Overall: 4.5 Ease of Use: Value: Credibility: Bonuses: The Truth About Six Pack Abs Website: Click Here Owner: Michael Geary Company: The Truth About Abs Delivery Method: eBook (PDF) – Digital Download Click To Learn More

Truth About 6 Pack Abs eBook Fat Burning Kitchen Super Food Recipes

This is our review of the popular The Truth About Six Pack Abs eBook and diet plan. We download and fully read every plan that we review, so you can be sure that the information you’re reading is honest and as accurate as we could make it. The Truth About Six Pack Abs is a web-based diet program, which means that all the information is accessible from the web and can be downloaded to any computer with an internet connection. Your username and password will give you full access to the main PDF eBook, as well as the Truth About Abs bonus tools.

What You Get

The core Truth About Six Pack Abs Program includes:

• The Truth About Six Pack Abs 142 page eBook
• Personal Metabolic Calculator
• Access to an interview with Men’s Health Magazine
• Complimentary Trial Subscription to Lean Body Fitness Secrets eMagazine

The program has 2 optional upgrades -

• The Fat Burning Kitchen Program 119 page eBook
• Super Foods Recipe Book 34 page eBook

The Fat Burning Kitchen upgrade is an excellent value, as it gives you additional nutritional details about the main Program. It also provides a step-by-step plan to help you clean out your kitchen of unwanted foods that aren’t in the plan, and contains a list of foods to add to your kitchen shelves. The upgrade is completed with a deeper explanation as to why these foods will support a high level of fat burning, and how this translates to a slimmer and tighter set of abs.

The Super Foods Recipes eBook is full of great recipes that will help you create simple, tasty meals so you can keep cooking and prep time minimal. We also found the video to be excellent, as the speaker is another Certified Nutritionist, Isabel De Los Rios, who changed her body through better eating habits. In this short but powerful video she brings us into her kitchen, where she shows us some so-called healthy meals that aren’t so healthy – and then shows you simple, healthy alternatives that will promote optimal fat burning and health.

The Truth About Six Pack Abs Basics

The Truth About Six Pack Abs has an excellent track record of helping people gain leaner, healthy bodies, as well as developing great six pack abs! It’s designed for men and women alike, and includes diet and a fitness components. The Truth About Six Pack Abs is a respected and comprehensive program, filled with sound nutrition, diet and fitness guidance, which is presented in a way that’s easy to understand and follow, regardless of your level of starting fitness.

1. The Diet Plan: In his 142 page book the author, Michael Geary, begins with detailed chapters on proper meal frequency, enjoying cheat meals, stabilizing insulin, and keeping your metabolism high. He then outlines the plan’s food choices, which emphasizes eating whole foods.

What makes this plan stand out from many others, is Mike’s warnings about pre-packaged diet and other processed foods. To support his position, he gives us some powerful statistics that show how processed foods have negatively impacted American’s health and weight over the past 50 years. He especially advises against using foods that include what he terms ‘the two evil ingredients’ that are found in most processed foods. He explains that these two evil ingredients will sabotage any type of diet.

The book goes on to share some of the best unprocessed, tasty foods that can easily replace most of the processed foods we consume. Mike also tells us that by following his dietary lifestyle, we can eliminate calorie counting and still slim our waistlines naturally. This aspect of the diet plan was my favorite, as I find calorie counting highly unappealing.

2. The Excercise Plan: The Truth About 6 Pack Abs exercise plan focuses on combining cardio exercise with strength training for a modified high intensity workout. Micheal Geary’s Six Pack Abs excercise routine is efficient, in that it can be completed in 3 40-60 minute sessions per week. It’s easiest if you have access to a gym, but Mike also provides alternative workouts that use your body in place of weights.

While high intensity cardio-strength training has been around for a while, what makes the Six Pack Abs routine different is that it focuses on full body training, where you lift weights that involve several muscles in a single exercise. Mike states that these type of exercises produce 2-4 times the result as traditional exercises completed on a machine. To further enhance your results you’ll do 2-3 sets with only briefs rests between sets. In this way you enjoy the benefit of a cardio workout at the same time as you’re lifting weights. The nice surprise is that each routine ends with only 2-3 abs exercises, since the entire weight-lifting routine engages the abs.

Pros:

• Proven program, supported by a large number of testimonials
• Provides a wealth of information, yet uses an easy, step-by-step program
• Well known author who has a solid reputation
• Program includes the most current diet and health advice available today
• Common sense plan for long term living

Cons:

• No in-person or community support
• May feel restrictive if your diet consists largely of processed foods
• For optimal results, the diet requires some lifestyle changes such as changing from pasteurized dairy to raw milk

The Truth About Six Pack Abs is right for you if:

You’re ready to bring your body to the next level! This will require adjustments to your diet, including reducing or eliminating processed foods, as well as moderate-high intensity strength training three times a week, to sculpt your body and your abs. If you can make the adjustments you should reach your ideal weight, build enviable six-pack abs, and enjoy optimal long-term health!

Our Take:

Mike Geary designed a powerful and credible program, which he created after years of researching solutions to his personal obesity challenge. His body transformation serves as one of his many testimonials – which includes many satisfied customers over the years. Mike is also a Certified Nutrition Specialist and Certified Personal Trainer, and he includes other successful diet and fitness experts in his program, such as Holly Rigsby of Fit Yummy Mummy. We feel that The Truth About Six Pack Abs is in a league by itself due to the level of well-researched dietary and exercise information it provides. We also respect Mike’s conviction in speaking out against the processed food industry, as processed food is one of the largest causes of obesity.

If you’re looking for a weight loss program that will also help you build attractive, lean muscle mass, we encourage you to check out The Truth About Six Pack Abs by Clicking Here.

Overall: 4.75 Ease of Use: Value: Credibility: Bonuses: Fat Burning Furnace Overview Website: Click Here Owner: Rob Poulos Company: Zero to Hero Fitness LLC Delivery Method: Online – Digital Download Click To Learn More

Fat Burning Furnace BluePrint Workout Logs Metabolic Rate Calculator

Welcome to our Review of the Fat Burning Furnace Diet Plan. We thoroughly read every diet plan we review so you can be confident that the information on this page is accurate. If you have questions about the diet that aren’t answered below, please ask in the comment box. Fat Burning Furnace is a web-based diet plan, which means that you can download the FBF Diet Blueprint and tools to any computer with web access.

What’s Included in the FBF Diet

Fat Burning Furnace includes:

• The 160-page FBF Blueprint eBook
• 12 months of email coaching
• Ultimate Success Tool Kit
• Workout Logs
• Metabolic Rate Calculator
• Body Fat Percentage Analyzer
• Nutrient Rich Recipes
• Free updates for 1 year

Fat Burning Furnace Basics

The Blueprint focuses on two major areas

1. High intensity strength & cardio training which Rob calls the 15 minute miracle.
2. Eating balanced and nutrient rich foods to fuel the body.

Both the exercise routine and the eating plan have been updated with recently discovered health information and optimized techniques for weight loss, fitness, and health.

High Intensity Strength Training: The premise is that our body becomes a ‘fat burning furnace’ as we build a higher RMR, or resting metabolic rate, through increased muscle mass and lowered body fat. The ‘high intensity’ part may sound scary, but the reality is that most people can easily do the exercises that Rob illustrates for us. He covers proper weight lifting techniques, and even has a ‘Beginners Break In Routine’ for those who haven’t lifted weights recently – or at all.

Most of us equate weight lifting with the Gym, but even if you don’t have access to a gym you can still do the FBF diet. Rob gives you bodyweight-only exercises you can use in place of weights.

The nice thing about the program is that no cardio is required! That means no jogging, no ellipticals, and no treadmills. Rob has designed the ‘15 Minute Miracle’ to replace traditional cardio with fast weight-lifting repetitions, so you do your cardio and weight lifting all at the same time. This method may seem non traditional, but I’ve been using it myself for the past several months, and it really works!

The Diet Plan: The Fat Burning Furnace Diet Blueprint requires that you eat a well rounded, whole food diet. Rob also gives you the tools to calculate your caloric requirements. Nothing new here, right?

The diet plan is actually updated, as it covers topics such as managing leptin, organic foods, PH and alkalinity, glycemic index and proper meal management. You may wonder what leptin and PH have to do with weight loss, but Rob does an excellent job of explaining everything in language that’s easy to understand.

Pros:

• Easy to follow diet
• Efficient exercise program
• Well-illustrated weight lifting section
• Email support included
• Common sense plan for long term living
• Works for vegetarians too

Cons:

• Requires some meal preparation
• Restricts meat, sugar, alcohol, processed foods

Diet is right for you if:

You see the benefit of getting into shape at the same time as you lose weight.

Our Take

Fat Burning Furnace is written by Rob Poulos, who suffered as a child from obesity. Rob spent over 15 years designing, testing, and perfecting this lifestyle with his wife. Rob’s information has been well researched and his own results are impressive as are those of many of the people who’ve used the fbf diet plan to lose weight. The diet program is easy to follow and really works. Rich (one of our writers) recently lost 10 pounds in about a month of sticking to the plan.

If you’re looking for a common-sense diet and exercise program that gives fast and efficient results we recommend you check out Fat Burning Furnace by clicking here.

Overall: 4 Ease of Use: Value: Credibility: Bonuses: Every Other Day Diet Overview Website: Click Here Owner: Jon Benson Company: Jon Benson Fitness Delivery Method: Online – Digital Download Click To Learn More

EODD Members Area Skinny Mini Meals Cholesterol Lies Bonus The No Struggle Plan Female Power!

In this article I review The Every Other Day Diet Plan (EODD), which promises to shed pounds of fat while allowing you to eat your favorite foods every other day. We actually purchase and read every diet plan we review, so feel free to ask us questions in the comments section at the end of the review. The Every Other Day Diet (EODD) is a web-based diet plan, which means that once you’ve purchased the diet you’ll receive a user name and password that gives you access to the EODD Diet Guide, bonuses and tools.

What You Get:

The Every Other Day Diet (EODD) has 1 level, with the option of purchasing a separate fitness guide called ‘7 Minute Body’. The EODD diet program includes:

• The Every Other Day Diet Guide (118 pages)
• The Radical Fat Loss Blueprint (116 pages)

Plus six additional bonus eBooks and 30 Days of Email coaching at no additional cost:

• Perfect Posture
• Cholesterol Lies
• NaturaPause (menopause guide)
• Skinny Mini-Meals Recipe Book
• Female Power
• The No Struggle Plan
• 30 Days of Free Email Coaching & Members website access

EODD includes a 60 day money back guarantee. We bought the EODD Plan and the 7 Minute Body. I recommend you read my brief review of ‘7 Minute Body’ at the end of this review before purchasing this upgrade. While the 7 Minute Body workout is a great compliment to the EODD eating plan, it is also very intense. If intense workouts aren’t your thing, you may be better off using a milder exercise plan with the EODD diet.

The Every Other Day Diet: The Basics

The EODD focuses on two major diet concepts that work together: interval eating and the SNAPP System of Eating. Both concepts are summarized below:

1) Interval Eating- This is the central concept of the Every Other Day Diet plan, where you alternate your caloric intake every other day, alternating between what the author terms ‘Burn Days’ and ‘Feed Days’.

Here’s a rough outline of how interval eating works. First, you determine the calories you require for weight loss, using an online calculator that the author gives you. Then your first day of eating is a Burn Day: on this day you eat unprocessed, smaller meals, five times a day. The Burn Day is pretty calorie restricted, and gives you about 70% of your calories required to lose weight. For example, if you need 1,500 calories per day to lose weight, on the Burn Day you’d only eat about 1,000 calories.

The second day is a Feed Day, where you eat pretty much the same plan as the Burn Day, except that you are allowed to eat whatever you want at the lunch time meal. For example, you could eat lasagne, a burger and fries, or whatever you can eat reasonably within a half hour period. (In other words, no going back to a buffet three times and dragging out lunch). On your Feed Day you might consume 1,900 calories, but the bulk of those calories will come at lunch time.

After two days, you start all over again. Using alternating Burn Days and Feed Days your total caloric intake for the week will still come out low enough so you’ll lose weight. For example, if you need to normally eat 1500 calories per day, to lose weight, you would still arrive at those 1,500 calories per day when averaged out over the week.

The obvious question here is, since calorie restriction is central to this plan, how do you track your caloric intake? That’s where the SNAPP System of Eating comes in.

2. The SNAPP System of Eating – The SNAPP acronym refers to the diet plan where you eat five meals per day, and where your calories are automatically restricted. The SNAPP plan also allows you to easily memorize the meal schedule, by using the letters in SNAPP.

Let’s look at the meal plan. We don’t want to divulge too much, but for example, the S stands for a balanced Shake, which is your first meal of the day, and has a balanced recipe included. The rest of the letters signify foods that you’ll eat for the remaining four meals of the day. Most of the five meals are whole, unprocessed foods, except for the ‘cheat’ lunchtime meals on the Feed Days, where you can have whatever you like.

Next, we look at the portion or calorie control that SNAPP offers. Rather than counting calories, the author gives you a few calculations that you memorize. For example, let’s say your average meal is 200 calories, and one of the meals includes nuts. The author tells you to measure the nuts just once, so going forward you automatically know how many nuts you can eat during that meal. Of course, all of his calculations tie to your particular caloric weight loss requirements.

Putting it all together – The important features of the plan are its ease of use and its flexibility. When you combine the interval eating and the SNAPP system, your metabolism remains at its’ optimal fat burning level, while allowing you to enjoy some of your favorite foods every other day.

The EODD Bonuses:

There are six bonus eBooks included in the EODD package, plus the Radical Fat Loss Blueprint. They aren’t written by the author, as has partnered with various fitness and weight loss experts who have each written one of the books. That being said, they do bring excellent nutritional and fitness information, and complement the EODD plan.

I also read through the Radical Fat Loss Blueprint, which the author did write. It’s a separate diet for the super committed – those who want to lose 21 pounds in 21 days, and are willing to commit to a radical dietary and fitness plan in order to accomplish this goal. The author warns against misuse of this plan, and recommends it be followed only every so often as it can be hard on your body to lose that much weight that quickly.

Pros:

• Easy to follow SNAPP System of Eating; no calorie counting but still get results
• Interval eating gives dieters the opportunity to eat favorite foods every other day
• Email support included, large number of free bonuses
• Credible author: Well known in the diet industry, also partners with 3 experts
• Maintenance version of the plan is designed for long term lifestyle

Cons:

• Every other day your calories are restricted to an extra low level
• Some carb restriction as well as sugar, alcohol, processed foods

EODD Diet is right for you if

You appreciate the science behind the newest diet industry trends and are looking for a diet that is a little ‘out of the box’. If you have a tough time on diets that restrict your favorite foods for long periods of time, the easy SNAPP system and alternating feed days may be a solution for you.

Our Take

Author Jon Bennet brings us an all-star lineup of fitness and health professionals in his Every Other Day Diet eBook, which he co-authors with Holly Rigby, CPT. Holly is the designer of the popular FitYummyMummy plan. John also brings in co-authors Daniel Topkis, M.S., and Dr. John Berardi.

You may have heard of Jon Bennet, as he is known for writing the bestseller Fit Over 40!, which he co-authored with fitness expert Tom Venuto. Jon’s own personal success is impressive, as well. His interest in fitness and weight loss began with himself, as he was a self-proclaimed “fatty.” He shows un-retouched Before and After shots of himself which demonstrate that he lives by example. Jon Bennet is over 40 years old and is in fantastic shape!

If you are looking for the newest, nutritionally-sound, fat burning results that the diet industry has to offer, while still enjoying your favorite foods every other day, the Every Other Day Diet is a solid diet program that we recommend you look at closer.

Review of The Fitness Guide, 7 Minute Body

7 Minute Body

So what’s in the guide? It starts with an in-depth discussion on the topic of psychophysiology – the power of visualization and hyper mind focus for top results. It then describes a history of the various traditional strength trainer’s methods, which run 45-90 minutes long. Finally, the book discusses several studies which prove that a modified high-intensity, short-interval strength-training workout can give you the same or better results as traditional, lengthy workouts.

If you want to follow a disciplined plan, (which even uses a stop watch in its structure), you could effectively cut your workout time in half or less by using ‘7 Minute Body’. It is a very solid value, as it includes pictures of each recommended exercise, as well as a link to videos to help you use proper form. Interval training is used by most top athletes as it can help you get in great shape quickly. If you’re unfamiliar with interval training and workouts, 7 Minute Body is a good introduction and combined with EODD might be the perfect diet and excercise program for you.

The goal of any good weight loss program is to help you lose body fat. Unfortunately many diets cause you to lose water weight and even muscle mass just to show fast results on the scale. Getting dehydrated can make you lose 10 pounds or more quickly, but it won’t make you look better, and is actually dangerous to your health. Losing muscle is just as bad, as your muscles help you burn fat and give your body definition.

We’ve reviewed a wide variety of diet and exercise options and selected the methods that top fitness experts and athletes use to lose fat fast. By following these guidelines you’ll be able to avoid dehydrating yourself or shrinking your muscles, and instead will lose body fat while building a leaner physique.

Combine these Exercise and Diet Tips for Fat Loss:

1. Exercise Focus – Combine Strength Training and Cardio workouts
2. Dietary Focus – Eat Healthier, unprocessed foods in smaller amounts, several times a day

1. Exercise Focus – Combine Strength Training and Cardio Workouts

We’ve all been told that you should spend countless hours on a treadmill or elliptical to lose weight, right? No more! Fitness experts now recommend that you combine your cardio and strength training, which is called modified high intensity training (HIT). HIT is a fast-paced weight lifting session where you only rest a minute between each set and workout for 30 minutes or less per session. You do one set of 8-10 reps per lift, rather than the traditional 2-3 sets. Your goal is to use enough weight that you work your muscles to exhaustion within 8-10 reps.

Using modified high intensity training you get the benefit of cardio because you’re moving quickly while lifting weights. Strength training builds your muscles, allowing you to burn more fat even when you’re at rest, and also gives your metabolism a boost throughout the day.

Here are a few tips for maximum fat burning:

• Repeat this routine 3 times per week for just 25-35 minutes each time. By following the HIT plan, a short workout can be as effective as an hour long session.
• Walk. On days you don’t go to the gym, make it a point to walk at least 20-40 minutes. This burns some calories aned will keep your metabolism ‘up’ on your days off from the gym.
• Track your progress. Use a diary for your workouts and weekly weigh-ins. We also recommend keeping a food journal.

2. The Best Fat Burning Diet

• Eat smaller meals, 4-6 times per day to keep your metabolism running at peak fat burning levels. Try and eat at the same times each day, and wait about 2 hours between meals.
• Water will help you flush extra fat from the body. Drink at least the recommended eight 8-oz. glasses.
• Eat whole, unprocessed foods 85% of the time. This keeps your sugar intake to a minimum, and naturally lowers the amount of simple carbohydrates you consume. Of these foods, try and eat about half of them raw – in the form of nuts, seeds, salad, uncooked veggies and fruits.
• Eat a moderate amount of lean protein. No need to go overboard, as too much protein can tax your digestive system. Stick to proteins such as nuts, seeds, soy, and hemp protein as your primary sources. Add a few servings of eggs, low fat dairy or rice milk, and lean, grass fed meats each week.
• Healthy Fats such as fish oil, olive oil, nuts and avocados. Unlike dairy and meat fat, these choices are very good for you. They aren’t going to make you fat if eaten in moderate amounts, either. Plus they have the benefit of keeping you from feeling hungry while slowing down digestion. This results in steady insulin levels.
• Carbohydrates. Stick to whole grains, quinoa, spelt, and other complex grains in moderation and avoid most simple carbohydrates such as white bread and even ‘whole wheat’ bread. If you do eat simple carbs, try and do so just after a workout.
• Alcohol, coffee and sugar. Keep these to a minimum as they add unwanted calories and escalate blood sugar levels.
• Plan ‘cheat meals’ every so often. Statistics show that having a favorite meal or treat on occassion helps you to burn fat more efficiently. It keeps your body from adjusting to your restricted diet so that your metabolism doesn’t slow down, gives you the satisfaction of your favorite food, and generally makes it easier to stay on your diet. Plan a cheat meal every few days, and stick to the one meal or dessert, then go right back on your plan.

By combining a modified high intensity program with a healthy diet plan, you can obtain optimal fat burning results and meet your goal to burn fat fast. It also allows you to enjoy some of your favorite foods while you increase your lean muscle mass.

While many people go on diets and successfully lose weight, the majority gain back the lost weight within 6 months to a year – and many even tack on a few additional pounds! It’s critical to know how to keep body fat off once you’ve lost it, and this article we’ll share the one real key to permanent fat loss.

The One Key to Permanent Fat Loss:

The key ingredient for long term fat loss is strong commitment. This may seem obvious, but here’s the piece that most people miss: Long-term commitment stems from clarity about your life values. If you’re happy eating sweets and treats and dread the thought of a diet, you’re setting yourself up for failure from the start. Whereas if your life values involve being lean, healthy, fit, active, and living a long life than you can use these goals to keep yourself naturally motivated and therefore committed to behavior that supports a healthy body. This is a much more powerful strategy than the alternative – struggling to keep fat off because of what society dictates, because family wants you to, or because you think you should.

All of this talk about values and commitment doesn’t mean you have to be perfect. Most diet gurus state that if you follow 90% of your weight loss program you can still get the same results as if you followed it 100% of the time. To help keep you on track with your commitment on a daily basis, here are 7 simple steps.

7  Simple Steps – Commitment to a Plan:

1. Clarify your values so you can really commit to your plan. Before you do anything else, be sure you are clear about what’s most important to you right now. See where your personal health values fit in, and how much time you are willing to commit yourself. Take an hour to journal about it or talk to someone to get their perspective. It’s better to wait for a bit if you aren’t ready to commit quite yet. Once you’ve committed you can take the next steps.
2. Find an accountability partner. Pick someone who can support you and hold you accountable to your goals. If your husband/wife likes to dine out on fattening foods, you’ll be better off finding someone else who isn’t invested in your dining choices. Be sure to share your values and goals with your partner.
3. Start a structured diet plan. Choose a program that has both a weight loss and weight maintenance component. Accountability and structure are built into all good diet plans.
4. Start a diet journal and write a page or so every day. It only takes 10 minutes, and this is a safe place where you can reflect on challenges and celebrate your successes privately. Put a ’slim’ photo of yourself  in the journal and on your mirror.
5. Measure: Note your starting weight and measurements, along with your goals. Documenting your progress greatly increases your chance of success. When you’ve reached your goal weight, continue tracking your statistics once a month.
6. Follow up. Stay in touch with your accountability partner until you meet your goal, and continue to do so on a regular basis. When you hit your goal weight, let your partner know your plan for keeping the weight off. Then go to a movie and coffee, or a light lunch with this partner every 3 months to share your continued success.
7. Reward yourself. Find healthy and fun ways to reward yourself. For instance, you could take a day trip to the beach with family, enjoying a treat or two that day, and walk or swim off most of the calories while having fun.

Valerie Bertinelli serves as an inspirational example of someone who has used these steps. She shares her story of how she was tired of being fat and out of shape, and decided to change her values to a more healthy way of living. Then she began the Jenny Craig program, and used it to replace her poor eating habits with better ones. She reached her goal weight on Jenny Craig and then stuck with the plan, and has written a progress blog for over 2 years now. The difference between Valerie and many other paid celebrities is Valerie’s continued commitment to her new lifestyle. Now Valerie enjoys the long term benefits of her lifestyle choices.

When you are clear about your own values,  you can use these 7 tips to reinforce your own commitment to your long-term fat loss goals. Once a year take the time to evaluate your health and life goals again, to ensure continued success with your health and fitness!

Have you ever gone on a low-calorie diet, had great success for the first 2-4 weeks, and then stopped losing weight no matter what you tried? This is a common occurrence when starting a new diet, but these weight loss plateaus don’t have to prevent you from reaching your goal weight.

Calorie shifting is one of the newer weight loss discoveries that helps dieters lose weight steadily and quickly. Another weight loss strategy that is used by models, actors, and fitness experts is eating smaller meals more often. I’ll discuss how you can combine calorie shifting and eating smaller meals more often to maximize your fat loss!

First let’s look at Calorie Shifting. It’s a simple principle – take the caloric intake your body requires to lose weight (baseline), and shift your calorie intake up or down by a certain amount. The reason for calorie shifting is that when you follow any particular diet plan over a long enough period of time, your metabolism adjusts to the new caloric intake and can kick into a lower gear to conserves its’ fat reserves. This reduces or stops your weight loss – and results in weight loss plateaus. Calorie shifting solves this problem by fooling your metabolism. The higher calorie days keep your metabolism ‘up’ and during the lower calorie days you burn off excess fat. In this way, you never stay in low calorie mode long enough for your metabolism to slow down.

Before we look at an example of calorie shifting, let’s remember that fat preservation is designed to keep us alive as a species, since fat loss used to mean that we would starve over time. Through genetic programming, when we had periods of feasting we would store food as fat on our bodies. We would then use the fat later when food was scarce and our metabolism would slow down to preserve as much fat (energy) as possible. The problem is that only recently – in the past hundred years or so – food production technology has given us all consistent, abundant and inexpensive sources for most foods. Of course we end up getting fat and staying fat as a result!

A. Calorie Shifting Example:

1. Find your daily caloric baseline to lose 1 pound per week. Each pound of body fat = 3500 calories. That works out to a 500 calorie daily deficit (3500/7days = 500) to lose 1 pound a week. Use the BMR widget below to determine your daily required calorie intake. It also tells you your daily required calories to lose 1 pound a week.
2. Adjust your daily calories according to a loose schedule.For example: Week one, for 2 days out of that week increase your caloric intake by 200 calories. Week two, for 2 days out of the week decrease your intake by 300 calories. Week three, for 2 days you’d increase by 400 calories, and the fourth week you’d decrease for 2 days by the 400 calories.
3. At the end of 4 weeks go back to 2 weeks of eating your standard weight loss calories. (Some plans allow for a day or two of cheating at the end of 4 weeks.)

What’s happened now is that the term ‘calorie shifting’ has been broadened to include other types of diet plans where you shift macro nutrients. Sometimes these plans are called carb rotation and other times they’re lumped into calorie shifting plans. One such plan has you shift between low carb/protein days and moderate carb/protein days. For example, on day one you eat a high concentration of veggies and lean proteins, and day two you eat mostly protein with a little fruit, and so on. The point of this eating plan is again to fool the metabolism.

B. Eating smaller meals more often:

So now that we know about calorie shifting let’s look at eating smaller meals more often. If you eat 5-6 smaller meals evenly distributed throughout the day, rather than 3 normal sized meals and a snack, your body actually burns more fat, assuming you eat the same number of calories total. With smaller meals, (or mini-meals) you eat 2 hours apart so that your metabolism continues to run efficiently, burning more calories than when you wait the normal 3-4 hours between meals. Mini-meals also keep the body from insulin spikes after larger meals, which keeps you from adding to your fat stores.

Putting it all together for maximum fat loss!

The combination of calorie shifting and eating smaller meals has been shown to boost weight loss efforts noticeably with dieters. That’s great news, but you may think that following a calorie shifting diet sounds complicated – and you’d be correct under normal circumstances. The good news is that the diet industry has a number of excellent plans that include some form of calorie shifting combined with eating smaller meals. These plans have automatic meal planners to make things simple for you, so you don’t end up counting calories either.

If you’ve struggled to lose weight in the past, we recommend that you give one of these new diets a try. We think you’ll be pleasantly surprised with the results. We’ve reviewed one of the popular plans – and you can read our review here -> FatLoss4Idiots

With hundreds or even thousands of diets out there, how do you know where to begin when weighing out the best option for how to lose body fat? It’s tough to sort through all the confusing and contradicting information to find the best diet that can safely and effectively help you lose body fat. Let’s compare the traditional types of diets with the newest information that the field of nutrition and weight loss has to offer.

Our bodies are pretty amazing when it comes to adapting, and most anyone can lose weight using one of the main types of diets noted below. Of course the key to losing weight and keeping it off is sticking to your diet plan long term. Most diets traditionally fall into one of these main categories.

4 types of traditional diets:

1. Calorie Counting & Low fat diets (including prepackaged plans)
2. Low Carb Diets (including glycemic and slow carb)
3. Fad diets: (Grapefruit, liquid diets)
4. Specialized diets: (Such as Alkaline diet, Food combining, Diabetes diet)

New diets that can help you lose body fat:

When it comes to losing unwanted body fat, nutrition and diet experts have come up with some new and useful information that can help you lose weight more easily. Here is a sample of the newer diets:

• Diets that encourage us to eat more meals less often: 4-6 small meals per day, stopping eating before you are full.
• Portion control diets: Largely replaced diets that use calorie counting. Many of the new diets help you with easy ways to control your portions and make dieting easier.
• Interval Eating Diets: These diets encourage eating higher calories on certain days, with lower calories on other days. This is supposed to confuse the metabolism into staying in high gear – even on low calorie intake days.
• Carb Rotation Diets: The hottest new diets combine eating low-glycemic carbohydrates such as whole grains, with carb-rotation- to fool the metabolism.
• Alkaline Diets: Such as those that encourage a diet high in veggies and fruits. While this concept isn’t new, we now know that eating these foods keep our PH more alkaline, which has been shown to help fight cancer and disease, as well as help you lose body fat. These diets used to be more specialized, but have gone mainstream as more people learn about optimal health.
• Fats: While this isn’t a new type of diet, the focus in diets has shifted away from low fat, and back to eating a sensible amount of mono-unsaturated fats like flax and olive oil, avocados and nuts. Steering clear of trans fats and saturated fats is emphasized for the best health. Experts are still warning us to stay away from animal fats like butter.
• More Whole Foods Diets: Diets that focus on processed foods will always be around, but some of the newest diets stick to the basic food groups for better health and long term results.

When it comes specific diet plans, we recommend that you check out some of the newer types of  diets listed above, as they combine the best principles of traditional diets with the newest dietary approaches we have learned today. The great news is that research has shown that most anyone can lose weight on a wide variety of diet plans, as long as they stick to it. This is why it’s important to find a diet program that fits your lifestyle and goals!

Are you one of the many people who are concerned with the size of your waistline? We’ve found that these 7 Helpful Habits can help you lose that tummy fat for good!  Not only is a flabby tummy unappealing, it can compromise your health, setting you up for health issues such as diabetes, gout, and heart problems, to name a few.  In this article we share the most recent strategies for trimming your waistline.

Adopt These 7 Helpful Habits to Lose Tummy Fat!

1. Get more sleep. People often overlook this simple lifestyle change when they think of losing weight. We need 7-8 hours of sleep so that we can properly digest foods, as well as recuperate from our day. If we aren’t digesting well we lose the chance to burn off the foods that we ate for the day. Lower levels of sleep also impacts our leptin levels. Leptin is a protein that signals our bodies that we are full. Studies show that people who don’t get enough sleep are 60-80% more at risk for obesity.
2. Reduce stress: Adopt any type of healthy stress reducers such as resting, reading, meditating, sex (yes, sex!), exercise and such. A stressed-out body has too much cortisol running through it, and cortisol tells the body to hold onto fat – including tummy fat – for dear life!
3. Water: Drink enough water, as your body requires water to flush fat out of your body. Drink at least the recommended eight 8-ounce glasses of water a day, and possibly more. Some experts recommend drinking an extra glass for every 25 pounds you want to lose.
4. Eat Your 5 plus servings of fruits & veggies. Studies show that people who focus a good portion of their meals around veggies, and use fruit as a snack a few times a day, lose more weight on average than those who don’t. The list of benefits is endless when it comes to eating fresh produce.
5. Eat Monounsaturated Fats- Focus most of your fats on the olive oils, nuts, seeds, avocados, soybean and chocolate, which also lower the risk of heart disease.
6. Eat lower glycemic grains such as whole grains. The fiber in low glycemic grains helps keep your insulin from spiking and storing carbs as fat on your belly, while also keeping hunger at bay.
7. Move that body. When we see pictures of celebrities with chiseled waistlines, we think of grueling hours in the gym doing crunches. Fortunately that isn’t necessary to have a lean, healthy figure. When you consider the average American gets only an hour of exercise a week, it’s no wonder we’re not in the shape we want to be in. Abdominal workouts can help you when combined with the proper diet, but sometimes all it takes to rev up the metabolism is walking 30 minutes a day four times a week. The best exercise is activity that you enjoy- think of it like play. Maybe it’s a game of basketball or taking a nice swim. Everything helps, so enjoy yourself!

Next time you see your belly in the mirror and want to lose that tummy fat fast, remember that adopting a few healthy habits will get you going in the right direction quickly!

Cheat on Your Diet

For those who doubt that cheating is viable note that Rob Poulos, of Zero to Hero Fitness, says: “I can tell you flat out that you can get nearly the same results with about 90% compliance to your diet plan as if you followed it 100% to the letter.” Rob and his clients have impressive results, and he has over 15 years of research that he conducted on dieting and exercise. Other industry experts agree, and many have even devised diet plans around the cheating concept.

Guidelines for cheating on your diet for great results:

1. Plan your cheat day or meals around a workout. It’s better to cheat on purpose than to cheat on impulse. Working out kicks your metabolism into high gear for up to 4 hours, so if you cheat after a workout, fast walk, or jog your body can better burn off the excess carbs, sugars, and fats in a ‘cheat’ meal or treat.

2. Limit cheats to 500 – 1,000 extra calories a week depending on your size and gender. Plan either a cheat day, where you spread the entire surplus throughout the day, or plan for 2-4 cheat meals, with 200-500 calories extra for each meal. Perhaps you have dessert after one meal, and a second meal you have a larger than average serving of your favorite food, such as lasagna. Most people like to have their cheat times around the weekend or at a social event but there is no rule.

3. Limit your cheats and stay in your portion/caloric guidelines at all other times. One pitfall of cheating is that some people get into the habit of having a little extra spread over time. For instance, they’ll eat an extra 200 calories over 5 days for a total of 1,000 extra calories. This is a bad habit to get into, as it compromises the integrity of the rest of your plan. Don’t cheat several days in a row. You want to limit these cheat meals and remaining in calorie deficit the majority of your time.

4. Eat 5-6 meals/snacks per day. With 35-42 meals/snacks per week, then having the 2-4 ‘cheat’ meals or snacks can help you stay motivated, and will still remain under 10% of the meals you eat in a week!

5. Follow a sound diet plan. It doesn’t matter what type of diet plan you follow, but it should consist of 5-6 smaller meals/snacks per day as noted above.

That’s it! It doesn’t matter what type of food you use to cheat with, just so long as you enjoy it. You can rest easy knowing that you can have a few treats during every week, and you are actually helping your diet. The reason that cheating can help you is because it will keep the fat burning hormone, leptin at a higher level. If leptin levels drop, cortisol kicks in, replacing the leptin. When this happens, cortisol sends signals to you to say you are hungry, while also holding onto any body fat that you might have released.

If you follow these 5 simple guidelines for your diet, cheating can be enjoyable and rewarding. This way, you can look forward to continuous fat loss without the deprivation that dieters traditionally experience.

Lose Fat and Build Muscle

5 Steps to Lose Fat Fast while Building Muscle:

1. Combine Your Cardio Workout with Strength Training.

This is an area where people get easily overwhelmed as they think they need to spend 3-8 hours per week in the gym to lose weight. While professional bodybuilders may need to spend this kind of time in a gym, long workouts are not required for fat burning and fitness!

So what works? Shorter, more intense workouts 3 times per week. By training 20-40 minutes per session, with short rest periods between sets, you rev up your metabolism and challenge your cardiovascular system at the same time. This eliminates the need for separate cardio routines! You only have to do 1 set of 8-12 repetitions to exhaustion, and then move to another exercise within 30-60 seconds. Doing about 15 exercises like this in each session gives you a full body workout that challenges your muscles to strengthen at the same time as giving your heart a challenge. Say goodbye to long and repetitive gym sessions, while improving your results!

2. Drink More Water, period.

Most people drink a liter of water a day or less, and when they decide to lose weight may increase it to 1 to 2 liters a day. This simply isn’t enough water to flush out your fat cells. It’s counterproductive to eat properly and work out and then leave all that fat stuck in your body, when you could simply flush it out with water.

Drink a minimum of 2 liters of water a day, and shoot for 3 liters of water on the days you workout. Exact water intake requirements will vary depending on climate and your body weight, and charts can be found on the Internet to give you a more exact figure.

That being said – don’t overdo it! Drinking too much water – especially all at the same time – can cause water intoxication which can make you sick and can even be deadly. You can read more about water intoxication here.

3. Meal Frequency: Eat less food, more often.

This concept is probably the most important nutritional information you can follow. Most of us have heard of this strategy by now, but it hasn’t caught on yet in our society. Most of us still believe in ‘3 square meals a day!’. You body is better served by eating between 5-6 meals a day, preferably 6 on the days you can- and as few as 4 on those days where you’re extra busy. Be sure that the meals consist of nutrient-rich foods, and limit your portions more than you would if you followed a 3-meal/day plan of course.

As long as you eat a sensible portion 5-6 times per day, you will rev up your metabolism, while keeping your insulin from spiking. This equation equals less fat storage and more fat burning while eating the same amount of food as you would on a 3 meal plan. Try it – give it two weeks and you’ll be pleasantly surprised to find that it isn’t just what you consume, it’s also how often.

4. Eat for Maximum Fat Burning.

Eat a variety of healthy, unprocessed foods, with a focus on vegetables, whole grains and lean proteins. No doubt you’ve heard about eating this way before, but when you combine proper eating like this, over smaller portions eaten more often, the total combination really helps you to lose fat faster! Feel free to add in some healthy fats such as olive oil, coconut oil, avocado and nuts in moderation, as they will help you stay full longer. As for proteins, focus on legumes, soy, hemp, beans, and nuts, supplemented by lean meats and minor amounts of dairy. When eating meat and dairy watch out for saturated fats.

The most important thing to remember with food, is a healthy diet is not an ‘all or nothing’ approach. Allow yourself to have your favorite foods or drinks, too. Research has proven that if we eat optimally 90% of the time we can enjoy a fit, healthy body. Also, heavy food restriction can lead to quitting on your diet entirely – so don’t over do it!

5. Minimize Processed Foods and Drinks.

While it’s impossible to avoid all of these in our society, keeping processed foods to a minimum will help you burn fat more quickly while keeping you from hunger. Processed drinks include soda (regular and sugar free), coffee, alcohol, energy drinks, and fruit juice. The list of processed foods is endless, but desserts and sugary products top the list, as they spike your insulin, turn into fat and go right into storage – this includes the so-called no-fat treats too! Again, remember that if you eat right 90% of the time you can enjoy excellent results, and have some of your favorite treats, too.

By following any and all of these 5 tips, you will lose fat fast and build muscle at the same time. If you feel overwhelmed, but still want to get started, stick to mild exercise, eating five or six times a day, and drinking more water. You can then refine your diet over time, and still enjoy good results!