Zen My Fitness – Linking Muscle and Mind

Posts Tagged ‘weight loss’

When do we start?

I have published a guest article over on musclehacker.com  about discovering what is the best type of cardio for fat loss!

I provide a definitive answer that will work for you guaranteed.

Maybe you have heard that before but if you haven’t then the answer is (drum roll please) ….  click here  to find out at the musclehacker.com!

I wanted to find the best method to lose weight fast in a week!

How to Lose Weight Fast

Why? Just for the sake of curiosity and see what worked plus we are in Mid Winter and I always tend to put extra weight on over that period.

So I chose 3 methods but there are many more ways to lose fat however these were easy enough for me to do.

The 3 that I decided on for my weight loss experiment were:

1. Intermittent fasting during the day.

2. Eating mainly simple Carbohydrates during the day.

3. Eating mostly Proteins during the day.

But firstly I had decided on some simple rules: Read the rest of this entry »

I have read so much about Crazy Celebrity fad diets that I decided I should try one to see if they really would work.

I picked the Cabbage soup diet only because it went for 7 days and would not be so disruptive in my normal routine. It has also been recommended by medical institutions as a pre-surgery diet so I guess it couldn’t be that bad.

Most diets are not suitable for long-term weight loss but are good for losing weight fast.

The Cabbage Soup Diet is a low-fat & low- calorie, high-fiber diet that should help drop weight fast.

It could be used before you embark on a long-term eating plan.

The CABBAGE SOUP DIET

Day One: Read the rest of this entry »

Celebrities have a huge influence on us.

Everything they do is always in the spotlight and at times we want to copy “everything they do”.

One area that gets a lot of attention are their diets and workouts.

Some are spot on with their weight loss but some are so far off the track it becomes dangerous, here are a couple examples of crazy and not so crazy diets they follow.

You might be surprised which celebrity gets its right!

Jennifer Love Hewitt – The Grape Whisperer

This hard working actor would work on set for up to 15 hours a day.

Not having a lot of time Jennifer would go home and make simple but high carb (carbohydrate) meals of mashed potatoes, risotto and pastas and not having the time to work out took its toll on her body as the weight piled on.

When it got to the point that Jennifer felt she need to lose weight the first diet she tried was The Grapefruit diet (also known as the Hollywood diet)  a short-term fad diet. Read the rest of this entry »

Who is lean, muscular, toned, ripped 6 pack and good looking, Let’s play who am I?

Come To The Dark Side - there is plenty of room

Hmmm … Straight away you might think … Hugh Jackman, maybe Robert Downey Jr or is it teen sensation Taylor Lautner?

WRONG IT’S ME! … OK it’s not me … but we all would like to think that way and wouldn’t we kill for that perfect physique?

In fact all of us right NOW is trying to create that look but ask yourself “at what expense” does it come?

The fitness journey begins, we achieve positive results that’s to our liking. And humans nature will drive us to do more and more as these efforts produce better results
so the cycle begins! Read the rest of this entry »

How do you live longer?

Well READ this article before you;

1. Re-order your monthly dose of Tibetan Goji Juice,
2. Go off for a 20km run,
3. Book a spa retreat so you can meditate like a Zen Monk.

So just throw those ideas out the window for the next 10 minutes!

Unfortunately living to a 100 is still guess work but we do have some control over our longevity.

You might not want to live that long but hey everyone’s goal should be striving for an excellent quality of life for as long as possible.

But what we do know about living longer comes from a combination of 10% genetics, 20% family history and 70% lifestyle choices which is the only part we can control.

I like to use historically based data.

Finding trends in historical data usually provides a reliable forecast for the future. Read the rest of this entry »

What does Team Edward (Robert Pattinson) and Insulin levels have in common?  Nothing really but you would think vampires have an appreciation for the effects of carbohydrates on blood sugar levels!

Anyways to look as lean as Robert does for the Twilight series, you might want to try Carb Cycling to loose fat but not muscle along the way.

So shovelling breads, cereals, and pastas into yourself as if it’s a race to the finish, is not the answer.

Eating meals or snacks like this which are high in carbohydrates will send your blood glucose level into outer space.

To counter for this rapid rise, your pancreas secretes the hormone insulin into the bloodstream which lowers the levels of blood glucose.

This insulin level caused by excess carbohydrates will ultimately promote the accumulation of body fat. OOPS and that’s what we don’t want!

In other words, if we eat too many carbohydrates, we’re sending a hormonal message to store fat.

However, regulating your blood sugar level is the most effective way to maintain your fat-burning capacity. Read the rest of this entry »

What food you stick into your mouth will determine blood sugar and insulin levels which have an effect on metabolic range for fat burning, muscle building,  maintaining a healthy weight and sports performance.

There are too many myths about how to manage blood sugar levels, where confusion reigns supreme but the result is you take a long time or never able to meet your health goals.

I have listed some basic tips of the right things to do, it will help lower and regulate blood sugar levels.

I’ve kept it general since following strict rules are too hard, boring and following a more general approach most of the time will allow for an effective long term improvement rather than fix me now mentality.

• We know carbohydrates (carbs) are insulin spikers so instinctively we avoid or limit their consumption.  However, eating minimal carbs will start to affect your brain (that’s one big fat cell but maybe not as big for some !) and deteriorate your muscles.
• With limiting carbs your workouts will start to suffer and you’ll have a lack of concentration, since carbs are needed by the brain and central nervous system to function . Low carb diets can eventually decrease your memory (we are talking Alzheimer’s). Read the rest of this entry »

I spend a lot of time in the gym watching others trying to get lean and muscular.

Months go by and they don’t physically change that’s because their overall program is not as efficient as it could be.

Reality is that everyone doesn’t understand diets are 90% of the answer to “Get me 6 pack abs”!

Action movie actor’s are becoming more like athletes these days.

They only have a small amount of time to get fit for their roles so their exercise and nutritional needs have to be exact and efficient as possible.

We can learn a lot from their routines and diet programs.

We could copy and incorporate these into our dietary habits which guarantees meeting our physical goals.

Here I have listed a few of well known actor diets;

(1) Jake Gyllenhaal has built a hero’s body to playing the lead role in the new swords-and-sandals action movie Prince of Persia, the Sands of Time.

Here is his typical daily nutritional plan that packed on muscle whilst keeping him lean. Read the rest of this entry »

 How to eat lots of carbs to lose fat and with a nutrition plan that makes you lean =>
Turbulence Training Nutrition Plan

I would like to discuss a nutrition plan offered by Turbulence Training.

I think there is so much information out there of what works and what doesn’t, everybody becomes afraid to eat, they forget to enjoy themselves and end up being miserable or is completely put off from even trying to loose weight.

Everyone  loves NUTRITION right ? or at least eating food.  A healthy nutrition plan is the easiest way to loose weight and stay lean but the hardest to do in reality since food is so nice, well it makes me feel good and comfy.

So if you’re sick & tired of confusing carb-restriction diet programs that leave you starving and left with stubborn belly fat, then there is  a  more logical approach.

You need carbs for energy. If you are working hard in the gym, a low carb diet is going to leave you flat most times and possibly even tired. Yes there are good carbs and bad carbs! Read the rest of this entry »