Zen My Fitness – Linking Muscle and Mind

Build larger muscles, burn more fat or perform better then make sure you drink water. 

That’s it, no need to read any more but ONLY if you know how much to drink!

Do you know how much water to drink daily to help reach peak performance?

I mean too much water could be as bad as too little water! Over hydrating can lead to an electrolyte imbalance.

I use to run and exercise a lot and I kept away from processed foods and added salts, which I thought was a good thing.

After I had a blood test it showed I was very low in sodium which came from excessive sweating and was flushing out all the salts in my body, which inturn meant I was not absorbing water but it was passing right through my body even though I was drinking all the time.

I remember getting ready for a race and drank so much leading up to it, I felt bloated so I wasn’t even in the mood to run hard.

So here are some strategies to hydrate correctly during exercise. Read the rest of this entry »

Anorexic or Buffed

My all time favourite body weight exercise is to go for a run.  I find running is a very effective method for fat loss and if done the right way can help build a muscular body.

Running doesn’t cost much, no fancy equipment or gym membership needed, it gets me outdoors and I can do it anywhere, anytime.

I have been running regularly for over 5 years, initially long distances where I was doing about 80-100 kms per week but through injury and the everyday time restraints,  I had to run much shorter distances just to fit in all my daily activities.

As I lowered my running distance and increased the intensity I noticed a change in my body.

I had been lifting weights all throughout my running but on shorter the distances my body started to develop a muscular shape.

The Best Way To Run For Muscle Growth.

You probably heard many times of the comparison between Sprinters and Marathon runners. At the Olympics you can see how real this comparison is.

By the way there are very lean body builders who just walk or slowly jog, this keeps their heart rate very low and they can build a ripped muscular body too.

So from experimenting over the last few months I’ve discovered the best way to run and build or at least maintain a muscular body is follow these two extremes. Read the rest of this entry »

Cheat meals play an important part of any nutritional diet plan which will greatly help you lose body fat over the long term.

Typical Cheat meal for me No1 for the day

If you want to get or stay lean having a fantastic cheat meal will do a lot of good things to your mind and body.

If you are like me I hate having spent the whole week working hard to lose body fat and then having a cheat meal (see the pics on the right from last Friday morning) like a big cheesy pizza or deep fried fish and chips and a few too many beers but feel terribly guilty later and think  ”Have I wasted that whole week?”

Well I have just done some ‘hard work’ over the last month I have been experimenting with different cheat meals and see how they affected my body weight.

These meals I am about to show you are borderline cheating but also border line healthy!

So the criteria of these meals needed to meet the following so I could recommend them, they are;

Straight After No1 is No2 an almond tart

1. Easy and quick to make in approx. 30 minutes
2. Simple ingredients
3. I could eat as much of it as I liked and it will help me stay trim
4. My body fat level was to remain essentially the same
5. These meals had to be nice enough tasting to be a cheat meal Read the rest of this entry »

The last guest post on  ‘How to Get a body that Attracts Hot Women” was a very popular article and a lot of people were interested in how to get this sought after look so I asked Vaclav of Muscle Pyramid if he could provide an overview on his workout that could make it happen.

But better than that he has already turned this workout  into a fully accessible step by step muscle program.

So want to find out how to get the body that will turn women’s heads? … including Linda Blair!

Well here is the brief:

Build the Look That Women will Find Irresistible

Review for Muscle Pyramid Workout Program.

The ultimate goal is to build a body shape that women desire, seriously that’s the bottom line for most of us!

So you are already working towards that but do you need to improve your workout or just boost your progress?

Well start training with the Muscle Pyramid! It’s a workout program that will supercharge your results. Read the rest of this entry »

Do women go for a Body Builder or Yoga Master? Pavement Pounders or Mountain Climbers?

A survey done by Quirkology.com found that the highest rated male activity that attracts females are climbing, extreme sports and soccer!

The bottom three are body building, golf and aerobics.

I guess if you are training to be the next Jay Cutler and on the prowl for that some one special you might have to reconsider your type of fitness hobby! … Not a chance?  so don’t drop that dumb bell yet!

Fortunately my Eastern European buddy Vaclav Gregor, the Founder of Muscle Pyramid supplied this guest article for me on that exact topic on how to get a lean, dominate and masculine body whilst still hitting the weights.

Over to you Vaclav! Read the rest of this entry »

At the gym and on the beach where I train regularly I have had a couple of women come up and ask about my fitness routines and workouts.

They’d like some ideas for their own workouts so I start off asking them what are their goals?

The common reply is they want to lose weight, not get bulky or what I interpret is they want a lean and sexy body which essentially means what’s the best way of how to drop a dress size.

Since that’s their goal (different to mine, cause I’d look terrible in a size 0 dress) women do need to follow a different system, unless gaining muscle mass is their objective, NOT!

I found over time that an effective fat loss strategy that works quickly is a system that focuses on a mixture of;

Diet + Cardio + Resistance Training  = Hot Lean Sexy Body

Getting this formula right and I’ve seen people lose weight and fat straight away, better yet for the long term you can continuously maintain a slim looking body. Read the rest of this entry »

Jan 2011

I started a new body building program 4 months ago called Muscle Gaining Secrets by Jason Ferruggia of Renegade Fitness.

It’s basic premise is to build muscle size in the fastest amount of time and get ‘jacked’.

I was just happy to try and increase some muscle size as I always have found it difficult, I do add to the it by my lack of calorie intake where most times is just around maintenance level, not really conducive to gaining size.

You can’t expect to grow muscles or anything if you don’t feed it! Read the rest of this entry »

Christmas time is always a time of celebration and reflection so usually around this holiday I have time to do some delving into history.

I came across an interesting topic of how many known virgin births with resurrected deaths there are in history, I mean can’t be that many right? … Wrong! I was shocked too.

So I thought it might intrigue you as well to know maybe there was a bit of intel-sharing going on as we find proof of an ancient ‘right click – copy and paste’…

Here is a list of a few well known Gods, that share the same type of birth and resurrection as Jesus;

1. Horus (3000BC), The Egyptian Sky God
2. Attis (1200BC), A semi-deity in Greek mythology
3. Krishna (900BC), Hindu God, avatar of Vishnu
4. Mithra (600BC), Persian God
5. Dionysus (500BC), Greek God of grape harvest
6. Quetzalcoatl (600AD) Mexican deity

So like a good DAN BROWN novel (which I love reading all his books) I thought I’d look for a few other similarities on each of the above and found this for Horus, the Egyptian Sky-God;

HORUS – The Ruler of the Living Read the rest of this entry »

If  you a bit of a gamer you would certainly know Call of Duty, Black Ops it’s one of the popular shooter video games that recently came out and it’s the first to be set in the Cold War.

But do these covert clandestine operations games happen in reality?  Possibly and I think a lot of people hope they do.

In fact when a war movie or even something like this video is released the Armed Forces sees a spike in their recruitment interest and a small percentage go so far as take the pledge and join up.

Have you ever thought what it would take to join the special forces as you rapid fire on your X-Box controller from the comfort of the sofa?  … a little perhaps!

Oscar Wilde once said “Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life.”

Well then let’s intermingle reality with a bit of imagination from the game.

So you better be prepared if set you set your sights high in becoming one of the Black Ops elite forces like the Green Berets, Air Force Para-rescue Jumpers or Navy SEALs. Read the rest of this entry »

You have lost weight but did you know it can be an equally tougher problem to stop regaining the same weight?

I realised this was an issue after recently seeing the “Body For Life” (BFL) participants at my gym.

An older male of 40 years, a young guy about mid 20s and a female in her 30s were all previous winners but they had become overweight, again!

I couldn’t understand it, how after all they went through and knowledge learnt that they were so out of shape.

I don’t know much about BFL but it has helped thousands of people to lose weight so obviously it’s an effective method to drop fat, but what went wrong?

If you Google “Biggest loser where are they now” … Season 1 and 3 winner have also regained their weight!

I had a bit of chat with the BFL’ers (a sensitive issue) and a common theme was “it’s still a struggle to try and not eat so much”.

Is It So Hard To Keep Weight Off Once You’ve Lost It? Read the rest of this entry »