Tag Archive | "burn calories"

Use Weights with your Treadmill

In recent times, treadmills have grown-up in attractiveness and have become the most important basis of exercise for a lot of people as an aid to weight loss. Although treadmills are a big choice and can help you burn a decent amount of calories, there are few tricks you can use to burn even more calories as using a treadmill.

For the first 15 minutes of using the machine, your body is basically warming up and not a lot of calories are being burnt. Because the leg muscles are great, they require a significant amount of blood flow in order to start burning fat.

Most people are excited to complete the first 15 minutes of a treadmill exercises, but this should be just the start. Everything after 15 minutes is where the fat burning act really starts to begin.

The greatest way to get the most out of any treadmill exercises is to actually warm your legs up just before you start by using weights. Doing this will reduce the time it takes for your body to warm up and start burning fat. Here are a couple of exercises you can do for around 15 minutes with weights before getting on the treadmill.

Squats – Using a smith machine or squat bar is a great way to warm up those muscles in your legs. Doing sets of 10 repetitions with about 90 seconds of break in between sets will warm up your muscles effectively and quickly.

If you don’t have any free weights or equipment, you can just perform normal squats which are still fine, however, you should increase your repetitions per set to around 20.

Lunges – These might seem a little awkward, but they are exceptional as well for arming up those leg muscles.

To perform a lunge, you simply put one foot in front of the other while bending the knee of the back leg to touch the floor, you then stand up straight and bring your front leg back to normal position and do it again. These again, can be performed with free weights or with no weights.

After you have warmed up those leg muscles and get on that treadmill, each minute will be burning fat. Losing weight is all about burning body fat so these easy replacement exercises will assist you to get much more weight loss from the same amount of time.

Also, you should keep in mind to modify your treadmill practice around from time to time specially if your goal is weight loss. If you can, use a treadmill that has the alternative of inclining and declining so you can target different muscle groups of the legs.

If you enjoy to run, you should try walking, but at a brisk pace for longer periods. This is to bring down the strain put on the knees.

Keep in mind, losing weight comes down to burning calories, so don’t forget to warm up those legs before you set foot on the treadmill so that you burn fat from the very first step and not the 500th.

The solution to permanent weight loss is to consume the right kinds of foods at each meal to preserve your lean muscle mass and to increase the fat burning rate by building new muscle to speed up your metabolism. We recommend using the new fail-proof diet from The Weight Loss Grail.

This is a brand new type of diet never seen before that will never leave you feeling hungry or ask you to give up any of your favorite foods.

You can begin this fantastic new diet right here:

The Weight Loss Grail: Lose 28 lbs. Every 28 days!

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Metabolism and Weight Loss – What You Need to Know

Metabolism and Weight Loss – What You Need to Know
By line: By Yuri Elkaim, BPHE, CK, RHN
URL: www.myFitterU.com
Word count: 863 words
Related keywords: metabolism, weight loss, burn calories, lose weight, intensity, workouts, burn fat, exercise, circuit training, interval training

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Metabolism and Weight Loss – What You Need to Know
Yuri Elkaim, BPHE, CK, RHN
www.myFitterU.com

Your metabolism is important in the weight loss equation because it represents 60-75% of your total caloric expenditure each and every day. Metabolism is proportional to your fat-free mass (ie. muscle), and after age 20 it decreases by about 2-3% per decade. In general, women tend to have a lower metabolism due to lower fat-free mass.

Your resting metabolism is the rate of energy expenditure that your body goes through at rest. It is the number of calories your body needs to survive if all you did was lie in bed.

For each 1% increase in body fatness, your metabolism decreases about 0.01 calories/minute. Thus, simply by having more fat on your body decreases your basal metabolic rate. Conversely, doing things that will burn fat and promote muscle development will increase your metabolism.

While this change may seem like no big deal, it is! This small difference can become much more meaningful if you progressively pack on weight. For example, a 5% increase in body fat at the same body weight results in a difference of 0.05 calories/minute, which is equal to 72 calories/day.

Since 3500 calories equals 1 lb of fat, in our example, it would take 48 days to add on one extra pound of fat (everything being equal). That might not seem like much but over the course of 1 year that would be an extra 7 lbs of fat just because of an initial 5% body fat difference. But it would actually be more than 7 lbs since your body fat would increase as you continued to pack on the weight.

METABOLISM IS ALSO INFLUENCED BY…

Fat-free mass is not the only factor influencing your metabolism. Since the early 1900s researchers have shown that prolonged dieting is associated with a significant decrease in metabolic rate (as much as 20% in some cases). For example, the famous Minnesota Starvation Experiment where caloric intake was restricted by 25% over the course of 24-weeks revealed that, per kg of bodyweight, metabolic rate is reduced on a semi-starved diet. The researchers also showed that T3 (one of the thyroid hormones) and sympathetic nervous system activity decreased as well.

The latter two findings are rather significant considering that thyroid is the master gland regulating your body’s metabolism. A decrease in its function makes it more difficult to lose weight. I have seen this in practice having worked with hundreds of men and women who suffer from an underactive thyroid who at the same time, have had a very tough time losing weight.

The sympathetic nervous system plays a pivotal role in the body’s ability to mobilize and burn fat. Since it stimulates the release of adrenaline from the adrenal glands, a hormone that breaks down fat, any interruption to its functioning will also impair fat burning.

What these “starvation” studies reveal is that during prolonged periods of low caloric intake, the energy production of the tissues decreases in an attempt to adapt to the lower caloric intake and reduce the rate of weight loss. It’s simply a survival mechanism. Obviously, this is an appropriate adaptation in periods of starvation, but it is counterproductive if your goal is to lose weight fast and for good.

IS YOUR METABOLISM DOOMED?

Your metabolism is also responsive to periods of over-feeding. In one dieting experiment, when the subjects were allowed a day of “free eating”, their metabolism was elevated on the following day. Further, in long-term (14-20 days) overfeeding to cause obesity, increases in metabolic rate have been recorded.

This would seem counter-intuitive. After all, if your metabolic rate increases wouldn’t it help you lose weight? In most cases, yes, but not if eating to a point of creating a dramatic positive energy balance.

In essence, during the dynamic phase of weight gain (going from a lower to higher weight), more calories are required per kg of body to maintain the weight gain than maintain normal body weight. This is obvious and it’s also one of the reasons why you may feel hungrier when you are more active.

DOES EXERCISE IMPROVE METABOLISM?

Studies have shown that trained individuals have a higher metabolic rate than untrained individuals – but only when they did high intensity workouts and consumed sufficient calories to maintain energy balance. This suggests that the higher metabolic rate in trained individuals is not due to chronic adaptations associated with training, but more to do with the acute energy flux associated with the most recent workouts and dietary choices.

There is no doubt that your metabolic rate is elevated following exercise. The questions relate to how much and how long it is elevated, and to what extent it contributes to total daily energy expenditure.

It may be said, in the long run, daily exercise is needed to maintain an elevated metabolism. However, it should be remembered that what you do today will potentially have a greater “short term” impact on your metabolism than your combined workout efforts over the past few years. Just another reason why working out at least every other day is imperative for maintaining an elevated metabolism and helping you lose weight and stay lean!

References:

Benedict, F. et al. (1919). Human Vitality and Efficiency Under Prolonged Restricted Diet. Washington, DC. The Carnegie Institute of Washington.

Keys, A. et al. (1950). The Biology of Human Starvation. Volume 1. Minneapolis: The University of Minnesota Press.

About the Author

Yuri Elkaim is a world-renowned fitness, nutrition, and weight loss expert. He is the creator Fitter U and Treadmill Trainer, author of Eating for Energy, and the Head Strength and Conditioning Coach for men’s soccer program at the University of Toronto. His trademarked 12-week Fitter U iPod workout program has been helping thousands of people around the world get in shape and lose weight fast without the cost and inconvenience of hiring a trainer. Go to www.myFitterU.com now to get your FREE Fitter U workout and “How to Get Fit and Lose Weight Fast” report!

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Lose Weight with the replacement diet

So you just made a decision that it is time to lose weight. The only problem is, its completely confused about where to start and how best to approach an eating plan that works with your daily schedule.

One of the main keys to successful weight loss is to eat a little less calories each day than your body normally required. This approach may seem slow to start, but the results will be of long duration, it is easy to make small changes in habit.

One of the biggest problems with most diet plans available is the large amount of change required. Some of the most popular plans out there require drastic changes in how you eat every day.

This will not only create confusion, but can be quite tiring to counting every calorie, or denying yourself the foods you love. Usually soon drops her diet plan and your weight loss stops and begins to reverse in weight gain.

One way to start a new weight loss plan is to start using the “replacement diet“. This diet has many of the foods you eat now and replace them with foods that are comparable, but healthier for you.

This allows you to start losing weight without many of the struggles to change the lifestyle brand new. Some of these key substitutions include:

Soda Drinks – The drink of soda contains on average about 150 calories. The switch to a calorie free soda can add up to a difference of about 1050 calories per week if you can consume per day. These numbers are higher for large bottles.

Bread - Try to replace the traditional regular bread, which contains about 70 to 75 calories a slice with carb tortillas or wraps below. These types of bread, usually have only 50 calories each.

This can be a difference of about 100 calories for a snack and fiber content of these breads are higher that you will feel fuller for longer.

Vegetables – all vegetables do not contain low calories. Carrots, corn and green beans in particular, tend to have more calories from natural sugar content than other green vegetables. The shift to fewer calories green vegetables such as cauliflower and broccoli, can lower the calories a bit more.

Eggs – Try to get out of the yolk of an egg in the shell. The yolk contains by far the most calories of whole eggs. Furthermore, the egg contains only 15 calories per egg. Try putting two egg whites in a low-carb wrap and yourself a perfect snack, which contains only 75 calories.

If you spend much time on it, you can find many places in your diet that may be slightly modified to reduce the total count of calories without sacrificing taste too.

When approaching your diet from this point of view you can still eat all the foods you like, but in a slightly different way that makes weight loss a little easier. The more manageable to your diet, the better able they are to stay for the long term.

The solution for permanent weight loss is to consume the right types of foods during each meal while actually increasing the amount of meals you eat each day to speed up your metabolism. We recommend using the new fail-proof diet from The Weight Loss Grail.
This is a brand new type of diet never seen before that will never leave you feeling hungry or ask you to give up any of your favorite foods.

You can begin this fantastic new diet right here:

The Weight Loss Grail: Lose 28 lbs. Every 28 days!

Posted in weight lossComments (0)

Hidden danger of weight loss pills

If you go and do a search for weight loss, no doubt you will see that now there are hundreds or even thousands of different weight loss pills available to consumers. There are so many false, unproven claims, as there are products.

I’m not talking about the type of pill your doctor can prescribe for you that is clinically proven to work in the right conditions, but I mean the “natural” or “herbal” pills that claim to melt all that effort excess body fat without any change in diet or lifestyle.

One problem with diet pills available over the Internet is the possibility of side effects. Some can be quite dangerous. Medical tests have shown that the side of the most common effects are: nervousness, high blood pressure, headache, dry mouth, insomnia and restlessness.

In extreme cases, problems such as kidney failure, heart attack and stroke can occur and in the worst cases, death.

Many of the currently available diet pills are stimulant. These are what cause most of the side effects mentioned above, but also can be very addictive and dependent. The dependence of these medications can lead to abuses that can lead to serious health problems if used long term.

Another problem with weight loss pills is to alter your metabolism. Many of them are designed to suppress appetite, causing eating too few calories each day. As your body notices that it is the food intake is reduced significantly, also adjusted its ability to burn calories and become more efficient.

This problem is also commonly seen by people who perform low-calorie diets and is known as the “yo-yo” effect.

There has been a large influx of pills manufactured and imported from Brazil. Dr. Pieter Cohen of Cambridge Health Alliance said: “These diet pills contain amphetamines come from Brazil not only unproven, but the tranquilizers, antidepressants, diuretics and laxatives all combined in the same chip.”

The problem is that these pills from Brazil easily find its way into the U.S. because it is a big market for them.

The important thing to remember is that before taking any of these pills or herbal supplements for weight loss should discuss with your local doctor first. Some of the herbal ingredients are known to work in a manner similar to prescription drugs powerful. It’s a bad idea to think that because they sell “Over The Counter”, which are harmless.

The other popular type of diet pills are those that prevent fat from being absorbed by the body. The problem with some of these pills is that they can cause poor absorption of other nutrients that are essential for good health and can cause illness or deficiencies.

Other known side effects of these types of chemicals are: increased flatulence, diarrhea and a frequent desire to use the bathroom.

A much safer solution for permanent weight loss is to consume the right types of foods to speed up your metabolism while naturally controlling the bodies fat burning hormones. We recommend using the new fail-proof diet from The Weight Loss Grail.

This is a brand new type of diet never seen before that will never leave you feeling hungry or ask you to give up any of your favorite foods.

You can begin this fantastic new diet right here:

The Weight Loss Grail: Lose 28 lbs. Every 28 days!

Posted in Fitness / Weight Loss / Fatburn, weight lossComments (0)

Burn More Calories in Less Time

Burn More Calories in Less Time
By line: By Yuri Elkaim, BPHE, CK, RHN
URL: www.myFitterU.com
Word count: 567 words
Related keywords: burn calories, lose weight, intensity, workouts, burn fat, exercise, circuit training, interval training

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Burn More Calories in Less Time
Yuri Elkaim, BPHE, CK, RHN
www.myFitterU.com

In my view, intensity is the most critical aspect of any exercise regime and can mean the difference between someone who reaches their goals and someone who doesn’t. Increasing your workout’s intensity will stimulate your body to burn more calories and induce a greater cardiovascular response. It will also allow you to have a more time efficient workout.

If you are looking to burn fat and become more toned, then increasing your exercise intensity is critical. Many people have the misconception that if you workout at a higher intensity you will no longer be burning fat since you will be in your “cardio zone”. Whereas, if you keep your intensity low for a longer duration you will burn more fat since you will be in your “fat burning zone”.

Let me clarify this for you once and for all. By training at a low intensity (<70% max) it is true that you use fat as your predominant source of fuel. While exercising at a higher intensity (>75% max) your main fuel source is carbohydrate but you will ultimately burn more calories. And since 1 pound of fat is equivalent to 3500 calories, the ultimate goal is to burn as many calories as possible to create a negative energy balance!

One of the best ways to achieve this intensity is through the use of full-body exercises (circuit training set up) in conjunction with interval training. The benefit of full body exercises is that they utilize more muscle in any given movement – thus, you burn more calories. The inherent intensity of the workout also means that each exercise becomes more challenging as your heart rate is sustained at a much higher level as a result of not giving yourself enough rest between exercises.

Here are a couple of benefits to following an exercise program combining circuit training and interval training:

1. Intervals and circuits vastly reduce boredom. Traditional steady state cardio training and/or weight lifting can become quite boring. Interval training and circuit training offer more variety and excitement to your workouts.

2. Interval training increases post-exercise energy expenditure (calories burned following exercise) more than steady-state exercise, which means that more fat is burned. After intense exercise, the body needs extra calories as it works to repair muscles, replace energy stores (i.e. carbohydrate) and restore the body to its normal state (e.g. reduce heart rate).

As this can take many hours, you will keep on burning more calories long after the workout is over. In fact, research shows that metabolic rate is higher for several hours following interval training compared to steady state exercise.

3. Interval training burns more calories. As an example, 30 minutes on an Elliptical machine using a steady state program will burn roughly 292 calories, whereas 30 minutes of intervals will burn approximately 584 calories!

Here is a sample circuit traing workout that will leave you huffing and puffing:

WARM-UP – bike, treadmill, elliptical, rower + dynamic stretching (5-10 min)

CIRCUIT (45 seconds for each exercise, with 15 seconds rest between exercises :: 5-7 min to complete 1 set)

Lunge walks with lateral raises

Plank (on stability ball)

Squats with medicine ball shoulder press

Push-ups

Side Bridges

Reverse Pull-ups

Burpies

INTERVAL TRAINING (cardio machine)

20 sec @ 100% : 40 sec @ 70% x 5 = 5 min

Repeat Circuit and Interval 3 times

Total Workout Time: 45 – 50 min

Do this workout 4 times over the next 2 weeks and watch the difference intensity brings to your workouts – and your results!

About the Author

Yuri Elkaim is a world-renowned fitness, nutrition, and weight loss expert. He is the creator Fitter U and Treadmill Trainer, author of Eating for Energy, and the Head Strength and Conditioning Coach for men’s soccer program at the University of Toronto. His trademarked 12-week Fitter U iPod workout program has been helping thousands of people around the world get in shape and lose weight fast without the cost and inconvenience of hiring a trainer. Go to www.myFitterU.com now to get your FREE Fitter U workout and “How to Get Fit and Lose Weight Fast” report!

Posted in FatburnComments (0)

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