[Infographic] How to Boost the Effectiveness of Your Workouts

Looking to get more exercise out of your day, and make the most of your workouts?

This helpful infographic shares 5 simple tips for boosting the effectiveness of your workouts, and getting more results out of your daily exercise.

Three Simple Tips to Burning More Fat

There really isn’t any secret to burning fat. It all comes down to two things: diet and exercise. But obviously there are hundreds of variations on these two things, and in order to maximize your fat-burning results, you have to do them the right way.

Here are 3 tips to get you on the right track:

1) Don’t Diet

Image courtesy of KEKO64 at FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

At least not in the traditional sense. When you restrict your calorie intake too much, your body senses you are going into starvation mode, so it responds by slowing down your metabolic rate in an effort to make the most of the food it is getting - which is the opposite of what you want.

Instead, eat more.

“What, I’m trying to lose weight and you are telling me to eat more?”

Yes, but you have do it right by eating healthy types and amounts of food. To keep your metabolism operating at peak efficiency, and to burn as many calories you can, eat six small meals, or three larger meals with a snack each in the morning and afternoon per day, consisting of fresh fruits and vegetables, protein, lean meats and just a few whole grains. This “diet” has a lot of bulk and will keep you full, but is not loaded with unhealthy processed fats, sugar and calories. 

2) Eat Breakfast

You’ve heard this before and it is still true – don’t skip breakfast. After sleeping all night, your metabolism is at its resting metabolism rate (RMR). It is working just hard enough to keep your body going. Unless you jump start it by giving it food to process within an hour of getting up, it will wake up slowly. The result is you could be missing out on several hours of increased fat-burning time. People who skip breakfast are 4 ½ times more likely to be obese.

Want more proof? People who got 22 percent or more of their calories at breakfast gained on average 1.7 pounds over four years. Those that got only 11 percent or less of their calories at breakfast gained 3 pounds – almost twice as much - during the same amount of time.

3) Get Up and Move!

This the other half of the fat-burning duo – exercise. And there are a couple of parts to it. The first part is the effects of extended sitting.

Researchers at Missouri University found that after sitting for 4 hours of more, your body reduces the amount of the enzyme responsible for burning fat and cholesterol. However, just standing up and moving about kicks it back in to high gear. If you have sit-down job, make sure you get up and move at least 5 minutes each hour.

The second part is the type of exercise you do and why it is important to your weight loss efforts. Cardio burns fat and the most calories, but usually just during the time you exercise; once you stop exercising, the calorie burn stops. In fact, if you do too much long-session cardio, your body can actually start to conserve fat and burn muscle instead!

However, strength training digs deeper and depletes the muscles of glycogen. So not only are you burning calories while exercising, but also afterward as your metabolism replenishes the energy source glycogen for your muscles.

Plus strength training builds muscle so you’ll also have a higher RMR and burn more calories while at rest. Of course the ultimate fat-burning program is a mixture of both cardio (preferably in short intervals) and strength training.

Stay tuned over the next couple of weeks, as we share some fun and easy ways to burn more fat while exercising.

Video - Setting Effective Fitness Goals

This video gives you some excellent pointers for setting fitness goals and sticking with them throughout the year. He mentions the 5 areas where you need to set goals in order to see best results, and also warns you about some areas where people often slip up and lose motivation (for example, trying to measure weight loss instead of fat loss - bad idea).

He also discusses the importance of setting specific goals, with a time deadline to meet, and most of all creating the "why" for pursuing the goals you set, which gives you a positive mindset towards achieving them.

Check this out, and follow these tips to achieving your exercise and fitness goals for 2013!

Fitness Goal Setting
fitness.mercola.com Mercola.com personal trainer and healthy lifestyle coach, Darin Steen, discusses the important things to consider in a fitness goal setting.

Why "Isolation Training" With Weights Is A Bad Strategy

This week we have a special guest article for you, by a certified personal trainer. Read on to find out how to get the most out of your workouts, and why this popular method of working out may not be as beneficial as you'd think.

What you need to know about Weight Training for a strong lean body that both looks good and is injury resistant
by Mike Geary - Certified Nutrition Specialist, Certified Personal Trainer

Image via WikipediaWorking as a personal trainer & fitness professional, there is one type of question I get all the time that shows that many people are missing the big picture regarding the benefits of strength training. This popular question usually goes something like this:

“What exercise can I do to isolate my _______ (insert your muscle of choice – abs, quads, biceps, triceps, etc)?”

It doesn’t matter which muscle someone is asking about, they always seem to be asking how to ‘isolate’ it. My first response to this question is always – “Why in the world would you want to isolate it?” 

The first thing I try to teach my clients is that the body does not work well in muscle isolation. Rather, it works better in movements along a kinetic chain; that is, large portions of the body assist other portions of the body in completing a complex movement. In fact, there really is no such thing as true muscle isolation. There is almost always a nearby muscle group that will assist in some way with whatever movement you are doing. However, this article compares attempting to ‘isolate’ body parts via single-joint exercises to the much more effective strategy of performing multi-joint complex movements.

When you attempt to ‘isolate’ muscles by performing single-joint exercises, you are actually creating a body that is non-functional and will be more prone to injury. Essentially, you are creating a body that is a compilation of body parts, instead of a powerful, functional unit that works together. 

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