Yet another case is made for eating your broccoli and cauliflower!! Mike Geary, author of The Truth About Six Pack Abs explains how these cruciferous vegetables actually help your body burn fat!! Remember how Mom always told us “Eat Your Veggies, they’re good for you” ?… turns out she was right!

3 Veggies That Help to Burn Stomach Fat

Specific vegetables that actually help to stimulate the burning of stomach fat?  Sounds crazy right?

Well, check this out below and you’ll see why it’s not so far-fetched.

First, one fact that you may have not realized is that there are certain chemicals in our food supply and in our environment, such as pesticides, herbicides, and petrochemicals that have an estrogenic effect inside our bodies.  This problem can increase belly fat on both men and women, so pay attention.

These are called xenoestrogens, and exposure to them from these chemicals in our food supply, water supply, and the environment is one factor that can actually stimulate your body to hold onto belly fat.  The problem is that in today’s world, even if you eat organic and live in a relatively low-pollution area, it is almost impossible to not get at least some degree of daily exposure to xenoestrogens.  They are even in household cleaners and cosmetics!

So how can you fight against these xenoestrogens so that they are not forcing your body to hold onto stomach fat?

Well, that’s where these specific types of vegetables that I’m going to show you can help.

There are many classes of vegetables, teas, spices, etc that have compounds which can help to fight against the effects of xenoestrogens.  However, one of the most powerful classes are cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli, kale, brussels sprouts, cauliflower, cabbage, etc.

These types of cruciferous vegetables contain very unique compounds (phytonutrients) such as indole-3-carbinol (I3C) that can help to combat the effects of xenoestrogens in your body, and therefore, can help you to burn abdominal fat more effectively.

As if you needed another excuse to eat more broccoli and cauliflower… Now, you can add losing stomach fat to the list!

Now here’s the cool thing…

My program explains specific teas, spices, and other sources of these unique compounds that help to fight against xenoestrogens and help you to Burn Belly Fat faster and more effectively.

Enjoy, and good luck with your fitness goals!

5 Facts You MUST Understand if You Are Ever Going to Lose Your Belly Fat and Get Six Pack Abs…

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Aaaah, Tom Venuto, author of Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle really knows how to cut through all the fat loss and fitness bull out there. I love his style when it comes to calling out the media on stupid stories like how (and why) celebrities got thin or stay fit and the really harmful result that can come from what he says is ‘literally starving oneself to death’. The reality is that when dieting in this way you could wind up being thin but still having too much body fat in some really unhealthy areas of your body, giving yourself the “skinny fat” result. A huge no-no. Give this a read, it’s a real eye-opener.

Scary Skinny Tabloid Tell-Alls

I admit it. I bought the National Enquirer. I know, you should never admit you bought the Enquirer, but the headline GOT me! “Hollywood’s Deadly Skin And Bones Diet: Stars Risking Their Lives To Be Thin.” Not to be outdone, IN TOUCH magazine’s cover story was remarkably similar with the headline: “SCARY SKINNY!” Actually, I wasn’t “reading” the Enquirer at all, I was, ahem, “Doing professional research…”

TABLOID TELL ALLS!

Anyway, on the cover of the Enquirer there were photos of a “bony skinny” Angelina Jolie at 5′ 7″ 100 lbs, Anna Kournikova at 5′ 6″ and 110 pounds, and Cate Blanchett at 5′ 8″ and 106 pounds, among others.

After I flipped past the picture of Sharon Stone’s butt cellulite circled and enlarged for detail (no, I’m sorry to say, I’m not joking about that!), the feature story inside discussed an issue that’s really quite serious:

Dr. Stanley Title said that “The skin and bones diet is extremely dangerous and can cause serious health implications. Literally, they are starving themselves to death.”

Dr. Title said that Hollywood celebrities know that they look 10 lbs heavier on camera so they’ve almost all at one time used extreme measures (often including diet drug abuse), to the point where even casual observers notice protruding bones and rail thin bodies and wonder if they’ve gone too far.

People are dying to be thin, and unfortunately, that cliche has proven to be literally true on more than one occasion in the case of severe anorexia.

SKINNY DOES NOT NECESSARILY MEAN HEALTHY

All too often, people forget to include “health” when they’re setting their goals. It’s just “x lbs” or “size X” or “X% body fat,” but seldom a mention of health, energy, nutrition and quality of life.

There’s a side to this “scary skin and bones diet” that’s even more alarming. I am privy to this only because I’m a fat loss coach who has taken more than 7,000 body composition tests over the years, which is why most people don’t know about this.

Dr. Title, in the Enquirer story, said that these diets “leave the dieters looking skeletal with bones protruding under the skin.” True. And many clearly are flirting with eating disorders.

But something else I’ve noticed from my experience is that starvation dieting can often produce the opposite of the intended result. Instead of improving your body composition…

YOUR BODY FAT TO MUSCLE RATIO CAN ACTUALLY GET WORSE AND YOU BECOME A “SKINNY FAT PERSON!”

That’s right. Not only does skinny NOT = healthy, skinny also does NOT = lean, and skinny certainly does NOT = muscle.

Starvation dieters become victims of “skinny fat syndrome” and they diet off lots of “weight”, but the weight consists of more muscle than fat, so they end up with almost no muscle left, but the stubborn fat spots still remain!

Too bad they’re dieting off all their muscle, because MUSCLE is the engine that drives your metabolism.

Sometimes it’s not the “skin and bones” diet at all, it’s the “Bones and Fat diet.”

I’ve measured the body composition of some women who at a casual glance looked thin or even downright skinny, and to my shock and dismay, I found they were carrying body fat in “worse than average” range!

One woman I tested was about 5′ 7″ and 121 pounds. On any height weight chart or by any other standard that would be thin.

And this shows the flaw of thinking only in terms of “skinny,” “thin” or even just “bodyweight”: Her body fat measured an astonishingly high 28%! That’s 34 lbs of fat out of 121 lbs, leaving only 87 pounds of lean body mass and fat free-tissue!

Imagine for a moment an arm bone, with a one inch pad of fat surrounding it, kind of like foam insulation around a pipe. That’s what her arm was like, only the “insulation” was pure fat!

When I grabbed the back of her (very thin) arm- it was just one giant fat fold! Literally no muscle – just bones and fat.

Are you now starting to see the problem we have here with the way most people are dieting and thinking? Do you realize how slow your metabolism would be if you only had 87 pounds of lean body mass? How about how weak you would be? Is that what you really want?

I used to think “fat” was bad. Then I found out about “skinny fat” – nothing worse than skinny-fat, right?

Not so fast, How about “skinny-fat, malnourished, unhealthy and weak?” NOW THAT’S BAD!

People are so fixated only on the pounds of bodyweight and the outward appearance of “skinny” or “thin’ they are paying NO attention to health, energy, strength, function, muscle and vitality – the things that count!

4 TIPS TO BE “FITNESS MODEL LEAN”… NOT “WAIF-MODEL SKINNY”

(1) FIRST. Above all else, do not starve yourself.

ANY very low calorie diet can work in the beginning, but that’s exactly where the danger is – there’s a false sense of success achieved with rapid weight loss.

Rapid bodyweight loss almost never lasts. The thing is, you already knew that. But you so desperately WANT to BELIEVE in the promise of the quick fix, that you ignore your own logic and act on emotion.

Never starve yourself. It’s better to burn more calories with exercise and activity than it is to cut more calories.

When you’re active and burning calories, you can eat more, providing you with more vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients, fiber, essential fatty acids and essential amino acids.

Proper nutrition = optimum health. Starve yourself = inadequate nutrition = poor health

(2) SECOND, you must make strength training a part of your lifelong exercise program.

You must do resistance training. This is the stimulus and signal to your body to keep the lean muscle when you are on a moderately reduced calorie fat loss program.

Weight training is NOT just for bodybuilders. There is no substitute for strength training in keeping muscle, stoking your metabolism, getting you lean, making you biologically young and keeping you healthy.

Yes – do your cardio too. But don’t do just cardio and think that’s enough. Cardio + weight training are the TWO exercise elements that when done in combination will produce the fastest healthy fat loss results you can get, while maintaining all your muscle.

DON’T DO THIS!

Almost all “skinny fat” people do two things:

1. Starve themselves on very, very low calorie diets 2. Refuse to lift weights

(3) THIRD, you have to change your language.

Words are so powerful! Just a change in vocabulary can instantly change a feeling and begin to change your behaviors.

If we stopped trying to be “skinny” and stopped “dying to be thin” (what a terrible metaphor), and instead we focused on “being healthy” and “being lean” what a difference it would make.

What if you focused on “improving your nutrition” instead of “going on a diet?” what kind of difference do you think that would make? Just the sound of that – “nutrition” – how does it make you feel compared to “diet?” I’m SERIOUS, THINK about that. What associations come along with each word?

What if you added to your goal list a desire to look and be “athletic.” How would that change your perspective? Is the rail-thin, protruding bones waif-model look “athletic???”

DO THIS!

Always include “being healthy” in your goals, not just reaching a certain weight or dress size. Always include “being LEAN” in your goals, never just losing bodyweight. Always focus on “improving nutrition” not “dieting.”

(4) FOURTH, measure your body composition.

You must become aware of the difference between bodyfat and bodyweight and you must understand body fat percentage and body fat testing.

That doesn’t mean don’t use your scale and ignore what the mirror shows you and how your clothes fit, it means doing all of the above.

Always measure your body composition (skinfold caliper or other method), and understand what you’re losing – is it weight or fat? Is it just water weight? Could it be lean muscle you’re losing?

A single measurement will tell you.

BURN THE FAT, KEEP THE MUSCLE

Everything I’ve described about what you should do and what you shouldn’t do is the same approach that *natural* bodybuilders and fitness competitors have always used.

These athletes CANNOT afford to lose an ounce of muscle, so they train hard and eat as many as 6 clean-natural-food meals a day to feed the muscle.

It’s the approach I use to reach the type of physical condition you see in the picture on my website, and its’ the approach I’ve been teaching to others for years in my fat burning programs.

I hope that more people who were focused only on being skinny will begin to focus on the right thing:

It’s not about being “skinny.” It’s about being “lean” and being “healthy.”

Natural Bodybuilder Thumbs Nose At Weight Loss “Experts” Who Earn Fortunes On The Sweat And Dreams Of Young Men & Women, And Finally Reveals The Simple Proven Science Of Fat Loss No One Else Will Tell You About…

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Do not misjudge your fat loss progress by measuring all the wrong things and letting it freak you out or make you stop doing the things that are actually beneficial to helping you reach your fat loss goals. Confused? Rob Poulos, author of Fat Burning Furnace explains all of it in this article. Things like the fact that muscle weighs more than fat so if you’re weight training and the number on the scale goes UP (not down as you expected) don’t run screaming from the weight room because you’re doing yourself a huge disservice by cutting out the strength training.

How To Properly Judge Your Fat Loss Progress To Lose Weight Fast

If you don’t know how to properly judge your fat loss or fat burning progress from a particular exercise or nutrition regimen, you’re probably not going to be very successful. It’s just like in sports…you have to know the score if you want to know who wins the game. So in our fat loss and fitness efforts, we have to know our body’s score if we want to know if we’re winning, or in this case, losing.

I’ve found that a big mistake a lot of people make in judging their fat loss progress in the pursuit of a fit body is to be a slave to the scale. The scale is a useful tool, no doubt, but I’ve seen far too many people stop doing the right things (like proper weight training) just because they gained a pound on the scale. But you can’t blame yourself if you’ve been in this mode before…for years most of us were taught to watch the scale carefully when measuring if we did or did not burn fat. But your body can fluctuate a few pounds up or down at different times of the day, every day. This doesn’t mean you’ve burned or gained fat, so following the scale can play games with your mind. Another big problem with using the scale as your sole judge of progress has become clear with many people adding lean muscle to their bodies recently.

Muscle weighs more than fat, so let’s say you been following a properly conducted resistance training routine for the past few months. You’ve gotten stronger and you’ve also added muscle to your body. If you’re adding pounds of lean muscle to your body, you might see an up-tick in what the scale says. But assuming you’re not gaining fat weight, it’s a good thing. It’s not about weight loss, it’s about fat loss. More muscle means more calories devoted to building that muscle and keeping it alive. It also means your metabolism will get faster and become more efficient at burning fat. You’ll see that number on the scale drop soon enough, as the new muscle has created a calorie deficit in your daily food intake.

What we really should be looking at here is body fat percentage, or how much your total weight is made up of body fat. Most men will be more than happy with their bodies when they get into the 12-15% range, and most women will be satisfied with a fat percentage of around 16-20. So go out and get a skin caliper, which is fairly inexpensive, or another measurement device so you can keep track of your relative body fat percentage. If it’s going down, keep doing what you’re doing, and don’t even look at that scale!

Another tool I recommend using when judging your fat loss progress is the tried and true mirror in your bathroom. Now, this may sound simple, but use the mirror to judge your fat loss and muscle gain. Combined with liberal use of your scale and keeping tabs on your body fat percentage, your mirror will provide all you’ll need to judge your progress. The great thing about the mirror is that you’ll get great motivation from seeing your body change right before your eyes, and it will spur you on to even further progress!

The other important aspect of judging your fat loss progress is creating realistic expectations of your new body. As I teach my Fat Burning Furnace students, our friends in the fitness industry often use the genetically superior to advertise their products and programs, and this can easily deceive you subconsciously into thinking all you have to do is follow their advice to look like the cover boy or girl. Well, I’m here to tell you that even if you have the most efficient plan or program, you still may never look like your favorite physique superstar or model.

Research tells us that we are a product of our genetic inheritance. We all have our own inherited physical characteristics. For instance, some of us carry more fat in our bellies than others. Some of us have more muscle fibers in our legs and arms. Some of us carry more fat cells in our hips and thighs. Some of us are short, some are tall, some have dark hair, some have blue eyes, etc. Some of us lose fat and gain muscle easily, some don’t. While this may come as no surprise, it is important to remember so we don’t sabotage our efforts in the gym or at the dinner table trying to burn fat. What I mean by that is, just because you don’t lose fat in your belly at the same rate as your best friend doesn’t mean you’re doing the wrong things to lose it.

You can only compare yourself to you. Lying in you right now is your very own best body – your own strong, lean, and healthy physique. Everyone’s is different. Yours might be highlighted by broad shoulders and powerful arms. Or maybe it’s your slender and muscular waist that frames your body. So don’t feel chained by your genetic makeup, feel liberated, knowing that you have the power to reshape and transform what you were given.

With the combination of the right knowledge and developed habits, you can burn fat fast and make such improvements in your body that you’ll impress almost everyone you know. I’ve seen it happen with my friends, family, and students…I’m talking about people seeing them and saying wow! And more importantly, you’ll feel great knowing you’ve done all you can to live the rest of your life with the body you’re truly capable of…and that is just an awesome and empowering feeling.

Why Haven’t More Women & Men Who Struggle With Their Weight Been Told THESE FACTS?

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Mike Geary, author of The Truth About Six Pack Abs tends to blow my mind quite often with his vast knowledge about nutrition. There are so many wildly surprising things that he’s made me aware of. I’m sure you’re like me and can’t get enough of his informative articles. This one really got me. What do you mean there’s a TRANS fat that helps burn belly fat? You really must read this one to find out for yourself.

A Type of Trans Fat That Burns Belly Fat?

As a Certified Nutrition Specialist, I usually shock people with this fact… it’s true that there is a type of healthy natural trans fat that actually helps you to burn off abdominal fat.

Sounds far-fetched, but it’s true.

First of all, as I’m sure you’ve heard a million times by now, artificial trans fats in our food supply from hydrogenated oils are one of the most unhealthy foods (if you can actually call it suitable to eat) you can put in your body.  Artificial trans fats cause everything from obesity to various cancers to heart disease, and more.  They are pure evil, and everyone knows by now that this is a fact.

Stay away from artificial trans fats from hydrogenated oils at all costs!

However, what most people don’t know is that there is a specific type of natural trans fat (yes, it occurs naturally) that can actually stimulate fat loss and lean muscle building.

This specific type of natural trans fat actually occurs in the meat and milk from ruminant animals such as cattle, goats, sheep, venison, bison, kangaroo, etc.  It is called conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), and is not only known to help prevent cancer, but is also a potent fat burner.

CLA is highest when these animals are grass-fed instead of grain-fed.

Now before you think that you can just buy the CLA supplements that you’ll see most supplement stores selling…

WARNING: Do not buy CLA supplements!  The only form of healthy CLA is from grass-fed ruminant animals such as grass-fed beef, bison, lamb, etc.  The CLA that’s found in CLA pills is an artificially created form that is a different isomer than the natural CLA isomer found in grass fed meat or dairy.  The CLA isomer in the pills is NOT a healthy form, and will not benefit you.

Only the CLA that you get naturally from grass-fed ruminant meats actually has health benefits and can help increase fat burning (particularly from stomach fat) and building lean muscle, which helps increase your metabolism.

While most trans fats (the artificial ones) will just make you unhealthy and fat, now you know that there actually is such a thing as a healthy natural trans fat that makes you burn fat instead!

If you liked this unique tip to burn belly fat with grass fed meats, I have tons more Fat Burning Tips here to give you a leaner, healthier body

Enjoy… and good luck on your lean healthy body!

5 Facts You MUST Understand if You Are Ever Going to Lose Your Belly Fat and Get Six Pack Abs…

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Pushups are a great full body bodyweight exercise. There’s tons of different variations so yo9u never have to get bored doing them either. The king of bodyweight exercises Craig Ballantyne, author of Turbulence Training shows us 5 variations that we can incorporate into our own home or gym workouts

5 Push-Up Exercises For Home Gym Workouts

You’re going to discover 5 unique push ups that will not only allow you to incorporate bodyweight training into your workouts, but will also give you the flexibility to do them at home, while traveling, or at the gym.

The great thing about these exercises is they not only train your chest and your abs, but they also work to improve shoulder mobility. So, if you happen to sit at a desk all day, chances are you are immobile in the shoulder region.

By doing these push ups you will create extra movement in the shoulder blade area, as well as relief from neck and rotator cuff pain.

So the 5 push up exercises I’m going to show you are: spiderman, grasshopper, push up plus, T push up, and the elevated push up.

1) For the spiderman push up you will want to be in the regular push up position. As you go down, bring your knee up to your elbow, and returning your knee back to its original position on your way back up. Alternate sides.

2) When doing the grasshopper, as you go down, your leg will come across your body, and return to its original position as you push up. Alternate sides.

3) For the push up plus, place your hands in a more narrow grip than you would with a regular push up. Go down as normal, and then when you push up, once at the top give a little extra push and feel the stretch in your shoulder blades. So the blades will come together on the way down and then apart at the top, helping to improve your mobility.

4) In the T push up position, you will go down, as you push up, rotate outwards into a T position, and then back down again. Alternate sides.

5) The last variation of the push up is the elevated push up. To perform this you will need a step, a block, or anything that will allow you to elevate 4-6 inches. Perform a regular push up with one hand elevated. This exercise will work the finger-like muscles that come across the front of the torso.

So those are the 5 unique push ups that you can do anywhere, anytime in your home gym workouts to transform your body.

5 Fat Loss Myths: Why Long, Slow Boring Cardio is not the Best Fat Loss Program to Increase Your Metabolism and Burn Belly Fat…

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So many people jump on the bandwagon for whatever the latest health and fitness fad is just not realizing that it is probably not going to work for them in the long term. There is a lot of confusion out there about what it really takes to stay lean and Rob Poulos, author of Fat Burning Furnace explains in simple language why these programs fail more often than not and what it really takes to get the fat off and keep it off.

Are You Caught Up In A Cycle Of Fat Loss and Fitness Confusion?

As a member of a popular fitness center for a few years, I noticed countless others frustrated with their fat burning exercise routines and eating practices, working so hard and long but with virtually no improvement to show for it. Several of my own friends and relatives would mention this new program or product they had just shelled out cash for that was the answer to their fat loss or fitness goals. They were so excited about it and couldn’t wait to get started.

Then, a few weeks later, the same happy-go-lucky people that were once jumping with joy about their new plan to burn fat and get a new body became downright discouraged. It was hard to watch. I’d ask them how their fat burning plan was working and they’d tell me that it seemed pretty good at first, but they didn’t get the results they were expecting or they felt were promised. They quickly became tired of following the daily workouts and found following the strict eating guidelines almost maddening at times. So they hopped onto the next plan.

Even worse, they became so frustrated with following these so-called exercise gurus’ programs, that they fell even deeper into unhealthy eating habits once they stopped the program. Binging became their only form of satisfaction. Forget about maximum fat burning, and talk about moving in the wrong direction. What’s worse is that all of these people were following the typically recommended exercise and fad diets that were all the rage. They were doing what everyone else was doing to burn fat fast.

After speaking with many of these friends and inquiring about their exercise routines, I noticed one common theme that kept popping up in our discussions…they were focused on the short term…their approach was wrong. They weren’t thinking of lifelong health and fitness, but instead they were thinking about burning fat and getting in shape for “swimsuit season”. More specifically, they were also performing their exercise in a less than optimal manner. And then I noticed this with many others at the fitness center I worked out in. They just seemed to lack the fire or intensity in their fat burning workouts which I knew could turn their programs from nothing to something literally overnight.

But you know, you can hardly blame them, and you certainly shouldn’t blame yourself if you’ve fallen into the cycle of fad exercise and diet programs. We all want to achieve what we know in our hearts we’re capable of so badly, and that’s why we’re such easy prey to this “get fit quick” mentality.

Most people are approaching health and fitness in the exact opposite way that they should be, and they’re not going to burn fat because of it. If you continually think of using exercise and nutrition as ways to lose a couple of pounds, or get in shape for summer, you’re going to be disappointed with your results. If you think of exercise, nutrition, and rest as separate things, you’re going to be disappointed with your fat burning and fitness results. If you think you need to spend hours a week in the gym or adhere to some strange unnatural eating strategy, you’re going to be disappointed with your results.

What all of these approaches will do, is put you into the fat burning and fitness cycle of confusion that so many are stuck in these days. If instead, you choose to forget what you thought you knew, and start off with the right approach, the approach that focuses on making changes in your lifestyle long term, you’ll instantly improve your results by 1000%. When your approach includes combining proper exercise that takes very little of your time, nutrition the way nature intended you to eat that is simple to understand and follow, and the rest and recovery that is vital to lifelong vitality and energy, you’ll experience an awakening of both body and mind. Plus you’ll burn more fat, too.

If you choose the path most often taken by those looking to improve upon themselves, you’ll most likely end up like most of them. Confused, frustrated, unhappy, burnt out, injured, sick, or worse. Did I mention very unhappy with their fat burning progress as well? Instead, you can choose to embrace a lifestyle that includes brief, progressive, and intense resistance training, eating a diet full of nutrient rich foods, drinking tons of water, and getting plenty of quality sleep and rest. But know that when you do so, you’ll be joining the select few who understand that one of the true secrets to lifelong fat burning and fitness is not found on a fad diet or in a bottle on the shelf of your local health store.

Why Haven’t More Women & Men Who Struggle With Their Weight Been Told THESE FACTS?

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Junk food is junk food, right? It’s all bad and should be avoided? You might be surprised to learn that there are many foods you can eat that are much better alternatives to others when it comes to “junk food”. So if you are a Junk Food Junkie and need your fix, then give this article by Mike Geary, author of The Truth About Six Pack Abs a read. He’s got a great list of better alternatives when you’re needing your fix of that evil stuff known as junk food.

Avoid Junk Food or Eat Healthier Junk Foods?

As a fitness professional, I’m always amazed (and puzzled) with the conflict people seem to have with losing weight, yet they refuse to stop eating junk food. An interesting thing I have noticed over my many years helping people to lose weight is that almost every single person that has told me that they are “attempting” to lose weight, almost always has their house filled with all sorts of junk food instead of whole unprocessed natural food.

It is not uncommon for people to tell me that they are trying really hard to lose weight, but I will still notice boxes of apple jacks and fruity pebbles on their counters, cakes, candies, and chips in their cupboard, and sodas or syrupy juices in their refrigerator.

So the question that always stumps me is that if all of these people honestly wanted to lose weight so bad, why in the world do most people still have their houses filled with junk foods instead of healthy food?

Interestingly, the answer usually is that they do not want to give up their favorite foods because they think that eating this junk food allows them to “live a little”… if you ask me, it sounds more like dying a little with each bite!

My take on it is that eating junk foods has nothing at all to do with enjoying your life… In reality, when you give up junk foods you actually enjoy life more because you feel better and are more energetic every day. In addition, getting into better shape by not eating junk food can obviously help improve the way your body looks (and therefore increases your confidence), thereby making you enjoy life even more.

One thing that many people fail to realize is that eating healthy does not have to mean eating bland and boring food. Instead, when you learn to enjoy natural unprocessed food and start exploring all of the varieties of natural food that this planet has to offer us, you learn that you can enjoy the natural flavors of real foods more than overly processed aggressive tastes that are so common with excessively sweet and salty junk food.

An example of this is that the other day I wanted an unsweetened iced tea while out on the road, but all that the store had available was these bottles of heavily sweetened iced tea. Well, I have not bought a fully sweetened iced tea in probably at least a few years now… I have actually gotten used to drinking unsweetened iced tea and have learned to appreciate the natural taste of tea without needing sugar or other sweeteners.

When I drank this bottled sweet tea, I almost gagged because it was so syrupy sweet, it was absolutely nasty.

A similar example… I used to need a lot of sugar in coffee, but after a slowly reducing the amount of sugar I would use in coffee, I can now actually drink black coffee and enjoy the natural flavor of it without needing sweeteners (although I rarely drink coffee).

These are just a couple examples of how once you start appreciating the natural flavors of real food, you find that you no longer need the super-aggressive salty, sugary, or artificial flavors that have been ingrained in us by the food companies and all of the junk food they push on us.

My belief is that everyone should actually enjoy what they eat, and can do it without eating overly processed junk food… Actually, people are often surprised to hear that a lot of the foods that they think are junk food, I have healthy alternatives that they never thought of.

A few examples:

Junk food: a chocolate candy bar, a chocolate donut, or a piece of chocolate cake

Healthier alternative: a couple pieces of extra-dark chocolate (greater than 70-75% cocoa content only)… this is higher in fiber and much less sugar than milk chocolate or even dark chocolates that are less than 70% cocoa content

Junk food: Deep fried and breaded chicken fingers and fries on the side (loads of nasty trans fats)

Healthier alternative: grilled chicken breast strips with peanut dipping sauce and vegetables on the side

Junk food: a cheap fast-food burger on a processed refined white bun

Healthier alternative: A grass-fed burger (higher in CLA and omega-3 fats) with raw grass-fed cheese on a sprouted grain roll

How about that for eating healthier yet still very tasty foods!

I hope that what you get out of this article is that there is more to life than eating junk food, and eating junk does not necessarily mean that you’re “living a little” as so many people say. Instead, I feel the opposite is true.

Eat healthier and discover the natural flavors of real foods (not processed) and you’ll soon discover that you no longer need junk food. Enjoy!

5 Facts You MUST Understand if You Are Ever Going to Lose Your Belly Fat and Get Six Pack Abs…

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When you’re trying to lose fat, make sure you have all your ducks in a row. There are some very common reasons why people fail, and most of it has to do with planning. Tom Venuto, author of Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle reminds us here of eight of the most common reasons people fall off that diet wagon, as he calls it, over and over again. Fix what’s causing you to fail and you’re halfway to success!

8 Reasons Why You Keep Falling Off the Diet Wagon

Clearly, we have an obesity problem in America and many other countries across our planet. Yet, I propose that we do not have a weight loss problem today. In case you’re confused at this apparent contradiction, consider these statistics:

According to a study from Oxford University published in the International Journal of Obesity, within 3 to 5 years, about 80 percent of all ‘weight losers’ have regained the lost weight, and often gained back a little extra.

According to research by the National Weight Control Registry, that relapse rate may be as high as 95 percent.

For comparison, relapse rates for drug, alcohol and tobacco dependency have been reported in the range of 50-90%. This means that lots and lots of people have lost weight. But not many have kept it off. Therefore, we don’t have a weight loss problem, we have a weight-relapse problem; we have a “not sticking with it” problem, wouldn’t you agree?

In fact, the fall and subsequent weight-regain usually doesn’t take years. Many people have abandoned their new year’s resolutions within weeks. By the time the Super Bowl party rolls around, the diet is ancient history!

If this is true, then shouldn’t we put more of our attention onto figuring out why you haven’t been sticking with your program, and what you should do about it? That’s why I put together this new list (below) of the top 8 reasons why you always fall off the wagon.

Rather than worrying about the minutiae of your diet plan, like whether you should be on low carb or high carb, Mediterranean or Okinawan, vegetarian or meat eater, I propose that if you simply focus on these 8 issues, you’ll start getting more lasting results.

How? By being able to stick with whichever plan you decided was best for you! After all, even if you have the best nutrition program in the world – on paper – it doesn’t do you much good if you can’t stick with it in practice!

1. No focus: you didn’t set goals, you didn’t put your goals in writing, and or you didn’t keep your goals in mind daily (by reading them, affirming them, looking at a vision board, etc.)

2. No priorities: you may have set a goal, but you didn’t put it on or near the top of your priorities list. For example, your goal is six pack abs, but drinking beer and eating fast food on the weekend is higher on your priorities list than having a flat stomach.

3. No support system: you tried to go at it alone; no buddy system, training partners, family, spouse, friends, mentors or coaches to turn to for information and emotional support when the going got tough.

4. No Accountability: you didn’t keep score for your own accountability – with a progress chart, weight record, measurements, food journal, training journal, and you didn’t set up external accountability (ie, report to someone else or show your results to someone else)

5. No patience: you were only thinking short term and had unrealistic expectations. You expected 10 pounds a week or 5 pounds a week or 3 pounds a week, so the first week you lost “only” 1 or 2 pounds or hit a plateau, you gave up.

6. No planning: you winged it. You walked into the gym without having a workout in hand, on paper, you didn’t plan your workouts into your weekly schedule; you didn’t have a menu on paper, you didn’t make time (so instead you made excuses, like “I’m too busy”)

7. No balance: your diet or training program was too extreme. You went the all or nothing, “I want it now” route instead of the moderate, slow-and-steady wins the race route.

8. No personalization: your nutrition or training program was the wrong one for you. It might have worked for someone else, but it didn’t suit your schedule, personality, lifestyle, disposition or body type.

So there you have it – 8 mistakes that cause most people to fall off the wagon! Have you been making any of these mistakes? If so, the solutions are clear and simple: focus, prioritize, get support, be accountable, be patient, plan, balance and personalize.

Natural Bodybuilder Thumbs Nose At Weight Loss “Experts” Who Earn Fortunes On The Sweat And Dreams Of Young Men & Women, And Finally Reveals The Simple Proven Science Of Fat Loss No One Else Will Tell You About…

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There are many myths about the best ways to burn fat. You might be working out like mad but getting nowhere. If this sounds like you and you have no idea what you might be doing wrong, then read this article by Rob Poulos, author of Fat Burning Furnace because he will straighten you out fast with these tips and tricks to get your fat burning exercise routine actually burning fat.

Is Your Fat Burning Exercise Routine Keeping You Fat and Unhealthy?

The majority of exercisers today still rely on long duration moderate paced aerobic exercise as their primary routine to burn fat fast. But recent studies have shown that this is a big, I mean big mistake. In fact, you could say that the whole aerobics explosion of a few decades past was one of the biggest mistakes in the health and fitness industry. Why?

There are several reasons, but I’ll focus on the two main issues here. When you exercise at a moderate pace for extended periods of time (as in the typically recommended percent of your target heart rate), your body is burning fat during the exercise. While this may sound good, it’s actually bad news. This sends a signal to your body to keep a certain amount of stored fat available for your next workout. You’re essentially telling it that it needs fat available to burn, because you’ll be doing this exercise again. So while we may be burning some calories during this exercise, after the exercise is over, our body begins storing up some fat for the next workout. Obviously not what we’re looking for in terms of maximum ability to burn fat fast.

The other big concern with moderately paced aerobic exercise performed several times per week is that it trains your body (heart, lungs, muscles, etc.) to become efficient. Again, this may sound good, but what is actually happening is bad for long term health. You are working only within your existing aerobic limits, without improving your aerobic capacity. This is important because your aerobic capacity is what determines how your body responds in times of physical, emotional, and mental stress. If you reduce your capacity for work, as you do in this type of exercise, you’re reducing your long term health, not to mention a poor chance of burning fat.

The good news is, you can reverse these effects by instead focusing your workouts on high intensity resistance training, with workouts that last 15-20 minutes on average, and can only be performed 2-3 times per week. These workouts will burn carbohydrates instead of fat during the workout, and will cause your body to use its fat stores to replenish the burned carbs over the next 24 hours, after the workout is done! This type of work will also increase your reserve capacity and thus your ability to handle all types of stress, leading to lasting health and fitness…and 24/7 fat burning. Nice!

But the exercise must be performed correctly to be effective, and that means using sufficient intensity, and keeping your rest periods between exercises and sets down to 60 seconds or less. The students of my Fat Burning Furnace method know this, and are reaping the benefits. When you think about how little time you have to spend compared to the typically recommended methods to get these fat burning and health creating results, it’s almost magical.

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Come on you guys, let’s face it: elliptical machines and treadmills are flat out BORING. There are a bunch of other reasons why these machines are ineffective exercises too, and Mike Geary, author of The Truth About Six Pack Abs gives it to us straight. Seriously, gang. Get your butts off those machines and on to some real and valuable types of exercising and you’ll see a change in your body composition pretty quickly. And if you can’t trust me, then trust Mike!

5 Reasons Why Elliptical Machines and Treadmills are Useless Exercises

I know that all of the elliptical and treadmill worshipers are probably fuming at me now after that article headline, but the fact is, ellipticals and treadmills are one of the least effective methods of working out in existence. With this article, I’ll show you how to get a much more effective fat-burning workout without wasting time mindlessly exercising on a boring elliptical machine or treadmill.

Now first let me state that if you really honestly enjoy your elliptical machine workouts and treadmill exercise routines, then I give you my blessing to keep doing what you love. The reason is that even though ellipticals and treadmills are relatively ineffective compared to other types of exercises, whatever you actually enjoy doing the most is going to benefit you most in the long run because you will be more likely to stick with it more consistently.

However, don’t say that I didn’t warn you that you might be wasting your time with all these boring mindless cardio machine workouts.

I’ve talked about this previously with my readers… I actually do not believe in cardio machines as a good form of working out at all. This might surprise you coming from a fitness nut such as myself, but I don’t think I’ve personally used an exercise bike, treadmill, elliptical, or any other cardio machine for at least 8 years or more.

In fact, I don’t even use cardio machines anymore for warm-ups before my workouts. I actually think it’s a much more effective warm-up to do dumbbell and/or kettlebell swings, snatches, clean & presses, etc, mixed with bodyweight exercises as a great full-body warm-up before working out.

Why do I think cardio machines are so awful? Well, here’s 5 reasons:

1) Treadmills and ellipticals are just a very ineffective way to workout compared to other options. Why should you do treadmill or elliptical workouts when you can get better results by doing more interesting forms of training that actually stimulate a fat-burning hormonal response and stimulate your metabolism to a greater extent.

2) Elliptical machines and treadmills are insanely expensive and a waste of money for people that work out at home… there are so many better things for home workouts you could have spent your money on rather than wasting it on an elliptical machine, treadmill, or exercise bike.

You’ll see plenty of ideas below for better home workouts if you don’t like going to a gym to work out.

3) I have seen several studies that indicated results that treadmill running may be less effective than outdoor running for various reasons such as stride abnormalities on treadmills vs natural running, slightly less caloric burn compared to outdoor running, and so on.

(although I never recommend just “jogging” anyway… variable intensity walking/running or sprinting are much more effective, training your heart rate in a much wider range instead of the same heart rate range the whole time).

4) Steady state exercise (that doesn’t require concentration on what you’re doing) while watching tv or reading a newspaper or magazine creates a mind/body disconnect resulting in extremely poor results compared to exercise that requires focused attention.

5) Elliptical and treadmill workouts are just mind-numbingly boring!

So what are some good alternatives to elliptical machine and treadmill workouts? Some of my favorites are:

• Outdoor wind sprint workouts – This is the ultimate workout for a rock hard lean body… just look at the powerful yet super-lean and ripped bodies of world class sprinters, and compare that to the withering weakling physiques of typical marathoners… what would you rather look like?
• Jumping rope – incredible mind/body connection and actually fun (you can try speed jumping, crossover jumps, and double jumps once you get good at it)
• Kettlebell workouts – nothing will get your heart pounding and sweat pouring like high rep kettlebell swings and/or snatches (or clean & presses)! These can be done with dumbbells too, but I prefer kettlebells as they have a better “feel” to them and the unbalanced nature of KBs makes you work harder)
• Bodyweight exercises – mountain climbers, bodyweight squats, push-ups, jumping drills, lunges, bear crawls, plank holds, and so on.
• The good old fashioned rowing machine – I don’t really lump this in as a “cardio” machine per se like elliptical machines and treadmills… Rather, I think the rowing machine is actually a great full body workout that actually uses real resistance)
• Hill sprinting – running as hard up a hill as possible, followed by walking down and repeating as many times as you can for a full workout (yet another classic drill for a rock hard lean body)
• Shadow boxing… a killer workout, but if you are shy, this is best done at home since you will get some crazy looks doing this at a typical gym!
• Swimming sprints – a more muscle toning workout compared with steady pace distance swimming… I actually love the upper body pump I get from sprint swimming (instead of swimming slow and steady, with sprint swimming, you swim as fast as you can exerting as much force as you can for 1 lap. Then rest for 15-20 seconds before doing another swim sprint).
• Heavy bag punching/kicking workouts, speed bag, rebounding bag… all are tremendous workouts and much more fun than boring cardio machines (requires an very intense mind/body connection which increases results).

I hope this article gives you lots of ideas you can use to go out right away and bring some more variety into your workouts instead of relying on the same old dull elliptical machine and treadmill workout routines. Have fun!

5 Facts You MUST Understand if You Are Ever Going to Lose Your Belly Fat and Get Six Pack Abs…

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