at this list and see if you need to change anything that could help you make faster progress. Losing weight and toning muscles is not always easy and the more factors you have in your favor the quicker if will happen for you.