All About Protein

Many people think that protein shakes are for building muscle and that protein supplements are only beneficial if you want to bulk up, but no other supplement has helped me with fat loss the way protein has.

Protein is an essential component of muscle, but when you are trying to lose fat there is no better supplement. That’s because when you are on a strict fat loss diet you are likely to lose lean body mass as well as losing fat and that’s not good. So taking a quality protein shake can help preserve some of that hard earned muscle of yours while you are cutting up.

Remember, the more muscle you have.. the more calories you burn! So preserving your hard earned muscle can be detrimental to your fat loss results!

Top 6 Reasons To Lift Weights

If you’re one of those people who constantly sticks to the cardio machines, I think its important you take a look at this. I’ve compiled a list of my top 6 best reasons to workout using weights. This means using things like dumbbells, barbells, hammer strength machines and cable machines for strength training.

Fat Loss - This is the #1 reason to lift weights in my opinion. Most people set their man goal as fat loss so they spend hours on the treadmill. Besides being boring and a sure fire way to get sick of going to the gym, limiting yourself to only doing cardio is also limiting your fat loss results. Countless times I have said “The more muscle you have, the more calories you burn…even when you are just sitting at your desk.” So its easy to understand why weight training is beneficial to fat loss.

Strength – Everyone wants to be stronger! If they don’t, they should. Being strong can be beneficial EVERYDAY not just in the gym. Lets say you are moving from one house or apartment to another. Don’t you think someone who does weight training regularly will have an easier time lifting heavy boxes compared to someone who never touched a dumbbell in their life? Lift your weights, build your muscle and get strong!

Results – If you haven’t been seeing results in the gym nothing is going to boost progress like a good solid weight training routine.

Athletic Performance - Those professional football players you see on ESPN. Yeah, they workout… its not just an illusion. Those guys wouldn’t be the athletes they are today if they stuck solely to a good diet and cardio. Its important for them to hit the weights.

Happiness - When you workout, you release endorphins. Endorphins are chemical released by your brain that contribute to stress relief and an overall feeling of happiness. If you’ve had a crummy day, go pick up a set up dumbbells and take it out on the gym equipment.

Reduced Risk of Disease – According to several studies weight training can reduce the risk of heart disease by improving your overall cardiovascular health and lowering your bad cholesterol. Also weight training can reduce the risk of diabetes by improving the way your body processes sugar.

The Importance of Eating Frequently

Whether you goal is fat loss or muscle building. It is important to eat enough food. I can’t stress enough how important eating is. If you recall from the article “When is the best time to do cardio” I mentioned that doing cardio on an empty stomach, first thing in the morning is the most effective method of fat loss. When you wake up your glycogen stores are depleted so your body burns fat as fuel faster.. but this won’t last all day..

If you do not eat anything for breakfast and you plan to take on the day on an empty stomach it won’t be long before your body goes into starvation mode. Some people think if they starve themselves their body will eat stored fat and they will lose weight. This isn’t true, when your body goes into starvation mode you will actually lose muscle.. your body will start to burn your precious muscle tissue.. So if you’ve been foolishly using starvation diets and you think you are making progress because the numbers on the scale are getting smaller, well I’ve got a news flash. Those weight you are losing is most likely coming from muscle mass, NOT GOOD! Because based on your muscle to fat ratio.. for every lb of lean muscle you are losing through starvation diets.. you are actually becoming FATTER.

So keep the fire burning and eat (Healthy) often. A good rule of thumb to go buy is to eat a small meal every 2.5-3 hours. This will keep your metabolism up and keep your body from going into starvation mode.

What is Glutamine?

I’ve been hearing a lot of the supplement Glutamine lately and I just wasn’t too sure exactly what it was or what it did. I did some research and its a pretty interesting supplement that you should get some information on.

Here is a great article I read about Glutamine Supplementation :

The Low-Down on Glutamine Supplementation

Being the owner of BodySupps.com.au and an active fitness enthusiast, people have asked me questions about glutamine, like “Is glutamine an effective supplement?”, or “what kind of results can one expect from glutamine?”, and of course “what glutamine products would you recommend”. Well I would like to try and answer some of these question put forward to me about glutamine.

Read the rest by clicking here

Top 5 Fitness Myths

There is all kinds of rumors  floating around the gym today. Some of them even become so believable that they end up on the internet and soon everyone believes that they are true. You might think somebody is giving you some really great fitness tips or some great, valuable information about fitness.. when in reality they are sharing with you something that they are not even sure about. So the best fitness tip I can give you is to know the difference between a fitness fact and a fitness myth and steer clear of any fitness myths you may hear!

Spot Reduction -

I think this has got to be the craziest of all. People actually think you can “tell” your body where exactly you want to lose fat or gain muscle. The idea sounds great, wouldn’t you love to just be able to do a handful of crunches and begin burning fat from your stomach? Well, that’s exactly what people do! They begin to feel a burning sensation in their stomach when they are working out their abs so they spend time doing thousands of crunches until their bellies are on fire, yet they just don’t understand why their abs aren’t showing. Its simple.. Spot Reduction is a myth!

You can turn fat into muscle -

At least the first one sounded believable.. This one just sounds ridiculous. I remember hearing this one a lot in high school. Actually, I was one of the believers for a while. Since I was chubby in high school I remember telling myself “You’ve already got a good base to start with, now all you’ve got to do is turn that fat into muscle.” And I actually have hear many people say this over the years.. but its just not true. You cannot turn fat into muscle or muscle into fat. Can you turn a pile of bricks into a pile of leaves? No. They’re two COMPLETELY different things and one cannot become the other.

The more exercise, the better -

Now back to something a little more believable. The concept sounds simple.. the harder you work, the more you earn..Thats true for almost everything. For example if you want more money, you could work more hours. So why wouldn’t the same hold true for fitness? SImple… Over training. Our bodies need rest. If you continuously go to the gym and give your body no time to rest you will more than likely work backwards rather than make improvements. This is exactly why every few months I take a week or so off of the gym.

Women shouldn’t lift weights -

This is is just crazy, but I guess I can see where women are coming from. A lot of women fear the weights because they are scared lifting weights will cause them to bulk up and look manly. This isn’t true! women do not have the levels of hormones it would require to build as much muscle as a guy, its just not possible. Its because of this myth that I see the majority of women in the cardio section of the gym putting in countless hours on the treadmill. Women, if you want to see real results find yourself a nice workout routine involving weights, you WON’T be disappointed. I guarantee it will take your fitness results to the next level.

If your goal is fat loss, use lighter weights and higher reps -

If you read “Top 10 Fat Loss Tips” you remember how we mentioned that the more muscle you have, the more calories you burn.. even while you are resting. So if your goal is fat loss, shouldn’t you be trying to put on a decent amount of muscle? Putting on extra muscle would cause you to burn more calories which would aid in fat loss. When you are doing a very light weight for high reps you are not pushing yourself hard enough to damage muscle fibers and rebuild them stronger. So when it comes to building muscle and losing fat I prefer to use a weight I can do for 8-12 reps.

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