Top 18 Benefits of Weight Training

Weight training tones your muscles which looks great and raises your basal metabolism... which causes you to burn more calories 24 hours-a-day. You'll even burn more calories while you're sleeping.

Weight training can *reverse* the natural decline in your metabolism which begins around age 30.

Weight training energizes you..

Weight training has a positive affect on almost all of your 650+ muscles.

Weight training strengthens your bones reducing your risk of developing osteoporosis.

Weight training improves your muscular endurance.

Weight training will NOT develop big muscles on women....just toned muscles!

Weight training makes you strong. Strength gives you confidence and makes daily activities easier.

Weight training makes you less prone to low-back injuries.

Weight training decreases your resting blood pressure.

Weight training decreases your risk of developing adult onset diabetes.

Weight training decreases your gastrointestinal transit time, reducing your risk for developing colon cancer.

Weight training increases your blood level of HDL cholesterol (the good type).

Weight training improves your posture.

Weight training improves the functioning of your immune system.

Weight training lowers your resting heart rate, a sign of a more efficient heart.

Weight training improves your balance and coordination.

Weight training elevates your mood.

Author and exercise Physiologist, Greg Landry, offers free weight loss success stories and articles, and unique weight loss programs at his site.. http://www.greglandryfitness.com

100 Painless Ways to Cut 100 or More Calories

"Losing weight can be as simple as cutting out a meatball here and an egg roll there." ~~Elizabeth Somer, M.A., R.D.


REACHING YOUR FAT-LOSS GOALS may be easier than you think. To lose a pound of fat a month, all you need to do is cut 100 calories a day from your diet, assuming the intake and expenditure of all other calories remains the same. That's because a pound of body fat is equivalent to about 3,500 calories. So if you cut 100 calories a day for 31 days, you're cutting 3,100 calories--or about a pound.

Wait...a pound a month? Isn't that a little slow? Well, mounds of research indicate that you're more likely to keep weight off if you lose it slowly. Besides, losing a pound a month doesn't require drastic changes in your eating habits. It can be as simple as eating two egg rolls with your Chinese stir-fry instead of three. Here are 100 painless ways to cut 100 or more calories a day. As a bonus, they all reduce fat or sugar, which means, calorie for calorie, you're getting more vitamins and minerals.

free weight loss & exercise ebooks

To preview the 5 free ebooks I will send to you, click on the FREE eBOOKS tab at the top of this page (just below the blog name panel) and access them via the panel on the right of this post

Why Most People Fail At Losing Weight

Why do so many people fail at losing weight? Is it because they are lazy? No. Is it because they are addicted to food? No. Is it because they aren’t good at exercising? No. Failure at weight loss stems from a few main factors:

Are You Drinking Enough Water?

Most people have no idea how much water they should be drinking, and most Americans live from day to day in a dehydrated state. They don't drink enough water.

Without water, we would be poisoned to death by our own waste products and toxins resulting from metabolism..

Water is vital to digestion and metabolism, acting as a medium for various enzymatic and chemical reactions in the body. It carries nutrients and oxygen to the cells through the blood, regulates body temperature and lubricates our joints (which is particularly important if you're arthritic, have chronic muscular-skeletal problems or are athletically active).

We need water to breathe; we lose approximately one pint of liquid every day just by exhaling.
If you are not in "fluid balance" you can impair every aspect of your body's physiological functioning.

Where Diets Go Wrong

When we discover that we are heavier than we want to be, we have a natural inclination to eat less food. We may skip lunch or eat only a tiny amount of our dinner in the hope that if we eat less our body will burn off some of its fat. But that is not necessarily true. Eating less actually makes it more difficult to lose weight.

Keep in mind that the human body took shape millions of years ago, and at that time there were diets. The only low-calorie event in people's lives was starvation. Those who could cope with a temporary lack of food were the ones who survived. Our bodies, therefore, have developed this built-in mechanism to help us survive in the face of low food intake.

When researchers compare overweight and thin people, they find that they are roughly the same number of calories. What makes overweight people different is the amount of fat that they eat. Thin people tend to eat less fat and more complex carbohydrates.

Losing weight is not something one can do overnight. A carefully planned weight loss program requires common sense and certain guidelines. Unfortunately, there's a lot of misinformantion floating around and lots of desperate people are easily duped and ripped off.

Top 20 Benefits of Exercise

1. Elevates your metabolism so that you burn more calories everyday.
2. Increases your aerobic capacity (fitness level). This gives you the ability to go through your day with less relative energy expenditure. This enables a "fit" person to have more energy at the end of the day and to get more accomplished during the day with less fatigue.
3. Maintains, tones, and strengthens your muscle. Exercise also increases your muscular endurance.
4. Decreases your blood pressure.
5. Increases the oxidation (breakdown and use) of fat.
6. Increases HDL (good) cholesterol.
7. Makes the heart a more efficient pump by increasing stroke volume.
8. Increases hemoglobin concentration in your blood. Hemoglobin is part of the red blood cell that carries oxygen from the lungs to the rest of the body.
9. Decreases the tendency of the blood to clot in the blood vessels. This is important because small clots traveling in the blood are often the cause of heart attacks and strokes.
10. Increases the strength of the bones..
11. Causes the development of new blood vessels in the heart and other muscles.
12. Enlarges the arteries that supply blood to the heart.
13. Decreases blood levels of triglycerides (fat).
14. Improves control of blood sugar
15. Improves sleep patterns.
16. Increases the efficiency of the digestive system which may reduce the incidence of colon cancer.
17. Increases the thickness of cartilage in joints which has a protective effect on the joints.
18. Decreases a woman's risk of developing endometriosis by 50%.
19. Increases the amount of blood that flows to the skin making it look and feel healthier.
20. Exercise, in addition to all the physiological and anatomical benefits, just makes you feel GREAT!

Sensible Diet Tips

Start your diet with a food diary, record everything you eat, what you were doing at the time, and how you felt. That tells you about yourself, your temptation, the emotional states that encourage you to snack and may help you lose once you see how much you eat.

Instead of eating the forbidden piece of candy, brush your teeth. If you're about to cheat, allow yourself a treat, then eat only half a bite and throw the other half away. When hunger hits, wait 10 minutes before eating and see if it passes. Set attainable goals. Don't say, "I want to lose 50 pounds." Say, "I want to lose 5 pounds a month." Get enough sleep but not too much. Try to avoid sugar. Highly sweetened foods tend to make you crave more.

Drink six to eight glasses of water a day. Water itself helps cut down on water retention because it acts as a diuretic. Taken before meals, it dulls the appetite by giving you that "full feeling." Diet with a buddy. Support groups are important, and caring people can help one another succeed. Start your own, even with just one other person.

Substitute activity for eating. When the cravings hit, go to the "Y" or health club if possible; or dust, or walk around the block. This is especially helpful if you eat out of anger.

If the pie on the counter is just too great a temptation and you don't want to throw it away, freeze it. If you're a late-night eater, have a carbohydrate, such as a slice of bread of a cracker, before bedtime to cut down on cravings. Keep an orange slice or a glass of water by your bed to quiet the hunger pangs that wake you up.

If you use food as a reward, establish a new reward system. Buy yourself a non-edible reward. Write down everything you eat - - everything - including what you taste when you cook. If you monitor what you eat, you can't go off your diet.

Weigh yourself once a week at the same time. Your weight fluctuates constantly and you can weigh more at night than you did in the morning, a downer if you stuck to your diet all day. Make dining an event. East from your own special plate, on your own special placemat, and borrow the Japanese art of food arranging to make your meal, no matter how meager, look lovely. This is a trick that helps chronic over-eaters and bingers pay attention to their food instead of consuming it unconsciously.

Don't shop when you're hungry. You'll only buy more fattening food. Avoid finger foods that are easy to eat in large amounts. Avoid consuming large quantities of fattening liquids, which are so easy to overdo. And this includes alcoholic beverages. Keep plenty of crunchy foods like raw vegetables and air-popped fat-free popcorn on hand. They're high in fiber, satisfying and filling. Leave something on your plate, even if you are a charter member of the Clean The Plate Club. It's a good sign that you can stop eating when you want to, not just when your plate is empty.

Lose weight for yourself, not to please your husband/wife, your parents or your friends. Make the kitchen off-limits at any time other than mealtime. Always eat at the table, never in front of the TV set or with the radio on. Concentrate on eating every mouthful slowly and savoring each morsel. Chew everything from 10 to 20 times and count! Never skip meals.

Exercise Melts Body Fat

If you want to reduce your body fat, focus on increasing the amount of exercise you get rather than decreasing your food intake. A recent national study was done using two groups of sedentary men, one group in their 20's and the other over age 65. A lot was learned from this accumulated data and it is interesting to note that there was a significant relationship between lack of physical activity and fat. Not surprisingly, the most sedentary men had the most body fat.

These studies have also indicated that the governments current recommended daily allowance for calories does not correlate with the body's actual energy needs. For example, although 2400 calories have been calculated for older men, they in fact burned an average of 2800 calories daily.

The leading experts now recommend that people who want to lose weight start increasing their physical activity. Just being more active in general (such as climbing the stairs instead of taking the elevator, moving around instead of sitting still, sitting up instead of lying down as well as showing some excitement and enthusiasm instead of boredom), are things that more effectively burns calories and reduces body fat. Everyone seems to have lost sight of the value of being active. Consider this, a half-hour aerobic workout accounts for far less energy expenditure than our minute-to-minute movement in the office or at home.

Behavior Modification

Habits, good or bad, are formed by repetition. Eating habits are no exception. If you are in the habit of snacking when you watch TV, you were reinforcing that habit until finally it became a part of you. Other habits are formed in the same way. Some of these habits are: eating while reading, eating the minute you come in the house, eating when the kids come in from school, eating when you come in from a date, or eating while cooking dinner.

We also find that certain moods and circumstances cause us to eat even if we are not hungry. For example: anger, boredom, fatigue, happiness, loneliness, the kids are finally in bed, our spouse is out for the evening or out of town, nervousness, anxiety, our spouse brings home candy or ice cream, etc... all may trigger an eating response. The list is endless. Habits are hard to break. We must not only break old habits, but we must make our goal to form new ones in the same manner through repetition. Make some daily commitments. Work to meet these commitments each day whether you feel like it or not. Your daily commitments will help you form good habits. Remember: "It is easier to act your way into a new way of feeling than it is to feel your way into a new way of acting."

Benefits of Flexibility Training

Flexibility is a joint's ability to move through a full range of motion. Flexibility training (stretching) helps balance muscle groups that might be overused during exercise or physical activity or as a result of bad posture. It's important to clearly understand the many benefits that result from a good flexibility program.

COFFEE - 3 Tricks to Make it Super Healthy

Mmm, coffee... almost everybody drinks it... some people have 3-4 cups per day or more.

But most people don't think of it as a "health drink". And it's certainly NOT healthy the way most people make it with loads of added sugar or artificial sweeteners and artificial creamers.

But I'll give you my tips here on how I make a healthier cup of coffee and what to watch out for...

First, you may have seen debate in the past about how coffee has some compounds in it that could have negative health effects such as some tars or other possibly inflammatory compounds in brewed coffee. But, the good news is that coffee has such high concentrations of beneficial antioxidants, phenolic nutrients, chlorogenic acids, and other healthy compounds, that it more than counteracts any bad compounds.

In fact, coffee provides the biggest source of antioxidants for most Americans. Although a lot of that has to do with the fact that many Americans don't get enough antioxidants from fruits and veggies, so coffee ends up being their biggest source. You should try to diversify your sources of antioxidants from fruits, veggies, spices, berries, beans, unsweetened organic cocoa, teas, and yes, even coffee if you like it.

So what's the best way to make a healthy cup of coffee? Well, here's my 3 most important tricks to maximize the benefits of coffee and minimize the negatives:

Get Fit on a Shoestring Budget

Aside from all the health benefits of exercise, a good exercise program can also help you save money and possibly make more money....and you can implement an effective, comprehensive exercise program with very little expense.. Research has demonstrated that people who exercise on a regular basis save thousands of dollars in medical expenses over a lifetime. Because exercise improves your immune system, exercisers usually experience fewer colds and other respiratory infections and thus have fewer "down days" and doctor bills. Exercisers also have fewer sprains and strains, and the incidence of heart attacks, strokes, and certain cancers is lower in exercisers! Exercise also increases mental acuity, reduces fatigue, and improves the quality of sleep...leading to improved productivity and thus more income for many people. A comprehensive exercise program consists of two components; aerobic and anaerobic. They work together to give you all the benefits you can derive from an exercise program.

Tabs ↑ there

Have you opened the 'free ebooks', 'free Paleo recipes' and the 'products' tabs yet to see what useful goodies are inside?

Feel free to try them out

Exercise In The Morning!

If I had to pick a single factor that I thought was most important in a successful exercise or weight loss program, it would be to exercise first thing in the morning... every morning! Some mornings, you may just be able to fit in a 10 minute walk, but it's important to try to do something every morning.

So why mornings?...

Women 'achieve coregasm at the gym'

The news that you can achieve an orgasm while working out in the gym may be just the incentive to get women back on those medicine balls and doing floor crunches, as the results of a new study suggest.

Scientists at the Centre for Sexual Health Promotion at Indiana University in the US have released data on the links between orgasms and physical exercise, which have been termed "coregasms", LiveScience reports.

"It may be that exercise, which is already known to have significant benefits to health and wellbeing, has the potential to enhance women's sexual lives as well," said lead researcher, Debby Herbenick, co-director of the centre.

The term "coregasm" stems from the evidence that these exercise-related orgasms are primarily induced by working out the core abdominal muscles
.

7 "FATTY" Foods that Can Help You to Get a Flat Stomach (some of these will surprise you!)

These 7 shocking Fatty (but healthy) super-foods can actually help you to burn body fat faster!

At this point, the anti-fat propaganda has died and almost everybody understands by now that eating fat doesn't necessarily make you fat. In fact, it's absolutely imperative to get enough healthy fats in your diet to keep your hormones balanced, blood sugar under control, and prevent cravings. Here are 7 examples of "fatty" foods that can actually HELP you to get lean...

Truth About the "6 Small Meals Diet"

According to fitness expert, Jason Ferruggia, the 6 small meals per day plan doesn't work.

You might already have found that out the hard way.

Jay said, "Like everyone, I did the standard six meals a day forever. I got started on all this back in the 80's and that was the way to go. Eat every two hours, high carbs and low fat. Of course that didn't really work out too well for lean gains. I got bigger but always gained an equal amount of fat.

Plus, I was just getting sick and tired of having to eat all day, getting some kind of cold or infection every few months, having pretty bad digestive issues and a lack of energy."

Health Warning: Read This if You Eat Salmon or Other Fish

While fish used to be considered a healthy addition to any diet, farmed fish is now barely any better than eating a Big Mac. From both a nutritional and environmental impact perspective, farmed fish are far inferior to their wild counterparts:

• Despite being much fattier, farmed fish provide less usable beneficial omega-3 fats than wild fish.
• Due to the "feedlot" conditions of aqua farming, farm-raised fish are doused with antibiotics and exposed to more chemicals than their wild kin.
• Farmed salmon, are given a salmon-colored dye in their feed, without which, their flesh would be an unappetizing grey color.
• Aqua farming also raises a number of environmental concerns, the most important of which may be its negative impact on wild salmon. It has now been established that sea lice from farms kill up to 95% of juvenile wild salmon that migrate past them.

Excess Abdominal Fat is Not Only Ugly, but Extremely Dangerous to Your Health - This is More Than a Vanity Issue!

The difference between subcutaneous fat and the more deadly "visceral fat"

Although this picture depicts an extremely overweight man, this article applies to dangerous types of fat inside the bodies of both men and women... and this discussion also applies even if you only have a slight amount of excess stomach fat.

Did you know that the vast majority of people in this day and age have excess abdominal fat? It's true -- as much as 70% of the population in some "westernized" countries such as the US and Australia are now considered either overweight or obese. The first thing that most people think of is that their extra abdominal fat is simply ugly, is covering up their abs from being visible, and makes them self conscious about showing off their body.

However, what most people don't realize is that excess abdominal fat in particular, is not only ugly, but is also a dangerous risk factor to your health. Scientific research has clearly determined that although it is unhealthy in general to have excess body fat throughout your body, it is also particularly dangerous to have excess abdominal fat.

The Truth About Alcohol and Fat Loss

Let’s talk about a real politically incorrect topic in the fitness world – booze.

So many readers ask, “Can I still drink while on a fat loss program?”   Well, the answer is yes, you can do anything you want on a fat loss program…you just have to accept the consequences of your actions.

And what are the consequences of drinking?

Well, here’s a dirty little secret.  Just because you drink a little beer – or have a glass of wine every night – doesn’t mean you can blame your belly fat on booze.  After all, a glass of wine, a bottle of beer, and a shot of alcohol all roughly contain the same amount of calories, between 100-150. A glass of wine adds fewer calories to your diet than most minor eating mistakes, such as:
- a cube of cheese
- two handfuls of nacho chips
- a few chicken wings
- half a giant bakery muffin
- or half a slice of post-bar pizza

Obituary of 94-year-old woman goes viral

She is survived by her daughter who betrayed her trust and son who broke her heart’: Obituary of 94-year-old woman goes viral

 Revealed an ugly spat between a man and his siblings

 Family quarrel was said to be over money

 Angry sister placed another obituary

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2105992/94-year-old-womans-obituary-goes-viral.html#ixzz1nP43GHny

I succumbed!!!

It was my 38th wedding anniversary yesterday and I succumbed to a rare treat.....my favourite chocolate that my grandson gave to me!   First chocolate since Christmas eve.    The worst thing is it wasn't as tasty as I had built up in my mind!   I am annoyed with myself today, but have resolved that it was a one off and won't be the start of a sugar binge...time will tell if I have the necessary resolve

Tabs to make it easier to use my blog

Did you notice the 5 tabs below the blog name?  They are:

• The home page
• Details of the 5 free ebooks
• Independent reviews of the products on offer
• Details of the 10 free Paleo recipes you can get
• Why I have developed this blog

The Dangers of Excess Body Fat

Most people's primary motivation for weight management is to improve their appearance. Equally important, however, are the many other benefits of proper nutrition and regular exercise.

Weight management through reduction of excess body fat plays a vital role in maintaining good health and fighting disease. In fact, medical evidence shows that obesity poses a major threat to health and longevity. (The most common definition of obesity is more than 25 percent body fat for men and more than 32 percent for women.) An estimated one in three Americans has some excess body fat; an estimated 20 percent are obese.

Excess body fat is linked to major physical threats like heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. (Three out of four Americans die of either heart disease or cancer each year; according to the National Health and Nutrition Examination survey, approximately 80 percent of those deaths are associated with life-style factors, including inactivity.)

Get these 5 great free gifts

If you want to see what free ebooks I will send to you, click on the FREE eBOOKS tab at the top of this page (just below the blog name panel)

Quit Whining and Get Moving!

NOTE: I realize this article may offend some people, but I believe that you need to hear the truth about weight loss rather than some watered down "feel-good" version of the truth!

I receive hundreds (yes, hundreds) of questions every month with this general theme... "HELP... I'm doing all the right things but I'm still not losing weight." After talking to hundreds of these people over the years, I've come to a few general conclusions. Keep in mind that these are generalizations, but they would apply to over 95% of people in this situation. Also, please note that these ARE in order of importance...and I'm not pulling any punches! :)

Choosing a treadmill

You have just decided a good electric treadmill is exactly what you need to maintain your commitment to regular aerobic exercise. But you find there are dozens of different treadmills, ranging in price from $399 to over $3,000. What accounts for the huge difference in price? What do you look for when buying?

100 Painless Ways to Cut 100 or More Calories

REACHING YOUR FAT-LOSS GOALS may be easier than you think. To lose a pound of fat a month, all you need to do is cut 100 calories a day from your diet, assuming the intake and expenditure of all other calories remains the same. That's because a pound of body fat is equivalent to about 3,500 calories. So if you cut 100 calories a day for 31 days, you're cutting 3,100 calories--or about a pound.

Wait...a pound a month? Isn't that a little slow? Well, mounds of research indicate that you're more likely to keep weight off if you lose it slowly. Besides, losing a pound a month doesn't require drastic changes in your eating habits. It can be as simple as eating two egg rolls with your Chinese stir-fry instead of three. Here are 100 painless ways to cut 100 or more calories a day. As a bonus, they all reduce fat or sugar, which means, calorie for calorie, you're getting more vitamins and minerals.

The Diet Solution Program Review: Lose Weight and Maintain It

An independent review of The Diet Solution (see link to the left)

To remain fit and healthy, one must lose weight in a healthy way. Losing weight is not an easy task, especially trying to do it on your own without any guidance. There are many programs out there for you to choose from. One of the most popular programs today is the Diet Solution Program which allows you to avoid 'crash' dieting and allows you to eat nutritious food without starving yourself.

Why Most People Fail At Losing Weight

Why do so many people fail at losing weight? Is it because they are lazy? No. Is it because they are addicted to food? No. Is it because they aren’t good at exercising? No. Failure at weight loss stems from a few main factors: