photo credit: briser50

So you’ve decided you need to lose a few pounds. You’re getting a little bit soft around the edges and your heart starts racing when you climb the stairs to bed each night. But you’ve tried the gym before, you’ve tried going for jogs in the morning and none of it worked. Light bulb! I’ll get a personal trainer. That will solve my problems. But will it? Are personal trainers really necessary in order to achieve your weight loss and fitness goals? In this post I am going to look at that very question.

Not all personal trainers are created equal

Before we delve too much into the personal trainer debate I want to make something quite clear. Not all personal trainers are created equal. There are good ones and bad ones. In fact, there are some very bad ones. It is important to make the distinction between the two, however, because you don’t want to go around thinking all personal trainers are experts or phonies. Some of them are very good, some of them are not.

So how do you know whether a personal trainer is good or not? Well there are no hard and fast rules but here are some suggestions that you might want to take on board:

• How long have they been a personal trainer?
  If your personal trainer is very new it might mean that they don’t have the experience to guide you, especially if you consider yourself to be quite experienced. Of course, this is not always true.
• Are they qualified?
  In my opinion you shouldn’t have anything to do with a personal trainer unless they are qualified. There are many stories going around about people who trusted a trainer through a health issue and the trainer’s advice just made it worse for them.
• Is the qualification a good one?
  Not all qualifications are great. In fact, some of them are pretty shocking. Just do a two week course and you are able to tell people how to do dangerous exercises like the dead lift and make dietary programs for them even when they are diabetic. Not good enough. Make sure their qualifications are respected.
• How fit are they?
  This is a big point of contention between my brother and myself. He reckons that it doesn’t matter what a trainer looks like as long as they know their stuff. I reckon that is bullshit. If a personal trainer doesn’t have the body you want to get, the fitness levels you want to achieve, etc. then walk right on by. You would never go to a financial planner who drove a 1982 rickety VW Beetle. Trainers should live and breathe their trade.
• Are you making progress?
  If you have been with your trainer for more than three months and have not seen drastic progress then it is time to move on. Why? Because a personal trainer should be always thinking about you. Their goal is to give you the power and knowledge to look after yourself and go out on your own, not keep you down and unfit so you will keep paying them. The best trainers at my gym have big turn over rates. Not because their clients hate them but because they all get so fit so fast. And this is the best marketing exercise they can do for themselves as well.

Make sure you address these questions before you sign on to any trainer. If you are already using a personal trainer then sit down and take a look at these issues now before your next session. You should not take any chances when it comes to someone who is involved with your health.

The positive: why you SHOULD hire a personal trainer

photo credit: mark_donoher

I thought we would lead off on the positive. Let’s take a look at why I think you should hire a personal trainer. These points might not appeal to everyone but hopefully it will give you something to think about while you are making your decision.

1. Certainty
The first reason that you want to get a personal trainer is because they provide you with certainty. You get to stop worrying about whether you are doing the right or the wrong thing. They can point you in the right direction and help you through any questions. This is actually quite a big deal because I know a lot of women who really worry about whether they are using their small amount of exercise time efficiently.

2. Injury prevention
If you go to the gym by yourself it is fair to say that at some point you will get an injury. Sometimes you just get unlucky but more than likely the cause is improper technique or lack of warming up. A personal trainer can help you dodge these issues as they will usually make sure your technique is perfect before letting you do the exercise at full weight. This is a very big advantage. In fact, this is the best reason to hire someone.

3. Faster weight loss
Let’s be honest here. Unless you know what you are doing you are going to make a lot quicker progress having an expert help you out. The most important thing when losing weight is knowledge and hard work – a personal trainer can help you with both of those things.

The negative: why you SHOULDN’T hire a personal trainer

photo credit: B Rosen

Now we can take a look at some of the reasons why you should not bother with a personal trainer. If there are any PTs reading this article I am sorry if this section causes you offense. Leave and comment and let me know if you disagree and I’m sure we can get to the bottom of the matter.

1. Its expensive
Just like the title of the post suggests, personal trainers are expensive. Some of them are reasonably expensive and some of them are just plain out of control. If you live in up state New York or Hollywood chances are your personal trainer is going to charge more than I pay to rent a house. And that is fine if you like throwing money down the toilet but, to be honest, it is completely unnecessary. Most Hollywood celebrities use personal trainers that other celebrities use, not personal trainers that are good for them. The best personal trainers are not always the most expensive ones.

You also have to look at whether you are getting value for money. Are you making progress? Would the money be better spent on buying fruit and vegetables? Could you put the money to better use by buying equipment? All of these questions are important to ask yourself.

2. Its lazy
A lot of the time people hire personal trainers because they can’t motivate themselves. Now I’m not saying that everyone does this but a lot of people do. If you are hiring a PT because you need education and advice then you are on the right path. But if you are hiring one because you want someone else to motivate you every time or because you can’t workout unless someone is pushing you then a PT is a bad idea. That issue is something you need to work on yourself. That is a mental block and not something that a PT will necessarily solve.

The verdict

My view is quite simple. Everyone should hire a personal trainer but only for a short period of time. Once you have learned the exercises properly, got a workout plan and made some progress it is important that you move out on your own. Personal trainers only have a limited use as far as I’m concerned. If you need one for longer than six months then perhaps you aren’t making the progress you think you are.

What do you think? Do you think personal trainers are a waste of time or something that everyone should be using? Leave a comment.

The latest video from our Free Women’s Fitness series is up on You Tube. This time we are talking about how to do a perfect lunge in order to get a toned butt and sexy tight legs. If you aren’t already subscribed, please head to our You Tube Channel and do so as we might not be posting all of the videos here. And if you have any suggestions please let us know.

Well here it is! Free Women’s Fitness has started filming our own instructional videos to help all of our fans and friends learn new exercises and better workouts. In this video Pilates expert Tamara will show you how to do a proper crunch. She also tells you how to engage your core muscles and pelvic floor so that you actually target the correct muscles.

This is a must see video for beginners and experts because it really highlights how tricky even just a basic crunch can be. But, if you master this you will be well on your way to a flat stomach and toned abs. Please subscribe to our Youtube Channel or email updates to make sure you don’t miss out on the next video.

If you have been doing abs work for a while now you will, undoubtedly, be looking for some new exercises to keep your abdominal workouts spicy. Today I am going to show you how to do a Swiss Ball Jackknife – a very powerful exercises for working your lower and upper abs as well as your back and arms.

Preparing for the Swiss Ball Jackknife

Before you do any abdominal exercise you need to make sure you have covered a few areas. These include:

• Ensuring you use the proper technique
  Make sure you always study the exercise well and learn how to do it with the perfect technique. If you perform any exercise incorrectly you run the risk of developing a long term injury that will haunt you for years.
• Ensuring you warm up
  Make sure you do a warm up before you do any resistance exercise. Again, this helps to prevent injuries.
• Ensuring you target the right muscles
  You would be surprised to know how many women do exercises that they think targets one muscle but, in fact, it targets something completely different. Before you do this exercise you need to know where your abdominal muscles are located and how they work.

Once you have these three things under control you will be ready to start the exercise. I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to perform every exercise with the perfect technique. It will prevent injuries and help you get that sexy body a lot quicker.

How to do the Swiss Ball Jackknife for Toned Abs

Now we can move on to the exciting part! This exercise is an amazing way to target your upper and lower abs in one exercise. It also hits your arms and shoulders, your back and even your butt and legs. Many women find this is a great exercise to toned the whole body as it requires strength from a lot of different areas to complete properly.

Engage your pelvic floor muscles
It is very important when performing abdominal exercises that you engage your core muscles correctly. If you don’t you run the risk of completely missing out on the work that your lower abs should be doing. They simply won’t engage. To turn on your core you need to engage your pelvic floor muscles (the ones that you tense when you are busting for the toilet). You also need to tense your major abs muscles by pulling your belly button in as far as you can. Hold this throughout the exercise.

STEP ONE – Position Yourself on the Swiss Ball

The first part of the jackknife is done by positioning your body on the Swiss ball in the correct posture. Without the correct posture your whole exercise will feel unbalanced and weak. To do this you need to:

• Place your feet on the ball so they are balanced and stable. Close together is best but you can have a little space if you need it.
• Place your hands shoulder width a part and lock your elbows so you can support your body weight.
• Make sure that your shoulders are back by lengthening the distance between your ear and your shoulders
• Make sure your back is perfectly straight; not curved upwards or downwards. This is vital.
• Tense your abs and pelvic floor muscles.

Make sure you feel comfortable and secure. It will take some practice to get the balance correct but if you keep your posture as illustrated above you will find the stability comes quite naturally.

STEP TWO – The Actual Jackknife “Crunch” Movement

From the initial starting position you will now do the main jackknife or “crunch” part of the movement which is where the majority of the work is done. In order to do this correctly you need to:

• Very slowly bring your knees toward your chest by crunching your abs and rolling the fitness ball forward
• At the top of the motion you tense your abs again as you breathe out
• Very slowly return your legs to the original position making sure your abs stay tensed and firm

Repeat the above sets until your abs are too tired to continue. This is called “failure”. You should fail after about 15 to 20 repetitions if your technique is correct. Make sure you do not continue if your execution starts to get sloppy as you will not be targeting the correct muscles and you might do yourself an injury.

Conclusion

The Swiss Ball jackknife is an amazing exercise for toning your abs and getting a flat stomach. It is quite advanced so build up slowly by performing a regular pilates abs crunch. When you feel like you are ready get your fitness ball and go for it! You will see results in just a few sessions.

If you’ve turned on any chat show in the last two years you would know that women love Michelle Obama’s toned arms. And trainers all over the world have tried to capitalize on this fascination by teaching us how to get arms like the First Lady. But as I read through a whole bunch of articles about her toned arms I noticed a distinct lack of clear instruction. Sure, there are some amazing pieces that give general tips on how to get toned arms but no one really wrote about what you should do in terms of diet, exercise, etc.

In this post I am going to do an in depth look at how to get toned arms like the very beautiful Michelle Obama. I will try to include as much information as possible so you can begin your workout today.

Toned arms in 4 weeks?

The title of this post indicates that you will have nice toned arms in four weeks time. And while that might be possible for some of our readers it won’t be possible for everyone. It is, however, a very good goal to keep in mind.

Why won’t it be possible for everyone? The fact of the matter is, if you want to have a toned body you need to lose body fat. And this is a very long term affair. Some of you might already be at a level where you can just do a few little tweaks and wind up with the definition you want, others will need more time. So while I want everyone to keep the four week goal in mind, don’t be too disappointed if you don’t see final results in that time.

One thing is for sure, if you do four weeks of proper diet and exercise according to this post, you will be well on your way to success. I’m betting you will be well ahead of your friends who are still dabbling around.

Spot reducing fat from your arms

The first thing you need to know is that you cannot spot reduce fat from your arms. A lot of women out there think that if you want to get toned arms you need to do some magical exercise that will burn fat just off of the arms. It doesn’t work like that. If you want to get toned arms you need to lose fat off of your whole body. If you want to get toned abs you need to lose fat off of your whole body. There is no easy way out.

And that leads us to the first and most important part of this post – your diet.

Dieting for toned arms like Michelle Obama

photo credit: garryknight

Without any shred of a doubt the most important part of getting toned arms is your diet. It is what you put in your mouth that determines how toned your arms are, even more so than how much you exercise. If your diet is not on track you will not get the arms that you desire.

The maths of arm toning
In our epic article on how to lose weight for good we talked about the mathematics of weight loss. This is a very important concept that I urge you all to read an understand for it will change the way you think about diet and exercise. I will not explain it all again but here is a quote from the article to give you an idea:

If you have a can of Coke with lunch everyday of the week you are taking in 155 calories x seven days a week. That is 1085 calories a week. Now, there are 3500 calories per pound of body fat. So, if you take in 1085 calories from one can of Coke per day in three weeks you have added a pound of fat. That is 17 pounds per year. Just from your daily Coke.

You can see from this little bit of maths that your diet is going to have a much bigger impact on your weight loss than the exercise that you do. Just one Coke will take you 30 minutes to burn off on the treadmill. So what about all the other excess calories that you eat every day? How long must you need to burn all of them off? It is vital that you get your diet in order if you want to tone up.

What to eat for arm toning
So what exactly should you be eating if you want to get toned arms like Michelle Obama? The most important thing is to stay away from man made processed foods that are full of our three main enemies:

• refined sugar
• salt
• saturated fats

These foods are full of empty calories. An empty calorie is basically energy that comes from food that provide no nutritional benefits. For example, if you have a can of Coke you get 150 calories but no minerals, vitamins or nutrients. On the other hand, if you have a salad you get the same amount of calories but a nice amount of protein, fiber, minerals, etc. You need to be avoiding the man made foods that are just full of empty calories. These are a disaster for any woman who wants to lose weight.

A long term approach to short term gains
The main point here is that you don’t want to go on another diet. You aren’t trying to lose weight by eating just lemons. What you want is a lifelong change in your eating habits that will allow you to lose weight, get toned and then stay toned as the years go by. Most women revert back to their old shape and weight. We don’t want that to happen.

Some of the foods you want to be eating on a daily basis include:

• green leafy vegetables
• milk and small amounts of cheese
• unsalted nuts and some seeds
• free range eggs
• lots of fresh fruits, the more colorful the better

I’m not a big advocate of meat but a lot of trainers and dietitians will tell you to take in lean proteins from animals. My personal experience has been that I have lost weight faster eating a vegetarian diet. I also feel better. A lot better. Meat tends to weigh me down and make me feel depressed. It is also a thoroughly unethical industry that I don’t really want to be supporting. But that is another story.

Green tea as a bonus food
Green tea is something that I often talk about on this website as something that all women should be drinking. It is amazing for your health and studies have shown that people who drink green tea daily have a smaller chance of getting caner and heart disease. There is also some evidence to suggest that it can help you burn fat at a faster rate. I strongly recommend that everyone who reads this take up drinking a nice pot of green tea every day and see how it makes you feel.

Exercises to get toned arms like Michelle Obama

photo credit: lululemon athletica

Now that we have covered some of the important dietary points we can move on to a bunch of exercises and workouts that will help us get those coveted arms. Remember, when you do any exercise you need to make sure you are doing it with proper technique and according to your level of fitness. I always encourage my friends and readers to meet with a trainer for your first session and learn exactly how to do each exercise so that you don’t end up with an injury that lasts the rest of your life.

Burning fat is the way to toned arms
Let me tell you something that you might know, you might not. You already have toned arms. They are there right now. The problem is that they are being hidden under a layer of fat. So if you want to tone your arms you need to burn the fat that is covering them. That is the point of eating right and that is 80% of the exercise. If you want toned arms you need to exercise so that you are burning fat at a proper rate.

High intensity workouts are the best
One of the things we try to do here at FWF is educate women on the benefits of high intensity workouts. For too long now we have been told the slow jog on the treadmill for an hour is the best way to lose fat and get toned. It isn’t. Not by a long shot. The best way to get into the shape of your life is to workout at an intense pace. Some of the absolute best ways to do this include:

• Kickboxing classes
  I know a lot of women will groan at this and think that they will never try it but I guarantee you it is one of the best ways you can burn fat and get toned in a really quick time. Three kickboxing classes a week will absolutely change the way you go about your fitness. When kick a bag you use your entire body; your legs, abs, hips and arms. The same goes for punching. You will get your heart rate up to super high levels and you will find that your body changes very quickly.
• Skipping
  Here she goes about the skipping again I can hear you all say. But it really is one of the best ways to burn fat and tone your arms – you get the worst burn! Bruce Lee once said that 10 minutes of skipping was the same as 30 minutes of running and I tend to agree. Get yourself the best skipping rope and go for it!
• Circuits
  One of the most intense workouts you will ever do is a circuit. These focus on resistance and cardio exercises and are a great way to get the fat burning and the muscles working. So how do you do them? Simply choose one exercise for each body part and perform them one after the other with no break in between. Once you finish them all, take a short rest and then start again. Try to do the whole circuit as many times as you can.

It is really important not to overdo it though. A high intensity workout should not be done every day as your body needs time to recover and heal. Try and aim for three times a week with a few more gentle workouts in between. If you can do that for four weeks you will see some incredible results.

The importance of weight training and resistance exercises
Women seem to hate weight training because they are worried that it will make them bulky and manly. Well it won’t. I have said it before and I will say it again. Weight training and resistance exercises only help to make you thin and toned and healthy. They will not make you muscly because women, for the most part, do not have enough testosterone to grow big muscles. When you look at women in the gym who weight train they always have thin and hard bodies – never bulky manly ones.

It is time for all women reading this to add some weight training to our regular cardio workout. Mixing weights with cardio has some major advantages including:

• Elevating your metabolism
  When you weight train you elevate your metabolism. This is a very good thing because it means you will be burning calories even when you aren’t at the gym.
• Burns more calories
  Mixing weight training with cardio actually burns more calories than if you just did one slow cardio workout. The lifting of the weights is a very hard motion and it takes up a lot of energy.
• Your body becomes fitter and healthier
  There have been scores of studies that show that weight training makes you extremely healthy and a lot fitter. Basically, without getting too technical, when you weight train you turn your body into a fat burning machine. The more weights the more fat burning.

How often should you weight train?
If you want to get into weight training you should start slowly and work your way up to about three times a week. If you can mix it in with your kickboxing or other high intensity workouts you will be on the way to a very quick set of toned arms!

Conclusion

Getting toned arms like Michelle Obama is a long process. Sure, it can be sped up but please don’t think that it is an easy road. You need to be committed to a near perfect diet and a workout routine that doesn’t quit when it gets boring. Remember, if you have any other tips you can leave a comment below as it might really help someone out there on their journey.

The jumping squat is my all time favorite exercise for toning the leg and butt muscles. It has been used by footballers, soccer players, martial artists and sprinters for generations in order to build strength in the lower body. The good news is that it is also amazing for burning fat and toning your legs and butt. In this post I am going to show you how to do the perfect jumping squat.

What muscles does the jumping squat target?

The jumping squat targets more muscles than just about any other exercise. It is what is known as a compound exercise because it works more than one muscle group at a time. In particular it will hit:

• the hamstrings
• the glutes (your butt!)
• the calf muscles
• the thighs
• the hip flexors

When you do a jumping squat you are essentially doing a cardio workout and a strength workout all in one handy exercise. Your heart rate will be elevated to a point where you will feel like you have just run a sprint race and your legs will burn like you have just been doing the most difficult squats of your life. If you want to tone your legs and butt and lose that problem fat then this is an exercise you need to make a regular in your fitness plan.

How to do the jumping squat

The photos above show the starting position and then the landing position. You must swap your lead foot in the air.

The jumping squat is easy to do but it will take a lot out of you. Many women cannot do more than five or six on their first go. That is okay. As long as you do more each time you will be making progress. Try to do at least four or five sets with about a minute break in between each set.

1. Starting position
   Crouch down in a squat position with your left foot in front of your right foot and your hands touching the floor for balance.
2. The movement
   Spring up in to the air as high as possible using your quadriceps and butt to make you jump. This is a very dynamic and powerful motion.
3. Whilst in the air
   Whilst in the air change feet position so that you land with your right foot in front.
4. Landing and repeating
   Crouch all the way back down to the ground and repeat as fast as possible with the other foot now in the lead. Don’t stop at the bottom but keep going as fast as you can.

And that’s it! As I said, the technique is easy but exercise is not. You will get a burn in your legs like you have never had before.

I do this exercise at the start of every workout. It takes a lot out of me but I truly believe it is one of the best ways to burn fat and tone your leg muscles.

Good luck!

photo credit: Claudia Castro

The morning walk is one of the most common forms of weight loss exercise. When I sit at my table in the morning and look out the window I see scores of women going for walks with their dogs, husbands or a group of friends. And while we have approached the question of “does walking burn fat” before, in this post I want to give you a few ways to super charge your morning walk so you can burn more fat in less time.

How to burn more fat on your morning walk

While I think walking has its merits (it is relaxing, low impact, etc.) I do think there are a lot better ways to burn fat. High intensity exercise like sprinting, skipping, hill climbs, kick boxing classes and weight training are all far superior in my opinion. But for some women these choices just aren’t options. And sometimes a walk is a nice start to the day – it is definitely a lot better than doing no exercise at all. Here are a few ways to super charge your morning walk.

1. Walk for at least 45 minutes
There have been several studies done on the topic of whether walking actually burns fat. In these studies it was found that you need to walk for at least 25 minutes before you actually start burning fat stores in your body. And while I am not so sure if this science still stands up, the principle remains the same. You need to walk for more than 25 to 30 minutes if you want to burn a good amount of fat.

Why is this so? Well the main theory is that when you walk before breakfast you have no available energy from food and as such you will tap into stored fat reserves. Apparently you need to walk for at least 25 minutes before this process begins to take place. This is not entirely true because glycogen energy remains ready for action for a long time. A more likely reason, in my mind, is that walking is not very likely to lift your heart rate and as such you need longer to get to a point where you are actually doing some damage to the energy stores in your body.

Whatever the reason, make sure you are walking at a good pace for at least 45 minutes in the morning. If you can’t bare to be out for that long at least try to get half an hour.

2. Hit the hills
Walking, as we mentioned, is a very low impact form of exercise that doesn’t do much in the way of pushing your boundaries. For this reason it is a great idea to change the terrain a little bit so that your muscles are doing some work that they might otherwise miss out on. The hills is a great place to start.

Walking hills has been one of the best forms of exercise for a long time. It is an exercise that tones your butt and legs, gets your heart rate up a lot higher and is far more interesting and challenging than just walking on the flats. Now, you don’t have to find some gigantic mountain in order to get a good workout. Most of you don’t live near mountains. But almost all of you will have some form of hill near your house. It might be an actual hill in a park or reserve or it might just be a sloped street that you can walk up and down. Hit it.

At the end of the session you will feel more energetic and vibrant because you would have actually worked out a large part of your body. Hill walks are a really good way to super charge your morning walk and burn more fat.

3. Drink a black coffee before you leave
I can hear all of you breathing a sigh of relief. A fitness website telling us to actually drink coffee! What a great idea. In fact, if you want to burn more fat on your morning walk you should drink a cup of black coffee. Isn’t that great news? The bad news – you aren’t allowed to have any milk or sugar. Just coffee and water. Add anything else and you won’t get the benefit.

photo credit: e.asphyx

So why does coffee help you burn more fat? Well many people believe that it allows you to access fat stores instead of carbs. Others believe that the stimulant aspect of coffee assists in its fat burning. To be honest, however, neither of these things makes much scientific sense. In fact, talking to nutritionists and doctors who have looked at studies around this issue and not many of them agree with the above assertions. So why am I recommending it? Because I have seen results in myself and my workout buddies. A bit of caffeine before a morning workout seems to have a positive effect on our weight loss progress. Bodybuilders have been saying the same thing for years.

One last reason; a morning coffee can help to wake you up and get your head in the right place for a workout. I can’t tell you the number of times I got up for a workout and then went straight back to bed because I couldn’t wake myself up. A coffee can help to prevent that. Give it a go and see how it works for you. If you don’t see any results after a couple of weeks chuck it in.

4. Take some weights
Another great technique to super charge your morning walk to to take along some hand weights to give your arms something to do. While your legs do all the walking it is great to do some work for your upper body. This effectively means you will get a full body workout which will, of course, burn more calories.

So what do you do with the weights? Well, if you are a little self conscious you could just hold them by your sides to provide some resistance for your arms. This is good enough and will give you a little mini bicep workout. But if you want to spice up the walk a bit more and perhaps even do some arm toning then why no do some full on bicep curls or slow punches or overhead presses? That way you can workout your shoulder, biceps and triceps – all on your morning walk!

Give it a try and see how you go. If you feel stupid, embrace it!

5. Wear a backpack with some weight in it
You have to be a little bit careful with this one because it can produce some back and shoulder injuries. This tip is only for super hard women who are not afraid of a little bit of pain. Be warned though, if you don’t take it easy and do this one carefully you are probably going to wind up with some sort of injury.

This idea actually comes from the army. One of the main things you do in the army is walk. In fact, you walk a lot. And I’m not just talking about walking around in the park. No sir. These guys carry massive guns that weigh as much as your upper body, ammunition that would squash your dog and, you guessed it, backpacks full of supplies. And they burn a lot of fat. You will never see a fat person in the army on active duty.

Fill up your backpack with some light weights and go for a walk. If you have any pain you should stop but over time you will find that your legs and butt get a good workout and you have to push yourself extremely hard just to finish the walk. It is an army style workout that also helps you become very tough mentally.

Any more ideas?

We loving hearing your ideas and experiences. Talking on the blog is a great way to meet new people and learn new things. If you know of any other ways to super charge your morning walk please leave a comment and let us know.

photo credit: Calc-tufa

Getting to the gym is not always possible. In fact, as we get busier and more strapped for time it is important to know a few things you can do from the comfort of your own living room. That way you can forget about making excuses and just get to work. In this post I am going to show you 10 exercises that you can do in your living room that will help you burn fat and get toned.

The complete home workout strategy

If you are going to workout at home you want to make sure you are approaching it with a strategy that will allow you to get a complete home workout. Just because you are at home does not mean you can take it easy. In fact, you have permission to go a little bit crazier now that no body is watching! In order to get a complete workout you will need to:

• Work every muscle group
  A big part of losing weight and getting toned is doing a full body workout. Your living room exercise should hit every body part in order to make sure you are not taking it too easy.
• Elevate your heart rate
  If your heart rate does not go up you aren’t working hard enough and you are not going to lose any weight at all. Make sure you are pushing yourself so that your heart rate gets up and stays up for most of the workout period.
• Sweat a lot
  Sweating is a sign that you are working. I see so many women workout well below the threshold that they need to in order to make progress. Make sure you are sweating a lot when you exercise at home.
• Warm up and down
  Warm ups and warm downs are essential in order to prevent injuries and make sure you can workout again tomorrow. There is no point working super hard if you injure yourself and can’t workout for a whole week while you recover.

10 living room exercises that burn fat and get you toned

photo credit: bandita

Keeping in mind the above four points here are the ten exercises that you can do in your own living room if you don’t have time to get to the gym. Try to keep your technique as clean as possible and make sure you are only taking 30 second breaks in between exercises.

1. Jumping squats
   We are always talking about jumping squats here at Free Women’s Fitness because they are an absolute super exercise. They burn fat, get your heart rate up, shape your entire lower body and push you to an entirely new level of fitness. As far as body weight exercises go these are the absolute hardest thing you can do. Do not take them lightly.

   How to do them? Simply squat down on the ground with your left foot in front. Spring up into the air as high as you can go and then land with your right foot in front. Go down as low as you can and then repeat until you can’t do anymore.

2. Coffee table step ups
   Make sure you have super stable coffee table or bench before you do this one. It is a great way to tone your lower body with a particular emphasis on your quadriceps and your butt. If you have bad knees these might be a little bit hard.

   How to do them? Stand in front of your coffee table or bench and step up on to it with your left foot. Step back down and repeat with the same foot. Carry out as many reps as you can and then switch feet. You can increase the difficulty by either going faster or wearing a backpack with some heavy weights in there.

3. Couch leg reverse crunches
   Reverse crunches are one of the best exercises you can do if you want to flatten your tummy and develop some stronger abs. You can do them a variety of different ways but, actually, one of the most comfortable is to do them while holding on to the bottom of your couch.

   How to do them? Lay on your back and position your head about a foot away from the couch leg. Grab the leg with your hands and raise your knees so they are 90 degrees with the floor. Tense your abs and roll them back into your chest. At the top of the motion tilt your pelvis for a final little crunch. Lower them slowly back down and repeat.

4. TV shadow boxing
   Shadow boxing has been used by boxers for decades as a way to build up their speed and their reflexes. It is extremely good for toning your arms and requires zero equipment and almost no space. It will get your heart rate up if you do it right.

   How to do it? Stand in front of the TV with your hand by your ears in the boxing ready position. Bounce on the spot like a fighter ready for action. When the camera changes angle or focus punch at the TV with your left hand and bring it back to the guard position. Repeat with your right hand the next time the camera changes. If you want to pick up the pace choose a more regularly occurring TV moment or do three punches every time it happens. Try and keep it up for five minutes and see how you go!

5. Chair push ups
   If you have two sturdy chairs you have all you need to get an amazing chest, triceps and shoulders workout. Push ups are incredible when you do them on the ground, and they are even better when you do them between two chairs. This is an amazing way to firm and shape your flabby arms and even push up your bust by working your chest.

   How to do them? Place the two chairs next to each other with enough room for your torso in between them. Now place your hands on the seat of the chair and assume the push up position with your butt tensed, back straight and elbows back at a 45 degree angle. Lower yourself down until you feel a stretch in your chest and then push yourself back up. You can make this SUPER difficult by lifting your feet higher and higher on a couch, table or another chair.

6. Shopping bag bicep curls
   If you want nice toned arms you need to work on your biceps as well as your triceps. One of the best ways to hit those biceps is to do some curls with a medium to heavy weight – like a shopping bag filled with books, groceries or other weighty items.

   How to do them? Fill up two shopping bags with some items until it is quite heavy for you to hold. Now stand up straight with your shoulders square and your head up. Tense your biceps and curl the weight up to your shoulder without moving your elbow from its position. As you are lowering the bag breathe out. Repeat with the other arm. Make this exercise more difficult by adding more weight to the bags. Remember to swap the bags over after each set in case one is actually more heavy than the others.

7. Door step calf raises
   Have you got a set of stairs or a raised door step in your house? If so then you have all you need in order to develop some amazing calf muscles. Calf raises are one of the best things you can do for some tight and toned lower legs.

   How to do them? Simple stand on the step with your heels off the edge. Hold on to something so you don’t lose your balance. Lower your heels down and then push upwards using your calf muscles until your heels are as high as they can go. If you want to make this harder try adding a backpack with some weight or even doing it one leg at a time. This one burns!

8. Superwoman back lifts
   It is really important to work your lower back if you want to counter all the badness that occurs after months and years of sitting at a computer all day long. These superwoman exercises are a simple and easy way to get some back health into you.

   How to do them? Lay on your stomach with your toes pointed and your arms up in front of you like you were superwoman flying through the air. Keep your face down towards the ground. Breath in and then lift your arms and legs off of the ground about one inch and then hold. Breathe out, lower and repeat. Don’t try to push this one too far, just do as many as you can.

9. Army star jumps
   Good old fashioned army star jumps are an extremely good way to work your shoulders, coordination and get your heart rate up at the same time. You might even want to do these in between the others exercises as a way to keep loose and warm. Don’t underestimate them though, I imagine most of us couldn’t complete 100 in a row.

   How to do them? Simply stand with your feet together and your hands by your side and jump so that your legs land about two to three feet apart and your hands clap above your head. Jump back to the original position and repeat. Try to keep a flowing motion without too many stops.

10. Dictionary crunches
    We all have one of those big dictionaries that are almost too heavy to put on the shelf. They are a great crunches tool. If you don’t have one just find something else that weighs about 2 to 5 kilograms. These crunches will help to flatten your tummy and strengthen your core area.

    How to do them? Lay on your back with your feet flat on the floor. Place the dictionary on your chest and tense your abs. Roll your upper body towards your knees and crunch your abs tight at the top of the motion. Lower your body down on the exhale keeping your abs tensed the entire time.

You can perform these exercises in this order or you can mix them up. It is really important to use the correct technique so if you are unsure on how to do something just leave it out until you have time to research it and learn it fully. Remember, don’t rest too much and keep your heart rate up.

Conclusion

Every now and then it will be necessary to workout at home. The great thing about this workout is you can do it while dinner is in the oven or while you are watching Grey’s Anatomy at night time. Try and keep it going for at least 20 minutes if you want to get some noticeable benefit out of it. And if you have any more ideas please drop a comment and let us know.

photo credit: Adam UXB Smith

Fitness and health is so much more than eating well and going for the occasional jog. In fact, fitness and health start with the mind. If your head is in the wrong space then it is very difficult to achieve any long term fitness, weight loss or health goals. In this post I am going to talk about 8 attitudes that cripple your long term health and well being. They might even be making you fat!

1. Jealousy
If you go to the gym you will probably know what I am talking about. The green eyed monster is extremely bad for our health and well being because we are constantly comparing ourselves to other women at the gym. Sometimes I actually feel like the gym is a lot like high school; everyone checking out what the other girls are wearing, talking about and how they look when they do certain things. It can be quite stressful. If you go to the gym worried about how all the other women look better than you do then you are going to set yourself up for disaster. You will end up quitting out of frustration.

2. Playing the victim
I hate to say it but most of my friends play the victim. Every time I see them for coffee or dinner they talk about how hard done by they are and create a thousand excuses for why they haven’t been going to the gym or eating healthy. The sad fact is that none of them know they are doing it. They all think it is normal. And to some extent being the victim is very normal in our society. The fact of the matter is you have a choice. You can choose to be a victim of your own circumstances or you can choose to make a change. And if you want to look and feel good, live a long healthy life and be happy with your own situation you are going to need to stop playing the victim.

Here is an interesting article about playing the victim in Psychology Today that has some excellent insights about where the victim game leaves you in the end.

3. Laziness
If you took a look back at the last 10 times that you skipped a work out or got take away instead of cooking a meal I would wager that at least eight of those times it was because you couldn’t be bothered. Laziness is probably the most damaging attitude there is when it comes to health and fitness because, unfortunately, health and fitness are so damn hard to maintain. Working out at the gym is not easy, shopping for the right foods each week is even more annoying. However, laziness is even more annoying because it will cause you to have future regrets. One of the most painful things you can ever imagine is getting to your 50s, 60s and 70s and realizing that you wasted your life being lazy. Stop today.

4. Stress
Stress is an interesting one because a lot of you will disagree with me that it is an attitude. Most people think it is just something that occurs that we have no control over. And while I believe that is true some of the time, I also understand that a lot of women out there use stress as an excuse. They say that they are too stressed to go to the gym or cook a meal. The funny thing about that attitude, however, is that going to the gym and eating healthy are two of the most powerful cures for stress!

photo credit: Juliana Coutinho

I also think that part of the reason women get stressed is because they are not achieving their weight loss goals. But if you made exercise a priority you would find that less stress occurs.

5. Insatiability
As a regular gym goer I constantly see women come and go. Some of them stick at it for a few months, other only last a week or so. And while there might be a whole host of reasons for this lack of consistency I understand that a lot of women are completely insatiable when it comes to exercise. In fact, I would go so far as to say that every single person (male and female) has experienced this when it comes to their exercise programs.

Insatiability means that you are impossible to satisfy. You become bored easily and as such you struggle to finish your goals. The fitness world is rife with this problem because fitness and weight loss goals take so long to achieve. After a week of the same workout you get bored and either move on or give up. I think this has a lot to do with our modern world of iPhones and Twitter and Facebook where we need to be constantly entertained. You can change your workout a few times but after a while you need to tackle the boredom otherwise you will end up giving up like everyone else.

6. Procrastination
We all do it and we all know its bad. Procrastination is an attitude that will send you to an early grave and an obese waist line because you simply never get around to it. Strongly linked to laziness, procrastination is much more sneaky. Why? Because it happens one omission at a time. Laziness is a general attitude that is very easy to spot but procrastination might only occur once or twice a week – just enough to sabotage your progress. You can bet your bottom dollar; the second you hear your mind saying “I’ll just finish this first” or “I’ll make up for it later” you are on your way to a lifetime of putting things off. Nip it in the bud as soon as you can.

photo credit: Looking Glass

7. Impetuousness
I have to admit being a very impetuous person. When I first started becoming interested in working out at the gym I just dived in as if I was an expert. Bad idea. Within a month I had obtained a pretty serious injury that plagues me to this day. Being impetuous means that you rush into things without really thinking them through first. This is a crippling attitude because, when it comes to health and fitness, you need to know a lot of information in order to do it correctly. If you go back and read our article on why you can’t lose weight you will see that it is extremely important to read and study and talk to experts before you try to play around with your body. Information is power and a lack of information is often crippling.

8. Impatience
Impatience is the final attitude that I want to talk about today. It is closely linked with almost all of the other attitudes and, like the other, it is extremely harmful for women who are trying to lose weight, get healthy and change their lives. The thing you need to realize really early on is that weight loss and fitness take a long time. They take years to really pull off in a long term way. And not only that, they take a long time on a daily scale. You need to exercise and eat healthy every single day if you want to make long lasting progress. If you are impatient you kill your progress at the very root because you just won’t stick it out.

If you want to learn to become more patient you need to really work on yourself because it is a long held habit. The article in the link is a great starting point for everyone out there.

Conclusion

Everything that you do in life starts in the mind. If you have a healthy attitude with a good motivation you will find that you can achieve all sorts of successes. If, however, you live your life choked by poisonous attitudes you will end up failing at everything you touch. Really examine yourself and see whether you are harboring any of these 8 attitudes that cripple your health and well being. Recognizing them is the hardest part.

photo credit: Tobyotter

If you stand in a room with 10 women it is statistically probable that six of them will be fat. That is a very frightening image considering the health implications of being overweight; heart disease, diabetes and, yes, even cancer. In this post I want to look at seven reasons why you are fat and then talk about why you will never change.

Fat Lies: size zero vs plus size

Some of you who are still reading might be a little bit offended at the use of the word “fat”. I can understand why you feel that way. I too used to be upset when women called other women fat. These days there is a lot of work going in to helping women feel better about their body image. A lot of women now consider “bigger” to be better than the old runway stick figures that everyone used to aspire to look like. And this is a good thing.

Sort of.

While we may be feeling a little bit better about our body image there is also something else to remember. Being overweight is unhealthy. In fact, the diseases that relate to obesity and being overweight and unfit kill more people in America every year than anything else. Yes, it is unhealthy to kill ourselves with diets that make us look like a size zero, but it is also unhealthy to let ourselves go in the name of loving our body more. I think it is important to accept what your body looks like, but to recognize that certain fat levels are unhealthy. The point is not to get upset and worried about it, but to help you change your diet, exercise and living habits.

7 reasons you are fat

photo credit: j.reed

Now that I have finished my little political correctness disclaimer we can get into the juicy part of the post. Here are seven reasons why you are still fat, often despite some of your best efforts. After this I will look at the hard stuff – why you will never change.

1. You don’t exercise, really
Okay so you go to the gym twice a week. That’s a good start. That will give you a nice base level of fitness. But if you want to really lose weight and get healthy you need to be exercising every single day. Period. Science is now showing that in order to lose weight and maintain that weight you need to give yourself about an hour a day. It doesn’t matter what exercise you do, but you aren’t doing enough of it.

Write down exactly how much exercise you do for the next two weeks. At the end of it I think you will be surprised that you aren’t really doing as much as you thought you were. We need to change this habit fast.

2. You go back for seconds
I have been really pushing this idea lately because I know a lot of women out there who just don’t respect the idea of portion sizes. In this post on losing weight I talked about the fact that over time those second helpings and large portion sizes make you fat. Really fat. Why? Because every time you eat a bigger meal than you should or go back for a second helping you are taking in calories that you can’t burn off. And over the months and years those extra calories add up to kilos and kilos of fat.

Again, write down how many second helpings you have in a two week period. Take note of how many meals you eat that are much bigger than they should be. You will notice that these amount to hundreds and hundreds of extra calories that you just aren’t burning off at the gym.

3. You don’t eat natural
As long as you are eating man made foods you are going to be overweight. The human body has been evolving for thousands of years to function perfectly on natural foods like fruits and vegetables. And then, all of a sudden, about 40 years ago everything went processed. We stopped eating the things that grow in the wild and started eating processed foods like chips, pastas, take away, frozen dinners and so on. The body doesn’t know how to handle these things.

The level of sugar, salt and preservatives in these man made foods make it impossible for you to stay at a healthy weight. If you are serious about long term health and staying at an ideal weight you need to get back to eating a natural diet.

4. Your emotions control you
Don’t worry, we all do it. Food becomes a comforter on those days that are just a little hard to get through. There is nothing more satisfying than driving to KFC for a big packet of fries when we are feeling depressed or stressed. But if we are realistic, our emotions control us. And if you want to lead a successful and healthy life you need to turn that around, you need to control your emotions.

photo credit: _K_E_E_G_A_N_

A lot of women are just never told that they are in control of their own mind. The emotions that arise and the feelings that depress you are nothing but your own thoughts that you can work on and control. Don’t let your emotions control you, control your emotions. If you can do that you will eat a lot less of the food that makes you overweight.

5. You don’t weight train
A lot of women are afraid of weight training because they think it will make them bulky. Well, as I say almost every post, it won’t. In fact, weights will burn more calories than you can imagine, keep your metabolism cooking during the day and help to shape and tone your muscles. It is high time that the women of the world realized how beneficial weight training is for weight loss and muscle toning. If you can mix weight training with your cardio session you will, in a few short weeks, look better than you ever have before. Essentially you are turning your body into the perfect fat burning environment.

6. You watch too much TV
I reckon if you interviewed 1000 people about their post work habits 900 of them would say they spend the night watching the TV. And while I understand that TV is a great way to unwind after a hard day, I also understand that it is a complete waste of time. You get nothing done except for passing the hours. And you know one thing that is better for de-stressing and winding down? Exercise. An hour at the gym after work will do more for your happiness, productivity and relaxation than five hours of television.

If you are overweight I want you to take a look at how many hours of TV you watch per day. If it is more than one or two then it is time to turn off the box and get out and do something for your body. Don’t waste your life away watching gossip and bad plots with a bigger tummy than you deserve.

7. You haven’t read enough
Here it is. The final straw. Now I am attacking your education. Well, not really. The thing about this point is that most of the information out there today is wrong. Most of what we are being told in the media about weight loss is just incorrect. For example, the idea that fat makes you fat. It doesn’t. Some fats are 100% essential to your health. Without them you will end up sick and unhealthy. The sad thing is that I see so many women attempting to lose weight based on false information. They haven’t done enough reading and as such they are suckered into the latest fad diet or the latest sound bite that they hear on some talk show.

If you are serious about weight loss you need to study. A lot. Don’t just read this site either. Read studies that have been done by scientists and look at information that is independent – that is, it isn’t trying to make anyone any money. And that doesn’t necessarily mean Government studies either because, as happened Australia, one Government diet book was sponsored by the Beef industry. If you read a lot I guarantee you will discover a lot of diet mistakes that you have been making.

Why you won’t change

photo credit: soaringbird

Here is the clincher. Around 98% of people can’t lose weight because of bad habits. And if they do, they revert back to their old weight within a year. This is a devastating statistic for many weight loss hopefuls out there. Science has shown that the human body gets “comfortable” with being overweight and struggles to lose it. When you starve yourself of calories you make it even worse because your body goes into “famine” mode and starts to store as much as it can.

But there is good news, 2% of people can lose weight and don’t go back once they lose it. And it is my firm belief that that figure can go up and up with the right information. You see it is mostly about information because, like I mentioned, many of us are doing the wrong things to lose weight. This makes progress hard.

The main reason people revert back to their old weight is habit. We have been eating the wrong things and doing no exercise for such a long time that once we reach our ideal weight we go back to the old easier life. If this is what is happening and you aren’t prepared to change your habits then there is nothing that can be done.

Conclusion

The point of this post is not to depress you. It is to give you inspiration. It is to encourage you to become one of the 2% of people who lose weight and keep it off by reading the right materials, changing habits for the long term and maintaining a disciplined focus. Its time to make a change. A permanent one.